Well, first thing first, make sure youve got the form right. Its very dangerous to crank up the weight with bad form, which is why deadlifts have such bad rep. Its not because you shouldnt do them, its because people do them wrong and then blame the lift. Same with heavy squatting. When I started, I used to put 40k on the bar, do 5, 60k, 80k, and so on. (I also ran out of weight to put on the bar at several points, which slowed progress.)

I found that doing it like that, lots of reps with low weight each time before my max effort sets, helped to get the form ingrained in me so that i didnt just go into a heavy set and mess up my form. Now though, I will literally do a warmup weight for 5 reps, and go to about 90%+ of my maximum, do a single rep, if I make it, up the weight, until I fail a few times.

To give you an idea, that usually works out as

5x82.5k
1x117.5k
1x122.5k
1x127.5k
1x133.5k
1x137.5k
Fail the next weight. That was my last deadlift session, according to my workout log.
Thats at a bodyweight of......does conversion maths....65.8kilos. 10 stone 5 in real money, skinny bugger that I am.

Basically, its a case of challenging yourself, and being prepared for your lifts to feel like they are going to smash you through the floor, while not being stupid and doing anything to get yourself injured.