On a small scale, this is exactly why when I'm stuck on a development problem (an elusive bug or trying to hammer out a good design), a thorough email about it to a colleague often provides the breakthrough. Because you're taking up a co-worker's time & energy, it motivates you to lay out the problem with the right amount of context, walk through some of the tradeoffs or things you've considered, etc.

And it's not unusual at all for the email to never get sent - among my closest co-workers we'll often tell each other something like, "I couldn't figure out how to fix XYZ so I wrote you a long email about it, fixed the problem, and deleted the email".

(the downside is that once you've experienced this a few times, crummy problem reports from others kind of drive you crazy)