I'm very much a big cat in terms of spurting, both in work and socially. Long periods of thinking, planning, and rest are punctuated by short all-out work sessions or social events. It's how I work best. I need that rest to build up to the work, or the final product suffers. For example, after mulling over a concept for a while, I wrote a children's book start to finish in under 40 minutes last week. I'll isolate myself for weeks, then plan a 12 hour day with non-stop socializing.
DS23mo is young, but I see signs of this tendency in him, too. He learns new, and sometimes pretty significant, skills as quickly as turning on a light switch after seemigly no prior interest or effort. Speaking--one day nothing, the next day sentences. Locomotion--in arms one day (no crawling), walking with minimal assistance the next. Decoding words--from no interest to being able to sound out most CVC words in a day.
