In general I agree, but also, it's complicated. There are some problems that just need to be ignored, to stew in whatever it is that goes on in your neuronal so

In general I agree, but also, it's complicated. There are some problems that just need to be ignored, to stew in whatever it is that goes on in your neuronal soup while you're doing other things, until it's good and tender and done. Turning the direct heat of your attention on it doesn't help. The more interesting problems tend to be that way - the problems where you've got a feeling, an intuition, an itch, and you're not even sure where to begin. (It also happened to me a lot 5-10 years post college, when physics topics that hadn't fully clicked finally did - even though I wasn't consciously thinking about it). That said, yeah, just putting your ass in the chair, staying proximate to the problem, is a job well done, and worth doing. It's just not everything.