We have all been there. You sit down to “finish the shading” on a piece, and four hours later, you are still zooming in to add micro-details to a part of the background that the viewer will barely notice.
Everyone has a unique biological rhythm. For most, the peak focus window arrives a few hours after waking up, once the initial grogginess clears and before the mid-afternoon slump hits.
Rapid iteration gives your brain more opportunities to fix mistakes and try new solutions per hour of work.
If you want to protect your creative deep work, you have to treat your attention like a currency. You cannot afford to spend it on random interruptions.
You know the feeling. You are drawing, and suddenly, you look up and realize two hours have passed.
If you want to build a habit, you must make it easy. If you want to kill a habit, you must make it hard. Most artists spend their time making their work harder by ignoring the tiny, annoying obstacles in their workflow.