I definitely feel its one of the lessons I learn over and over again. The brain has a great way to convince us: "Just a little more longer... you'll figre it out.
This is so, so true. At this point, I'm not sure it's a lesson I'll ever learn.
Despite experiencing the "shower solution" repeatedly over the years, I still cannot get myself to let go and take a step back until I'm literally too exhausted to continue.
When I'm thinking clearly, it's obvious the optimal answer is "take a break". But when I'm "in the stuck", taking a break seems like the worst possible answer. Every. Time.
If I had some signal that indicated "sufficient information uploaded, algorithm running" it'd be easy to stop. But the (obvious) problem is that signal is, usually, the discovery of the solution. Which happens well after all the being stuck.
There is something comforting about accepting that banging my head against a wall might just be a requirement of figuring the thing out, though.
"Banging your head" usually means lots of trial and error, that is all error. But beyond uploading information, every experiment creates new information. ("I haven't failed - I've discovered 1,000 ways that won't work!" https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/31/edison-lot-results/)
When the search space is exponential, with too many combinations to try, pruning off a branch is enormously helpful (and perfectly harmless... provided the solution doesn't happen to lie on that branch - those are my most stuck times).
One signal is when I can't think of anything else to try - that means I've extracted all the information I can. The trouble is, I'm pretty good at thinking of things to try.
There have been plenty of times for me where I was like "oh I'll stop for now, hopefully the answer will come in the shower" or while I'm falling asleep or while I'm doing groceries or something, but never does. There goes two weeks, no progress. Eventually I have to sit down, focus, and think.
So it's not a lesson I've learned, but I don't think it's a lesson I should learn either.
There must be some psychological or clinical term for this: to be stuck in some fixated state that prevents forward progress unless a break is actually taken.
At the first sign of inhibited progress I go do something else. It's like a reflex action now. It's almost painful how much I have to rely on my subconscious mind to develop software. Conscious mind stops working optimally...have to quit. It's not worth energy expenditure or stress.
Despite experiencing the "shower solution" repeatedly over the years, I still cannot get myself to let go and take a step back until I'm literally too exhausted to continue.
When I'm thinking clearly, it's obvious the optimal answer is "take a break". But when I'm "in the stuck", taking a break seems like the worst possible answer. Every. Time.