An unresolved question can benefit from time away from direct effort. A walk, a conversation on another subject or a quiet interval may allow someone to return with a different way of framing it.
That experience is compatible with research on internally directed thought. It should not be reduced to a claim that one brain network works only when another is switched off.
Alternate exploration and examination
Give the question enough initial attention to understand it. Then allow an interval without an obligation to produce an answer immediately.
When an idea appears, record it and examine it later. A surprising connection can be promising without being commercially sound.
Research on the default mode network and creative cognition concerns interactions between networks. It does not establish that a busy executive has lost access to a hidden strategic faculty.
Give the question somewhere to return
Schedule a review with the evidence required to test the idea. Otherwise, reflection may produce interesting notes without changing a decision.
If every unstructured interval is interrupted, examine the operating demands creating that pattern. The answer may involve delegation or an escalation rule rather than a personal technique for thinking harder.
The useful result is progress on a question that was stuck, with enough scrutiny to distinguish a workable option from an attractive story.
