I put a strict timeline on the activities that were burning me out, which were contracting and legal problems. I scheduled about 4 hours a week to work on them,

I put a strict timeline on the activities that were burning me out, which were contracting and legal problems. I scheduled about 4 hours a week to work on them, and I told myself if the outcome wasn't good then it could go to hell because that's all the time it was worth. Then I worked on stuff I liked and thought was important in the rest of my time. It took about 1.5 years to get through the work, and another year or so for the last traces of burnout to go away. In retrospect, I think letting go of the fear of failure was what helped me the most. I was influenced by the passage on burnout from Feynman's memoirs, for what it's worth (excerpted here: https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html).