The Case for Finishing Things

The deadline is not the enemy of good work; it is often its only reliable friend. Given infinite time, a piece expands to fill it and rarely improves for the extra weeks. A firm date forces the decisions that endless revision only postpones, and the constraint that feels like a cage is usually the thing that gets the work finished at all.

A notebook is worth keeping only if you reread it. The point is not to hoard observations but to return to them, to let a half-formed line from months ago collide with the thing you are working on now. An unread notebook is a graveyard; a reread one is a compost heap, and the difference is everything.