I used to be a really rough person when it comes to my own productivity - I often forced myself to do "at least 30 minutes of productivity per day", but as always, it often falls short and I will end up not really doing anything. Similarly, if I simply let myself "do whatever I wish to", I would also end up not doing anything because most of my time is spent playing video games and watching anime.

Fast forward to recently, I've just kinda been… working during the week, and leaving Sundays for cleaning, resting and just enjoying myself.

(Excuse that one Sunday, I was fixing my own website on my free time.)

I really worked myself out that July and honestly, I can feel that month being my downfall. A lot happened during that month, I can really feel myself being unhappy, nothing felt right. Of course, granted that August was when I started therapy as well, and it really helped my mental state.

Of course, as a programmer, your productivity isn't just shown by churning out commits and code, but at the same time, I do feel like commits and code are the consolidation of your research and thought process. And oftentimes, while overworking myself with not taking a proper break, I wouldn't even be able to program anything at all.

So, after that horrible, horrible July, I tried to get everything done during the week and take the Sunday off, as anyone should really do. Anything that cannot be realistically finished during the week, I accept that I won't finish it and push it to the next week. Basically, I was maintaining my own sprint cycles. And after doing that for the entirety of August, and now September as October looms over, I've really seen my productivity go up.

So, I gotta say, putting yourself in a good position mentally and having proper breaks is truly important for one's productivity. Programming for just an extra hour or two on a Sunday to try and push for that little bit sometimes doesn't really do you much better than taking a rest and pumping out you much better than taking a rest and pumping out extra productivity during the week.

Now, I feel much happier as a whole, I don't feel the work overwhelming me as much as before, and my productivity is still there, if not better than before. Take your breaks properly.