And why I am seemingly getting much worse unintentionally?

In january I was trying to draw something everyday and was starting studying basic fundamentals of perspective even if I was not doing as something as extreme like 8 hours per day. I was doing stuff like taking photos around my town and using them as references for the backgrounds in my art, inking traditionally and rendering digitally, etc. and generally was fairly secure about my skills. This month I had less time to draw and I stopped studying the few fundies I was studying entirely since I have to study for my driver's license. I started inking directly traditionally (I still don't know fully how digital lineart works in comparison to traditional pen lineart, even if I can add more lineweight), and decided to drop backgrounds for making my character art pop up more (dumbest idea I've ever had now that I think about it). All of this is made worse by me trying to get out of my comfort zone and experimenting with shit like foreshortening or other views for the first time just looking at a reference once and quickly. As a result, I feel like I am just putting less effort in general even if I am not aknowledging it.

Is this a normal thing that happens to people in general and maybe I am tired, or I am genuinely getting worse? Pic related is a comparison between some finished illustrations I did in January and the "finished" illustrations I did those last 3 days. I feel like I should also drop the mentality of doing a finished piece every 1 or 2 days and mainly focus on actually studying what I am weak at and try to make my art actually appealing to look at despite the still undeveloped technical skills.

I know I know the existence of this thread will probably make some people go butthurt, but I feel like it's a question that would probably get ignored if posted in the /beg/ thread.