Put your work away for a day, then look again. You’ll see what you couldn’t see while you were proud.

Fresh work comes wrapped in the feeling of having made it. That feeling is useful for finishing and useless for judging, because it smooths over the weak paragraph and the part that only makes sense if you already know what you meant. A day’s distance takes the pride out and leaves the page.

Build the gap into the plan rather than hoping for it: finish the night before, then read it in the morning before you hand it in. Twenty minutes of cold reading finds more than two more hours of writing would have.