I think the key phrase from your philosophy is "useful things". If you have a full plate of things that are satisfying to do, and accomplishing them brings you

I think the key phrase from your philosophy is "useful things". If you have a full plate of things that are satisfying to do, and accomplishing them brings you material benefit, there isn't really a downside to working a ton (assuming you can mentally and physically handle it, and you're not neglecting other more important stuff). If your life is more like a skinner box, where some large percentage of the work is baloney and brings no material gain, this probably isn't an optimum strategy. You'd be wasting a lot of energy on nonsense. I think that's closer to the situation the average person finds themselves in, and their effort would be better spent identifying the part of the work that brings the most results rather than indiscriminately powering through all possible work. "Work smarter not harder" is a saying for a reason. :)