Interesting, I often use a coffee or bathroom break exactly because it allows me to stop working and get up from my desk, whether because I need a change of perspective to think about a problem or because I just don't feel like working and want to use a socially acceptable method to slack off for ten minutes. Then again, I drink tea instead of coffee, so I don't have the issue of taking in too much caffine at once and actually harming how I work. YMMV.
Narratives definetly seem to be far mode, yes - you can construct a narrative where you're a Good Worker or whatnot without actually doing any of the near mode activities. Maybe if you build the narrative consciously, actually trying to construct the proper narrative for your task, you can do the near mode tasks (write code, frex) and refer back to the narrative if you get stuck or start to slack off (a Good Worker wouldn't slack off on their unit tests, they Have Pride In Their Work and Want To Create Good Products).
Our internal dialogues are often exactly that: dialogues that suit a narrative. Narrative building (the basis of the narrative fallacy) is often quite detrimental to attempts to think clearly. It is therefore beneficial to detect and correct for biases introduced from narrative building. But it can be hard to distinguish a 'clear' thought from one that is a consequence of a narrative.
I offer a heuristic to make the distinction between a thought which is a direct attempt to model reality and a thought which is based solely on its suitability to a narrative:
Two examples:
1. When buying something: Often times, when I'm standing in a Starbucks line for a coffee and try to imagine why I'm standing there (when I can make my own coffee both at my home and at my office), I am usually returned with a feeling of being part of The People Who Do Things. Or one of being a Hard Worker who needs his Coffee to do his Hard Work with Focus and Determination. It fits too well while introducing a character in a novel. After I started noticing this, I've been realizing that coffee is not as useful in improving my focus as I thought it was earlier.
2. In conversations: This must be very familiar to most people. Anecdotes get highly embellished based on their suitability to a story. Also the way they are usually 'narrated' rather than just 'conveyed'. Realizing this when it happens can be quite useful.
Other examples?