[lmarcos]

Same. I always work on any given (hard enough) problem twice or three times. The first time I come up with some kind of prototype that may work or not, but it gives me foundation to work on the second prototype. The second one tells me how a final working and performant solution could look like, so I discard it and start from scratch. At the end I come up with the best possible solution I can provide. Sometimes it takes fewer steps, sometimes more. And more often than not I let some time pass between attempts (maybe I go for a walk in between or I let a full day pass to work on something else).

At interviews they stop me at my first attempt.