"I’ve been blaming students, here, for lacking the discipline to do term-length projects throughout the term, instead of procrastinating, but of course, the problem is endemic among non-students as well. It’s taken me a while, but I finally learned that long-term deadlines (or no deadlines at all) just don’t work with professional programmers, either: you need a schedule of regular, frequent deliverables to be productive over the long term."

Capstone projects and time management - Joel on Software