I am convinced that creative work and basically any work requires being organized and disciplined, even though there’s a strong preconception that creative tasks want us to be inspired first while leaving discipline, focus and concentration behind.
There is a popular notion that artists work from inspiration—that there is some strike or bolt or bubbling up of creative mojo from who knows where… but I hope [my work] makes clear that waiting for inspiration to strike is a terrible, terrible plan. In fact, perhaps the single best piece of advice I can offer to anyone trying to do creative work is to ignore inspiration. In a New York Times column on the topic, David Brooks summarizes this reality more bluntly: “[Great creative minds] think like artists but work like accountants.”
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport