Rich talks about how thinking about something transfers the idea from your conscious mind to your unconscious mind (your big brain) where the real horsepower is. In another talk he mentions that he has been able to spend a year doing this three times in his life: one was for Clojure, one was Datomic, and one other yet-to-be-named project.
Also note that the Feynman method is rooted in this. In his book "Indiscrete Thoughts", the mathematician Gian-Carlo Rota said:
"Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on
how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your
favorite problems constantly present in your mind,
although by and large they will lay in a dormant state.
Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result,
test it against each of your twelve problems to see
whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a
hit, and people will say, 'How did he do it? He must be a
genius!'" (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FeynmanAlgorithm).
This is the best part of having a dog for me, especially one like mine who is perfectly happy strolling along smelling the flowers. It's always an excuse to go out, mostly at night when it's quiet, and mull over ideas.
True say, I've found walking the dog to be a great time to think. Not only is it time to yourself, it gets the blood flowing and of course the fresh air is great.
Rich talks about how thinking about something transfers the idea from your conscious mind to your unconscious mind (your big brain) where the real horsepower is. In another talk he mentions that he has been able to spend a year doing this three times in his life: one was for Clojure, one was Datomic, and one other yet-to-be-named project.
John Cleese also talks about this in his lecture on creativity (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShmtsLhkQg).