Deadlines are annoying, but they’ve finished more art than inspiration ever has.

Inspiration is unreliable in a specific way: it shows up sometimes and never on request. A deadline is unpleasant and completely dependable. It removes the option of another pass, which forces the decisions you have been avoiding, and most of the choices you agonize over get made in the last two hours anyway. Finished beats perfect largely because perfect has no natural ending.

Give something of yours a real date with another person attached. Tell a friend you will send it Sunday, book the open mic, sign up for the thing. Pressure you invent alone is too easy to renegotiate.