The evening improves when one necessary task is finished without making every task necessary.

Evenings collapse in a particular way. One job genuinely needs doing, and while doing it you notice three more, so what began as twenty minutes becomes the whole night and the rest gets absorbed into a general sense of being behind. Finishing one thing well is a different experience from starting five. The difference is mostly in deciding beforehand where you will stop.

Pick the single task tonight that would actually make tomorrow easier and do only that. Write the others down so your head can let go of them. Then sit down deliberately, before the evening is gone.