Hey man - I've been through two periods of unemployment looking for work, took me a few months each time. Your post sounds very familiar to me and I understand what you're going through. I don't agree to 'treat it like a normal 9-5' because the stress builds up and you can't even relax at the end of the day knowing you're burning through money (or going into debt) and you should be working 24/7 to get back on your feet.

What worked for me was making a spreadsheet of every job applied for, and setting reminders. It's completely process driven and unemotional. You see a job ad, you quickly paraphrase your CV, and fire it off. You put the job title, link, and date into the Excel file. Then you have a formula add 3 days - that's your first follow up. Every day you check the 'to do list' for jobs you need to follow up, and you fire off another email. You use a template for this and just copy & paste the job title and date.

I know some companies have only online forms (actually, a lot these days). I recommend that you try to get as much information as you can about who might be 'behind' the application (i.e. if it's a marketing job at company x, look on linkedin for head of marketing at job x - use google and not linkedin search). Once you found the person, try to find their email address by googling again, or finding any email address with that company to figure our their format (first.last@ or initial.last@, etc). Then email them directly with a great cover letter. They might ask you to go through the online process but at least you've made an impact.

Above all else, treat it like a process without emotion or anything else attached. Just follow the process.

Another thing I would recommend is not to be at all picky, just apply for everything. It's more important you get back on your feet, even if it doesn't pay the right salary, because it gets you in a good head space to continue applying for jobs (without the desperation) and find something nicer.