It felt amazing to leave work with a clear head, not thinking about whatever unfinished business I had left which could prove to be a problem in meeting the deadline.

My story is quite the reverse. I grew up on a dryland wheat farm in Montana. Nature has a way of enforcing its own deadlines. There, you are never not aware of the issue facing you, hail, no rain, early fall, short crops. Software deadlines seemed to pale in comparison.