I think I know what you are talking about.

There are almost two modes of functioning. "Never thinking hard and going with the flow"; and "thinking hard about what happened". I would suggest that these processes are like system1/system2 processes about living. where if you only play in system 2 you have an exhausting life where you feel like you never get far because you didn't actually do the washing; you just thought really hard about it. You never really had fun; you just thought hard about it. etc etc.

The important thing to note is that we need both system 1 and system 2 to go about getting things done. You are concerned about the balance; Absolutely!

In my post here; http://lesswrong.com/lw/mj7/3_classifications_of_thinking_and_a_problem/ Slider suggested a heuristic for producing results in the area of knowing how to balance.

in this case because you are balancing "hard thinking about the problem" and "enjoying life" If you are finding you are not enjoying life; reduce the time you spend hard-thinking. Iif you are finding you are making mistakes; or needing more planning time to make things work the way you want them to; increase hard-thinking time. If you want to increase both at once - take a break; work on a problem of no consequence.