There's another thing that may be going on here as well. I usually go to a forum to ask advice on a hard problem. In the act of laying out all the steps I've t

There's another thing that may be going on here as well. I usually go to a forum to ask advice on a hard problem. In the act of laying out all the steps I've taken and describing the problem, I generally begin to imagine the replies I may get. You know how it is, people usually ask if you've tried this or that. Any number of 'obvious' solutions are suggested. In an effort to head off those comments I usually end up thinking of an 'obvious' solution I hadn't tried yet, and that generally solves the problem. Failing that, explaining why it can't be this or that issue in the post leads me to think of other possibilities that it COULD be. Nine times out of ten I don't finish the post.