While I think that what Drew is describing is pedantic and excessively complex because he's contextualizing it as a formalized training plan, the meat of what he's saying-- if I read him right-- is that making the same level effort each ride, expecting to build up to 10/10ths is not as effective as periodically working at 10/10ths, giving your body recovery time, and building off that.

Where I differ from Drew is that I don't pretend to know what's ideal, either for you specifically or in general. Big salary coaches, sports scientists, and entire training teams are paid to figure that stuff out, so I leave that to them. What I do know is that there is more than one way to achieve results.

What I take away from the various training plans and philosophies is that time has to be allocated to both max efforts and to recovery. What happens in between will depend on the athlete, their goals, and training time. As cyclists, though, we do need to develop stamina as well, and that only really comes with doing longer rides, so that needs to be part of the mix, too.

I also agree with Drew that those max efforts should be done while you're fresh, so you can give your best effort as well. You don't want to throw the hardest part of a training workout at the end, because you won't be able to work as hard and squander an opportunity to build fitness. If when riding (i.e. not training to a plan) you find yourself in a closing ride sprint or big push up the last climb, it will be that you've a solid base of fitness that lets you acheive best results, not that you've practiced exhausting yourself at the end of long rides.

Lastly, depending on your goals and interest, you may find doing workouts on a stationary or trainer to be highly effective and appealing, particularly for max efforts, and particularly if you use power to measure and evaluate those efforts. A power meter may seem like an expensive step, but one really makes effective training easy to accomplish, particularly when available training time is little.

I, for example, only manage to ride about 4 times a week during the summer, totaling about 7hrs, and maintain three rides a week year-round at 3hrs total. It's not much on average, but it's enough to develop and maintain fitness and power thanks to the highly focused time working to power on a stationary. My Strava rankings also tell me I'm not awful, and VeloViewer puts me above the 90th percentile based on my Strava placings, so while I'm not the fastest, I can haul my aging, 220lb mass around pretty good!

So yeah, take some time to put in all-out efforts, even short ones, and additional time for easy rides, and you'll start seeing improvements. Mix in some "sweet spot" training and endurance rides, and you'll really gain fitness in just a few weeks.