I've gone through that. What you need to do is some time management techniques. One of the most important is prioritization. It's great that you want to read all those articles, but set a time frame after which they are no longer relevant.
At the start of every day make sure you have a list of tasks that you MUST get done. Do those first, nothing else. Aside from getting things done, it will give you a sense of accomplishment. For longer term tasks/projects I right the top 3-5 on post-it notes and put them in an area I see them every day. A constant reminder that those are my priorities.
Most of this is based on the Daily Planner technique by Brendan Brushard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYwz3JUsLw
Be aggressive about purging. If it's really important, it will come up again. Also, remember that email is someone else's to do list for you, not your to do list.
I'm very close to 50 also. I'm not a very good saver and have relied on the institutions you don't trust (401K, universal life, mutual funds) to build up my savings. I don't trust them either, but they get a far better return on my money than I could. My bank is very transparent in letting me know that I'm getting less than 0.5% interest.
You're a little more than halfway through your working career, unless you retire early. There is still plenty of time to take some of your savings and be a little risky to get greater returns. Even a mediocre, safe, fund will return 5%+ a year over the long haul.
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I'm in my late 40s and switched to full time management about a year ago. I didn't have to, it was a choice. I felt there was a management/leadership gap at my company. One I thought I could fill and do a good job. It wasn't about pay. Yes, the pay is greater. It is inline with my expanded sphere of influence.
That said, how many managers have you seen doing tech talks at conferences? As a developer, that is one place you can expand your sphere of influence. Open source code is another outlet.
I don't think there are limits to pay, or that it plateaus. There are less jobs paying 150K than 100K, less jobs paying 200K than 150K. There are probably more management jobs than developer jobs at the higher levels. So as a developer, the competition is greater. Good developers can get good pay, great developers can get great pay. Are you a good developer or a great developer? Google good vs great.
I'm not looking for a new job because they are finding me. I keep my LinkedIn profile updated, I'm active on Stackoverflow, I open source. I actively manage my public profile. I find an online reputation is almost a requirement for the higher paying roles.
How many managers do you meet who still contribute to Free Software? Or who even look at Stackoverflow, let alone contribute.
You might, which might make you exceptional but the vast majority of managers do not. Yet you are llikely only achieving 10-15% premium over them.
Whilst you (and they) are achieving a significantly higher premium over existant developers.
The problem is that the close you are to the people are the top of the leadership chain, the more they believe you are valuable -- even when your value is motivating other people nothing particularly intrinsic to you.
