Mixing process vs Creative process

hey ya'll,

I'm wondering at what point during the production process you decide a task should be handled in the creative (beat making) phase or the mixing phase? or is it all kind of one in the same for you?

do you separate the mixing and beat making into separate distinct tasks? or do you look at mixing as part of the creative process?

for example, say i have a basic skeleton of a beat (kick, snare, sample).....and somewhere along the line i would like to change the kick to make it fit better. So i scour my library for a kick, i find one, but the one i find still needs a little eq and a bit of compression. Do I attempt to make those tweaks then? or do I wait until i track everything out then start mixing?

For me personally I always try and sort things out along the way, having said that if I'm riding a wave of creativity I'll just get everything out of my head into a more audible solution and work on the mix later on.

Its like drawing for me. On the creative side I sketch out what I want with all the mistakes included until I get what I want with the pencil. Then I erase the unwanted lines and ink out the picture.

On the mixing side its like coloring the black and white picture to make it stand out.

I've always worked that way with beats and canvases, I could never understand why cats can't do both, it just seems essential to me to learn how to make and mix beats.