The tasks you need to act on are quite often those you’re least apt to. When design studios need more work, they redesign their websites—instead of drumming up sales.

It’s not as though these people aren’t aware of what they should do. It’s that indirect tasks tend to feel more manageable, at the time. This is the paradox that surrounds priorities: What needs doing is often obvious. In fact, this course of action can seem too simple—so you go looking for ways to complicate it. You write new plans. You tackle indirect tasks. Or, you think too much—and psyche yourself out of doing what needs doing.

Creative work involves a sort of duality. You need that spark that drives you to pursue an incomplete (perhaps impractical) idea. You also need the discipline to figure out which tasks need doing—and do them—even if this feels tedious.

Eric Karjaluoto.