> And if I'm really productive in the morning and afternoon and feel like I can go home at 4pm with a clean conscience, I do that too, so I don't burn out.

This is the part that is difficult for me. Clean conscience? Because your upbringing or your employer has instilled some limit where you have to push hard before you feel like you deserve a break?

For years I worked too hard, too long, and in my zeal, too often on the wrong things. I burned out hard and even now have to psyche myself up to do all but the most interesting tasks. Everything is hard these days, and so I can no longer rely on my inner Protestant to tell when I’ve done “a good days work”. I have to do the hard work and evaluate it against everything else on my never ending backlog before I feel like I can go home.