Comment by ignorabilis

For me it is anything that helps me not fix on the problem. Standing in front of the computer, staring at the code always pushes me in the same direction; once I am up to something else, but still 'lightly' thinking about the problem I come up with better solutions. It's almost as if I am thinking about it I can't think of anything valuable; once I stop thinking about the issue at hand everything just happens to fall in place.