for me, well-developed activities are managed most stringently and new activities or skill acquisition are managed loosely at first

well-developed activities are those for which the working method is internalized and i do not have to think about what i am doing

closer to the other end of the spectrum are exploratory research, formulating questions/ideas, early conceptual design, exploratory writing. for these, time management constraints are relaxed greatly so as not to stifle creativity or constrain myself to a particular direction too soon, but rather to let the refinement of the question(s) and the development of intention and direction grow organically in response to need or concern

as the scope of what i'm getting into reveals itself to me, i start to develop specific agendas and begin to reign in the free exploration, especially as my sense of direction and skill acquisition improves

just to keep the loosely constrained efforts moving along, i'll set broadly defined goals with real deadlines and hold myself to them, which forces me to condense all of the exploratory efforts into succinct concepts for myself which makes it easier to take the next step

paul had a suggestionsuggestion!

lol.

honest advice, break big problems into smaller ones that are manageable and finish each chunk according to schedule.

or don't. you can always just do it all the night before its due like most architects....