It is a truth, Karol. Deep thinking requires time and space to let your thoughts fly free, mix and blend and do all kinds of neat mash-up stuff.
Routines and to-do lists are for just doing -- finishing the stuff you want to get done. They are great for that, but they do tend to turn you into a wind-up toy.
Wind-up toys don't do a heck of a lot of deep thinking, I find, and they mostly don't notice a lot of what is going on around them either.