[dmos62]

A heuristic I use that is very accurate for me is whether or not I can easily step away from what I'm doing (for a break, or just to finish the day) or do I feel a compulsion to keep going. If stepping away is difficult, I'm definitely in a "death spiral". At this point I can be sure that my productivity is already low, and it will just get worse. It's a burnout; a feeling that your problem-solving apparatus has overheated; severe tunnel vision coupled with impatience. It's weird that it produces such a drive to continue.

So when you pose the question, whether to push or take a step back, in my experience, it's better to pick clarity over aggressive pushing. It's subjective though. While I think there are overarching principles, I also think that different people react to these situations at least a bit differently.

To say a few words about confusion when confronting something you don't fully understand, I think the more confusion you can take, the better. Ideally confusion should be second nature to us, too often we jump to something prematurely just to escape it. When you think about it, we never fully understand all the things at play. It's about not being paralyzed by that.