When I was working, my best moments were when what I was doing were like a living function, rather than plodding and tapping away at it from the outside - but one has to persevere at the latter as well I think. Likewise one needs both, in one's hobbies. The same, in one's emotions, and in all other walks.
As to "not being allowed" for hours at a time, I taught myself to be happy about recent immersions in it and the likelihood of more opportunities not far ahead; and meantime trying to see if there are interesting aspects to the immediate challenge.
My workplace coach taught me to "chunk things down", this can be applied in several ways:
- spatially, if I have to break a task off I leave it in such fashion that I can immediately comprehend where I left off so that I can resume efficiently;
- I get more done by multi tasking by doing a chunk of one thing for 10 minutes * or so and then a chunk of the next thing for 10 minutes * or so, and so on and do the rounds of the tasks in turn, and I soon get a glow of achievement while enjoying the variety.
I try to get better value out of my strong intuiting and sensing side by developing my analytical and "big logic" side. My universe is full of thousands of capacious cubby-holes for all the different interesting feelings, ideas, memories, meanings of words, prospects, etc etc. That way I can relate more appropriately to all the kinds of realities: past, present, future, concrete, abstract etc.
This helps me be objective and at ease with what could otherwise overwhelm me. I am yet another case in point, on a par with everybody else. In childhood I was well on the way to growing in balance, until mainly the wrong kinds of exam pressure in my mid teens overtook me.
Initiative taking vs. perseveration are a whole bunch of topics in themselves. I have to sort my relationship with my emotions to make this work properly.
[ * at work, this would be longer; but I could more rapidly alternate "micro chunks" within a "chunk" ]