Everyone is familiar with one way to coax the best from our big mind, David Epstein explains (in Inside the Box), deadlines:
But a tight deadline can either enhance or destroy our thinking, according to research on time pressure. It depends how we use it, and specifically whether we respond by rushing to multitask, or rushing to monotask.
Frank Lloyd Wright famously put off working on the design of Fallingwater for months, and then drafted his masterpiece in a few hours when the client called to say he was a few hours away and wanted to see the progress. As Duke Ellington liked to say: “I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!”