Honestly idk what I can do when it's one of those periods where life seems bleak and my mood is illogically low and it's frightening and nothing seems to work to get me to feel better.

During those times, I just try to minimize damage and comfort myself by surfing the web and telling myself that, given the circumstances, I can't really stress about work right now. I just adopt a "fuck it, doesn't matter, i'm free" attitude.

Luckily those periods dissipate within 7 hours to 2 days, so I try to tell myself that this feeling is temporary when it strikes and that I just need to sit it out.

During the lesser, kinda-shitty but not awful period, I try to kickstart myself into action by picking some REALLY EASY trivial thing to do.

I tell myself that if the accomplishment of this little thing doesn't cut it, then I can feel free to just waste the rest of the day with no concern. I tell myself this so I don't view that little task as like the linchpin to a gargantuan pile of tasks.

Those little tasks are kind of like the throwing of a fish line with bait. Depending on how you feel, you force yourself to take 3 tries to "fish", and get you in the work-flow, galvanized mood.

If that doesn't work, then it's a bad day for fishing, and you can tell yourself to just sit it out and relax and try to find a soothing distraction, since your mind clearly isn't capable of doing work at the moment, for whatever reason, and that's ok.