part of being productive is disciplining yourself to do work. a great way to discipline yourself is to give yourself deadlines.
see where i'm going here? i now think it was a little arrogant of me to say i was above deadlines... and actually, i don't think it's such a bad thing to turn in mediocre work. as art teachers tell you, everybody is full of 23 million terrible sketches. you have to get them out.
there might be a "Progress" essay in this.