They lost me at "We all strive to be more productive". Do we? It seems to me that many of us reach a point in our careers when we can maintain a high level of

They lost me at "We all strive to be more productive". Do we? It seems to me that many of us reach a point in our careers when we can maintain a high level of productivity (defined using whatever personal metric we choose (personal metric chosen over any external metric on the basis of our being seasoned professionals who can manage our own work)) for a long period. Sometimes at our cost. Productivity isn't my issue. Stepping away often is. It's far too easy to devote most of a week of long days to fixing bugs and adding features and tell one's self that a few hours of downtime Friday and Saturday will be enough to spend part of Sunday working on the critical customer demo Monday. Which went very well, thanks for asking! But how well it went isn't the point. My level of fatigue is the point. Instead of 5 why's, I offer why nots: Why not step back and take the extra day? Why not give yourself permission to rest (at least a bit) more so that you can sustain this level of quality and quantity for longer? Why not indeed....