I worked at Apple back when they had a sabbatical - 5 weeks after 5 years. I never took vacation. Took off during the Fall vaction+holidays+sabatical=3 months trip around the world. I was deathly afraid that when I returned I'd be so far behind. Guess what - everything was the same. Lesson learned: Take your time off.

It sometimes helps me to remember that resting can be a way of investing in future productivity. A good multi-hour activity, especially one without checking your devices, can have a really non-linear effect on my productivity especially if I have been feeling stuck on a problem. So sometimes the most productive thing to do is to rest :) Hopefully that helps

I will preface this with the caveat that the advice I am giving is easier said than done.

Take vacation. Even if it feels like it will hurt the team, the real thing hurting them (and you) is that there isn't a system of trust between everyone. Take a week off, when you come back, figure out what people were blocked on, what broke that only you could fix, etc. and then work on improving those single points of failure. Driving yourself towards burnout is not doing yourself or your team any favors.

> Just wish I had more time off. Got a lot of vacation days. But our team is so small that taking the time off makes me feel guilty.

Try to remember: If you take time off and the business/team/project suffers, it's not your fault, it's your company's fault for failing to build in a staffing safety margin and failing to plan for the 100% expected event of people using their vacation time.

Why do you think you have to be productive all the time? What a strange idea! Isn’t the point of working that you can then afford to kick back and do whatever you want outside of work?

> But a part of my brain says that I can't spare the 3+ hours that it takes to go to the theatre. That it would be unproductive.

Why is it important to always be productive? What bad things would occur if you were less productive?

> But a part of my brain says that I can't spare the 3+ hours that it takes to go to the theatre. That it would be unproductive.

This kind of thing invades my decision making daily. I "blame" the high-demand for excellence at the tech firms I've worked at, and a personal obsession with self-help. It's whittled down my capacity for fun.

The only thing I've found help is to invest in something else I value highly - a hobby, friendship, family time. At the end of the day TV and movies (while enjoyable) aren't all that important compared to the obligation you feel to co-workers.

Take slowly increasing amounts of time off - think of it as helping to build team resilience. In all seriousness it's a necessary part of team health, and a pre-planned, well-communicated few days is absolute "easy mode" that they can use to ladder up to the inevitable unknown-unknown they will someday have to face.

If nothing else, you will someday retire!

If nothing else, consider that the burn-out is a real thing. If you can't rest, schedule it. Don't allow any work at the scheduled time.

are you unproductive if you are making income and you are doing enough at work to not cost your job. if you are pursuing goals, at work or otherwise, like a promotion, then you feel unproductive doing other things. it will come down to prioritization of tasks. modern day requires a lot of admin work and we are bogged down not knowing how to delegate and manage.

Spending time in nature gets me out of the "I should be doing something now" mode you're talking about.

Brief (15m) daily meditation helps with this as well