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I actually did the thing with Anki, three languages at the same time, and it failed just like you described.
I suspect that it was an instance of a more general harmful pattern in my life, how I unconsciously turn my successes into future punishments. A pattern that I learned at childhood, and it's difficult to overcome, because at the moment it feels like a virtue.
Here is the pattern: I notice myself doing something right, and instead of just enjoying the situation and rewarding myself mentally, I feel the impulse to increase the burden until I break, which then provides me an opportunity to punish myself mentally (feel disappointed with myself). Which means that in long term, I am punishing myself for doing things right.
At the moment it feels like the right thing to do: I have finally found something that "works" for me; why not use it more? Just think about all the opportunities!
But the problem is that things don't scale linearly. I have a limited amount of time / energy / attention / whatever, and maybe the method already consumes as much of some resource as is sustainable. Another problem is that there is a difference between approaching a "#1 problem" and "yet another thing that should be done"; the former motivates to creatively expore solutions, the latter just creates an ugh-field around anything you use to push yourself.
Sometimes it is necessary to accept that there are many things I would want to do, but maybe at the moment I only have enough resources to do one of them properly. And I should look at the bright side and be happy that it is one thing instead of zero.
With the examples from article, in (1) I would recommend staying with French, and perhaps when the Anki workload is smaller, do something else in the remaining time, such as read a book or watch a movie in French. Switch from learning to using, without increasing time. Until it becomes a part of life (e.g. Bob would start regularly reading some French web pages) so it doesn't require conscious maintenance. If he isn't equally passionate about German, maybe he shouldn't learn it at all; maybe he just doesn't have enough time and energy for all that. In (2), Sally could use a weekend or take a day of vacation to look for the new job.
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I've had very similar conversations while working with developmentally delayed children. They required more leading; the inferential gaps between adults and children are larger than between two adults. Usually.
One boy in particular was autistic, OCD, and prone to rapid escalation of anxieties. At one point, while working on a set of subtraction problems, he became positive that his mother would be furious if he didn't finish them by the time she got home. Subtraction was already a difficult concept for him, and the anxiety did not help his ability to problem-solve. The anxiety was also relatively baseless: his mother was a very patient woman who rarely got angry at him, and never over homework.
He started sobbing, so I asked, "What is your brain saying right now?" This vocabulary matched his own narrative about his emotional problems ("My brain is telling me to do X").
He replied, through tears, "It's saying my mom will be so mad if I can't finish my homework!" This resembles the black-box concept that your friend had about inconsiderate thieves.
"What sort of things does your mom usually get mad about?"
"Like when I hit my sister or break things when I'm mad!"
"Does she get mad when you're trying hard to solve a problem?"
"...No."
"Does she get mad when your brain is making you sad or scared about a problem?"
"...No. But if I don't finish she will kill me!"
"Oh, has she ever done that before?" At this point I was smiling, and he had stopped sobbing quite so hard.
"...Almost!"
I reached over and poked his arm. "Looks like you're still alive! Unless ghosts have skin? Do ghosts have skin?" He giggled at this, and then we were able to resolve the problem.
It's a pretty neat little algorithm for handling excessive distress:
Validate the distressed person using their own narrative about the problem.
Put the emotions into reality ("Do you really think that that's what's going on in their heads? 'I'm going to be inconsiderate now.'?"). Vague anxieties are powerful anxieties; you need to take them all the way to their implications to decide if it's worth being anxious. Likewise, vague anger isn't anger that can do anything; if it's useless, it should go away, and if it's useful, it should be goal-oriented.
Diffuse with humor, if you know the person well enough to do it kindly.
This is uncomfortably close to a more abusive algorithm that goes:
Semi-validate, with your own narrative about their problem.
Pin their emotions down by asking leading questions that will make them feel ridiculous for having them.
Be dismissive about it through humor so they feel like they can't continue having those emotions in your presence.
Algorithm 1 is in the context of mutual trust, and respect for the other person's emotional state. Algorithm 2 is just a tricky way to get distressed people to shut up, and I am very opposed to its use.