I was a lot like you once, until I suddenly realized that taking a step back every now and then actually brings a net positive in productivity because a lot of the time when you're busy and stressed what is actually happening is you're just doing work but not getting things done.

My suggestion to you: take a look at your todo's, delete everything that's been there for more than two weeks. Then delete everything where people don't die if you do it tomorrow instead of today.

Or, you know, completely disregard this comment, get back to your life, and watch yourself burn out faster than celluloid film.

Good article. Of course not all work that I do is the productive, or the so-called 'deliberate practice' kind. As referenced by the fact that I'm following up to my own comments on Hacker News. However an important difference between running a startup and playing a musical instrument is that I'd argue its a lot harder to know what the really effective work is, which means you'll generally have to try a few more things.

No, I'm not quite as bad as the charicature I've described above. I've found that doing a bit of daily exercise is one of the most important things not to give up when working on a startup. You feel and sleep a lot better which affects everything.

Sometimes just playing with my kid is the best thing to do when I'm moving toward being overworked.