Further reflections on working too much

Recently, I posted on the productivity trap I fell into over the winter. Over the last couple of weeks, I've been trying to figure out how to avoid falling into such a trap in the future. Here's what I've come up with so far.

The basic problem is that I've formed the habit of relieving increasing financial pressure by working more -- so as to earn sufficient income to relieve said pressure. On its face, this may seem a sensible habit. But it is not. In general, we live in a society where earning power and cost of living are unrelated.

For a person like me, no matter what I might do or refrain from doing, my earning power has increased much more slowly than my cost of living for the last several years, and this trend will likely continue. Beyond this, for me personally, working more beyond a certain point negatively impacts my (often fragile) health, which costs more money and drastically reduces my productivity for a prolonged period of time.

So my habit of working more when life's costs go up has got to go. Which means I have to replace this with a better habit; one that's healthier and sustainable. I'm not yet clear on how exactly this new habit will look, but at least I'm zeroed in on how it needs to operate. So that's progress.