Recovery is part of performance, not time stolen from it.

Recovery is where the gains from effort are actually consolidated, in bodies and in thinking. Skipping it does not add working time, it lowers the quality of the working time you have and pushes the cost forward. Treating it as an interruption to performance misunderstands where performance comes from.

Build rest into the plan rather than into the leftover. Decide your evening or your day off in advance, and defend it the way you would defend a commitment to someone else.