This isn't bad advice; though I feel it's only a small part of the picture. My desire to work on side projects definitely increases as I head towards burnout i

This isn't bad advice; though I feel it's only a small part of the picture. My desire to work on side projects definitely increases as I head towards burnout in whatever I'm supposed to be working on. And giving myself permission to work on something completely different for a day definitely improves my mood, which can give me the energy to address whatever's bothering me. But after that, I still have to fix the original problem -- usually one (or many) large, poorly-defined tasks that I've been dreading, or some personal interaction that frustrated me and was never resolved; usually compounded by weeks at some level of sleep debt. So if I stay up all night working on the side project, then I'm worse off the next day, not better -- more sleep debt, and one pleasant day of escapism, but the same old problems still sitting there (but deadlines one day closer). If I can spend a restful day or two, clear my head and just free myself to think about things, solutions start to bubble up, I can make some concrete plans to handle whatever's been dragging me down, and I can catch up on my sleep -- that's great. The times this has worked really well, I generally don't work on side projects either. Filling my head with more interesting problems is pleasant, but my mind is still spinning at high velocity. The better solution is to find a way to clear my head, reset my sleep cycle, and then take advantage of the clarity that follows.