Robert Pollard, singer and songwriter of over 1,100 songs, on how he stays productive:

I work best when I can turn my attention to different things. So I have lots going on—music and collages and a literary magazine. My house has all these images I've collected and notebooks full of lyrics, and I've got my boom box and my acoustic, so whatever station I feel like moving to, that's what I do. It depends on which inspiration comes over. My goal is to write and record a lot of songs. They're all my children, but some of them will send a chill up my spine. I'll record forty or fifty songs; then I'll sift through them until I find something great. You don't need to aim for perfection every time, and that's freeing.—As told to Jason Chen

Props to GBVH for the link