My way of handling long-term projects could be the "normal" way, but it's definitely not the BEST way, ha. (Though I had professors who complimented me on how they could tell I'd really put in consistent effort over the months, and I always felt both very guilty and kind of proud that it seemed that way, since it was usually just last-minute sleepless panic.)

I can see the downside of doing it all early, and then having a big gap between when you're done and when the final *thing* is actually happening. But I think the less panic is the better way, in the end.