I would agree that a lot of my greatest breakthroughs came from periods of time that felt like, to me, I was just staring into space waiting for my brain to kic

I would agree that a lot of my greatest breakthroughs came from periods of time that felt like, to me, I was just staring into space waiting for my brain to kick out something useful, and I would have no idea when that would happen. And if it something that is going to stop everything, I can fiddle around commenting code and doing bits that require little thinking as I wait for inspiration to strike, but it seems to show up on its own time.