According to Ben Pace on LessWrong, the most productive work happens not when you have abundant time, but when you're almost out of it. He calls this 'Parkinson's Heuristic'—the idea that you do your best work when you don't quite have time to complete it. Counterintuitively, working under tight deadlines forces prioritization and prevents burnout; you strip away the unnecessary and focus on what actually matters. This thinking echoes Amazon's practice of starting projects with a written press release and working backward. Pace argues this isn't procrastination—it's strategic focus.

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