This reminds me of a book I've read a couple of times now, The Power of Full Engagement. Their very similar concept is that the limiting factor in most of our

This reminds me of a book I've read a couple of times now, The Power of Full Engagement. Their very similar concept is that the limiting factor in most of our lives isn't really time, but energy. As described in the OP, most of us have experience evenings that felt wasted because we're too tired from work to do anything valuable, but trying to cram value into every moment of life also feels exhausting. The basic take of the book is that every area of our life needs periods of exertion and periods of rest, much like the body does in order to build muscle. The same is true of the mind and the emotional self. So for each of these realms, you ideally want to be either fully engaged, or fully at rest, not somewhere in-between. Then it gives various techniques to achieve this. One I liked in particular is to take opportunities that might otherwise be frustrating - stuck in traffic, in line at the bank, whatever - and see them as instead a time for mental rest. Anyway, might be a good read. FWIW I'm a big fan of GTD as well. Used properly I think a system like that can be a good complement to this philosophy. When it's time to work, you grab a task from your list and get right to it. And when it's not time to work, you can free your brain of any related distractions, confident that everything you need to remember will be in your GTD system when you need it again. (Likewise if you have a stray idea that you want to remember, instead of holding it in your brain, it can go in there.) Helps keep work (and by that I mean any jobs that need to be done, not just the 9-5) from dominating your thoughts all the time.