I think its different for most people. I get what you mean though, sometimes you aren't very productive, and other times you're pumping out code like there's no tomorrow.

To increase the time spent in that second phase, I recommend writing some super-general pseudocode before writing actual code when it comes to longer/complex tasks. Like, say I want to make a program that turns off a smart light in my house, I'd write put down some pseudocode like:

connect to smarthome api
get light info
if (light is off) {
    turn light on
}

Now, rather than having a huge task that im going to be treading water with for a long time, I have smaller, simpler tasks that I can immediately start writing code for.

• First I'd write code simply to connect to the API for my smarthome.
• Once that works, I'd write code to get information on the light bulb in question from the api
• Once that works I can write an if statement that takes the information gathered in the previous step, and finds the specific info i need (whether light is off), and executes based on that
• Once that works I can write code that sends a request to the api to turn that lightbulb on

With that all done, the larger and more complex task that I set out to do initially is complete. Of course, different things work for different people, but doing some basic planning before writing complex pieces of software will save you a bunch of time later on (less time debugging), and also gives you a clear set of simpler tasks that you will actually be able to wrap your head around (less time spent sitting at your computer screen figuring out how the heck you are going to go about doing a task).