Agree with this. Occasional coasting is great. Sometimes you need to recharge. Sometimes it's when you'll get inspiration or find time to do that experiment that feels like leisure because it's fun but ends up paying off massively.

Slack is important.

But so much so that you become a magnet for people who intend to do nothing, or somewhere where people who have fallen into doing nothing aren't noticed and dig their heels in and never leave quickly becomes a problem...

Academia has tenure which basically allows the most capable researchers to "coast" as long as they have previously proven their skills via their tenure-track work. It seems to work quite well.