While thinking that work will never get done

At the end of his speech for the awarding of the Georg Büchner Prize, Thomas Bernhard, who would have turned eighty today (Austrian time), had he both decided and been able to live that long, writes:

The problem is always to get work done while thinking that work will never get done and nothing will ever get done... The question is: to go on, heedless of the consequences, to go on, or to stop, to call it a day... it is the question of doubt, of mistrust and impatience. (Bernhard's ellipses)