I'm currently on a DeHaviland Dash-8 en route to Seattle. It's a clear, sunny day, and the flight is smooth so far, thank God. The wakes of powerboats criss-cross in the tacky waters below us.

It's Sunday and I feel the constant urge to work. It's been like that all week - just one more thing to do, one more feature to implement, and after that, another, no obvious point at which to break, to stop, to take a breath. I feel uncomfortable leaving things on the table; I breathe easier when things are complete or at least stable. The problem is that completion points occur on a different timeframe than the 24-hour cycle of waking and sleeping, the cycle of weekdays and weekends. So I am torn between two kinds of time: project time and biological time.

On one hand I need to recognize and take advantage of the flow state, getting on a roll, momentum. On the other hand, I need to recognize that sometimes I can't do it all in 24 hours, that I need rest and play, that the world will somehow go on without me, that I am human, that I'm not perfect. Though I wonder sometimes if the "flaw" of perfectionism hasn't been a factor in some of the world's most creative and beautiful works.