Having a time limit – a deadline – to artistic creation is counter intuitive.

Artistic creation has an undefined ending. Limiting it with a time frame leaves very little space for interpretation and improvising, two crucial steps to uniqueness. Unless the time limit is set so far down the road that making the time limit in the first place is a moot exercise.

What is required, however, is a beginning. Inking a spot in the ol’ calendar for creating. Forcing yourself into a creative regiment, rain or shine.

When you create, at the essence of creation, you have an idea of what the end product will look like, but this idea is hardly the exact thing (unless you’re Tesla who used lucid dreaming to test and design all his creations). I’ve found for myself, the more I create the more clearer it becomes that the created product will tell me when it’s done. My job is merely to comply with it.

It is the job of the creator – or the time limiter – to identify the difference between a great product and a perfect product. Sometimes great is enough to ship, unless of course you’re working for NASA where human lives are at stake.