There was a web comic I used to follow, Questionable Content. Every Thanksgiving, instead of a proper comic, the guy would just post a picture of a turkey commenting on the most recent plot arc.

Other times, when he needed a 'lower effort' comic for whatever reason, he'd have the robot chatting on the internet, I assume the drawings were just copy/pasted).

A bit later, he introduced the Yelling Bird, which was similar to the turkeys, but not at Thanksgiving and quite a bit ruder. It was a way for him to not 'break the chain', without needing to always produce something at the same level as the rest of his content.

Your comment really reminded me of this, and I think you're absolutely right, giving yourself an 'out' is good if you are able to exercise enough self-control to only use it when you really need it.