On the other hand, I sometimes get a big moment of super-productive flow after mostly staring blankly and doing nothing for like 20 minutes or more (or even sev

On the other hand, I sometimes get a big moment of super-productive flow after mostly staring blankly and doing nothing for like 20 minutes or more (or even several episodes like this in the day). But those 20 minutes are indeed really depressing so what usually happens is that I'll stare blankly a few minutes, then get overrun by depression and just give up and land on HN or something else unproductive, to "get my moral back up". But I feel I could get really productive regularly if I just faced up that fear more readily. I wonder if maybe the big depression that accompanies this staring blankly and doing nothing is just my brain working in the background and realizing the intricate details of my complex task, and I interrupt the process when I'm just beginning to get real productive in the background. Just a thought.