I tend to agree. The times where I've felt "in the zone" have exclusively been in hackathons and school projects. Even when I worked at an early stage startup

I tend to agree. The times where I've felt "in the zone" have exclusively been in hackathons and school projects. Even when I worked at an early stage startup, I spent most of my time discussing architecture and design patterns. Plus, code reviews need to be less than 500 lines, which lends itself to getting small thought out pieces working and shipped, not long coding sessions.