It's been my job at several different building firms to sit and stare.And actually,am back at it now.These are/were places of employment that had it all.IOW's,we had a few structural engineers.....usually a cpl "pedigree'd" architects.Throw in a 1/2 dz project managers,a cpl vice presidents,yada,yada.
But,a cpl times a year there would be a "problem" that just wouldn't go away....and would end up on my desk.Which was the hood of a F150,having never been allowed in the offices for more than a cpl minutes at a time,haha.
These were problems that had been on everybody else's desk and were just plain sticky.Sometimes I'd have to sit and stare at it for 1/2 a day....runnin numbers and,believe it or not...safety/osha regs,through the grey matter until a solution/formula was created.Never got a whole lot of credit....that's fine.Because the work was gratification in itself.Example:"saving" the whole end of a 200 y.o. historic church,and things of that nature.
So,to the O.P......yes,I still will sit and stare at an object or more often than not,an opportunity to fix/improve on one of our processes or pcs of equip.Had a long day at work yesterday on a job and couldn't wait to come home and stare at a build.It is almost done.The supporting wood storage under this pce of equip is going to be critical to the overall look and feel(ergo's)of the pce.Already got plenty of inventory.Am about 80-90% to its final design.Yes,scaled drawings were made....yes,cut a cpl mock-ups out of C-bd.....but still am staring at it,runnin the "numbers".