This really confuses me too. When I work in pomodoros I can take short breaks every 30 mins and they seem to help - precisely due to the stepping back and reth

This really confuses me too. When I work in pomodoros I can take short breaks every 30 mins and they seem to help - precisely due to the stepping back and rethinking you mentioned. Other people have commented to me how context switching is not so hard for them. I think there is a “deep flow” state, but it’s not actually so productive - you just feel focused and do a lot of work, but it might not actually be in the most efficient direction. So I feel there’s this trade off between “flow” and “managing yourself”. I guess hackers of repute just flow so much they compensate for their lack of self management.