So what should I do?

For one, I need to stop planning in a goal-oriented manner. That means not planning with goals in mind, but for quality time. Like the post I linked from James Clear on Zanshin, everything is aiming. So how do I aim? Start with a small amount of time - in short, it’s recognizing that fighting through difficult pesky and small tasks IS the battle, not some sort of failure before the real struggle.

That can definitely help mitigate that frustration if I know my frustration is solid progress forward. But an equally important ability is to leave work at the door and relax. I think that capacity is something I ignore because A) I always feel like I’m behind and B) I don’t really have many hobbies or relaxing activities. Almost everything I do slides into a desire to want to master it. I bought a calligraphy book and pen a few weeks ago, and I want to master it fully. I started biking, which I used to do purely for fun in high school to get out of the house, and I start thinking about it in terms of steady state cardio. Games get me frustrated a lot of the time. And watching TV shows on my computer often is me just staring at the computer screen like with work AND often has me reaching for something else to do.

This capacity of regimentation seems to me to be equally important as endurance and grit. It’s a handoff - if you have bad regimentation then you’ll leak willpower. Leaking willpower drains endurance - it’s harder to stick things out long-term if you can’t establish success in day-to-day tasks.