>I spent much of April and May increasingly grumpy and withdrawn and on edge. Weekends and evenings have become even less useful, instead being clogged by a sen

>I spent much of April and May increasingly grumpy and withdrawn and on edge. Weekends and evenings have become even less useful, instead being clogged by a sense of paralyzing dread that I’m wasting fleeting time if I’m not doing ten amazing things at once. I’ve foregone trivial maintenance like cleaning junk off my desk because I don’t feel like I have 20 minutes to spare. I stay up hours later than I mean to, not even doing anything, just trying to put off sleeping — because the next thing I experience will be waking up and going back to work. I'm sorry the author wasn't able to get things done while in the `dread`. I've got an alternative perspective. I like working on multiple stuff. I see the day job as one of the several projects I work on. I've worked on projects, squeezing my brain through the longest span it can, on one single project and also the exact opposite - juggling focus spans between a few projects, when one gets too vague. I'd say the latter worked best for me in terms of #1. Getting stuff done. #2. The satisfaction of being productive. Time management is the key. #1. Wake up early and start the day early. This would make your daytime extensive enough to accommodate several slots. #2. Remember Parkinson's law. Put extra concentration while on the day job, so that you can wrap up early. Don't do this with dread. Consider the job as working on one of several projects, with a larger team, than those of your other projects. This has helped me overcome the feeling of helplessness. #3. Side projects need not be hackathons. One meaningful commit, made everyday will take it a long way. Read http://ejohn.org/blog/write-code-every-day/ http://ejohn.org/blog/write-code-every-day/. So stop worrying about not doing much on a specific day. On the contrast, worry if you haven't been consistent in committing code everyday.