Ya sorry, poor wording on my part. What I meant was, if I use every trick in my arsenal, I can effectively go around a problem entirely and maybe reach 100x faster than when I was a fresh grad writing my own data structures by hand. Lately I've been dragging so badly though that I'm probably at 10% or even 1% productivity, negating my experience and putting me on par with my original inexperienced self, albeit with reduced effort.
Edit: my actual point was that if a person works along their natural tendencies, they'll probably be faster than if they have to fight their instincts (and take time to organize in this case), mainly because they might fall out of the zone