As a professor I have usually had a good balance with timelines and due dates. Most of my courses have assignments that stack one on top of another. You need to do the storyboard before you can make the media for example.
As a result skipping an assignment isn’t really an option. I’ve decided in my courses that late assignments get a 10% hit on points or approximately one letter grade. This in the past has encouraged students to keep up but not destroyed them if they were late. With adult learners it also gave students with a legit reason for being late that they didn’t want to share to take the hit so they didn’t have to share.
With COVID I’ve gotten even more generous and have eliminated the late penalty all together with mixed results. Now I just remind students that falling behind can be quite dangerous. I have had some students who continually struggle to keep up. But I also struggle with how firm I should be.
In my own practice I find that it tends to be the firm deadlines that are what fuels my actual creativity. Without a project that has a deadline I can flounder and procrastinate. This is why in my own creative practice I continually strive for that regular daily practice. Securing the time on my calendar and putting in the daily time. I’m less than successful with that technique. It’s so easy to just let the day to day demands of the world and family slip in and take that time away.
There are several ways to protect that time. One of the easiest is to plan your work and to work on your creative work before you can be interrupted. This is why there are so many calls to wake up super early before the distractions and time thieves of the world can come for you. And in my case they are my children, my messy house, and that damn social media.