I spend a lot of time thinking about stuff like this. Specifically, the difference between creative endeavors (where you iterate on something before releasing i

I spend a lot of time thinking about stuff like this. Specifically, the difference between creative endeavors (where you iterate on something before releasing it), and performance-based endeavors (where you try to nail a live run-through of what you've practiced). In either situation, the amount of work that went into things is hidden from the audience. We simply admire (or abhor) the final product or performance. But it's actually much different to be a creator than it is to be a performer. As a performer, there's no guarantee that the extent of your practice will shine through in the end: performance-under-pressure and amount-of-preparation are equally important variables (although the latter can be said to affect the former). Creators are lucky by comparison. Their only real concern is iteration. You can generally assume that the more time you spend working on something, the better the finished product will be. So iteration is a function of (A) how much time you have before you release, and (B) how efficiently you spend that time. It can be hard to measure B without comparing yourself to others. But I'm often surprised at how much my writing/design/code/etc improves with even minimal increases to A.