I suspect this is a left brain / right brain thing. While the process of collecting, the actual looping of the quests can sometimes seem mindless and boring, I can assure you there is a tremendous amount of thinking and planning that go into every change that happens within my city. Yes, I'm trying to accumulate as much stuff as possible. Why wouldn't I? I'm building an Empire.
However, to think it's without thinking, please.
Every change, every expansion to my city goes through one or more iterations in City Planner well before the change happens. I'm always looking for the most efficient, most aesthetically pleasing (to me) design. Each candidate is then scored in an Excel spreadsheet I built that recreates the math engine behind the game (thank-you fan wiki) exactly. Change the level of a GB like LoA, SMB or Chat from the drop-down list? All the numbers update, the new boost % applied throughout. Level Inno, add a production building? Pop is updated, excess pop is updated, pop mood is recalculated, boosts are added or subtracted, etc. The numbers match exactly what happens in game, right down to the happy per tile of road. At the end of the day, I want the answer to one question and one question only. Does this change make me more, or less FPs. If it makes more, that's what I do.
Sometimes, like in the case of a Terrace Farm, the Prosperous Mill, etc. the 'Yes' answer results in doing less RQs. Sometimes, like in the case of an expansion, or replacing 2 Alchs with a Windmill, the 'Yes' answer comes from completing more RQs.
My coin collections are even calculated out to collect in a specific order to be as close to the actual coins needed to maximize RQs.
Did you know in HMA, with a level 5 SMB, that collecting on the new Colorful Mill of Fall, then collecting Town Hall is exactly 25,000 coins and completes one 'Collect 25,000 coin' quest? I can complete another one with my lvl 4 Grand Bridge and 37 Aid button clicks, 25,080 coins. I complete one "Collect 25k coins' collecting from either 3 SoKs or 2 SSWs, 25,200 coins (I currently do 5 with Soks, 3 with SSWs). Did you know 2 SSWs and 3 SoKs add up to the exact same number? I didn't. Until I saw the math.
Now when I replace 2 Alchs with 2 SSWs, which take the same space, I can just replace a 'Produce 2 saltpeter' with a 'Collect 25k coins'. I no longer need to lose an RQ to gain 2 FPs. Being coin heavy by 152,000 per day, the loss of 6,624 supplies from the 2 Alchs does mean one less UBQ. That's now being offset by the fact that when I collect from a motivated Windmill, which also takes the space of 2 Alchs, run on a 24 hour production cycle, with a level 10 LoA and a 60% Tavern Boost, I not only complete one 'Collect 25k supplies' RQ, 25,090 supplies, I collect more supplies than 4 Alchs. I have 2 Windmills, but I'm going for the Supply Building chest in DC and hoping to win more Windmills from GE. Then I can replace more Alchs, and do even more UBQs.
Did you know that Windmills, despite being a premium production building are dead last on the motivation list? It takes a lot of activity in the friends area of the game to ensure that each 24 hours your city gets 70 motivations. That's one of the reasons I built Inno so early. 10+ Townhouses on an 8 hour cycle was killing me on motivations which impacted supplies. More supplies, more UBQs.
Point made? I hope so. The numbers get much less interesting from here.
As far as the actual collections and spinning the RQs themselves? Eh, so what? I gotta collect on my city, I'm gonna spend FPs, and I'm gonna research tech. I need goods, medals, BPs and FPs. If Inno wants to pay me all of those things just from doing the stuff I'm gonna do anyway, with the added benefit of no plunderable goods buildings and less pop? All I gotta do is hit some abort buttons annoying as that is? Hell yeah, I'm gonna do RQs, I will spam those RQs to death!