Feeling like you tried isn’t the same as trying. Check what you actually did.

Effort is felt and work is done, and the two can come apart almost completely. An afternoon of worrying about an essay, planning the essay and feeling bad about the essay produces a strong sense of having worked and no essay. The feeling is honest. It is simply not evidence that anything happened.

At the end of a session, write down what exists now that did not exist before. Pages, problems, reps, minutes. If the honest answer is nothing, that is useful rather than damning, and it tells you where tomorrow should start.