In general I work intuitively without a plan. By playing with materials and combining them in different ways their individual voices come through via the hand and mind working seemingly unconsciously. I work on more than one project at a time. This enables me to keep moving forward. A lack of sourced material to work with can stop me moving forward and making decisions. It is in these times that I seek out more resources to work with. In recent times this is a walk in nature to collect what lies in my path or delving into skips and bins at various metal recyclers.
I found it hard to see what was working best despite my wise workmate saying to me to “Kill your darlings”. Removing distracting pieces can be a way of moving forward to focus and finish one body of work. When I reach a point where some works have a louder voice than others I hedge the rest. But what if these darlings are part of the greater scheme of things and are few and far between. Check out https://lithub.com/writing-rules-that-were-made-to-be-broken-kill-your-darlings/