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I’m pretty much the exact opposite - when I’m in the zone I tend to jam patterns and move on to the next one as soon as I hit the wall. The downside, of course, is that I rarely finish anything quickly, the upside is that I have a library of ideas on my computer and machines.

When I’m tired and/or not feeling particularly inspired, I go back through the various bits and listen to them coldly to see what’s good, what’s not, and what might work together.

For example, over the weekend I was taking half an hour to go back through old Ableton projects (going back a decade) and feeding my A4 with a few loops to see if I could develop them with analogue voices, p-locks, etc. Then fired up a more recent project for a listen and accidentally found that the older stuff is a great fit for what I’d been working on, inspiration struck and I put together an arrangement.

Occasionally I’ll come up with melodies while going about my day, in which I try to hum it in or write down a note on my phone to remind me, but it’s rare. Generally perspiration is the key to finding inspiration for me.

Here’s Mike Huckaby talking about using Maschine in a similar way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL9Tm_VoW1c

Also, I’d highly recommend this: https://makingmusic.ableton.com/ for general tips on workflow.