I did find myself feeling like I had more that I wanted to get done (or had to get done) by a deadline that it was impossible to focus on getting any of it done

I did find myself feeling like I had more that I wanted to get done (or had to get done) by a deadline that it was impossible to focus on getting any of it done, leaving me feeling unproductive, only feeding the downward cycle. I finally decided to "Eat the frog."[0] It was kinda brutal at first, sitting unable to get into the mindset to make progress (for a large part of an entire day), but I powered through and made progress on the single most important thing. After that things started flowing better. If you're already not getting anything done on a given day, try picking one thing for the day. Do not waste any time or energy thinking about anything else. Also don't spend any on trying to increase productivity or optimizations, or feeling bad about how much there is, no how little is getting done. Only work on the thing itself, no meta-things. If you still get nothing done, don't context switch, don't give yourself the option of not doing what you chose. It's only make progress on that or nothing. Only when you have made sufficient progress to feel that you were productive on that task and want to tackle another, allow yourself to choose one new task. Eating the frog is line a single-item version of Warren Buffett's Two Lists[1] productivity tip. [0] https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/eat-the-frog https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/eat-the-frog [1] https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/buffetts-two-lists https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/buffetts-two-lists