This is how I program. Whenever I have a difficulty, I'll put it down for a few minutes and wait for the essential insight I need to keep going filter through my subconscious. Once i learned to trust the process, I just let go.

One thing I learned doing this is that projects all seem to take a fixed length of time to emerge from your mind to the machine. You can spend most of that time fighting it or you can spend it doing whatever else you want to do while your subconscious is working on it.

Personally, I divide it between Internet, high-level 10,000 foot view thinking, and socializing around the company. Doesn't matter. Projects still get done on time. And better than if I'd been fighting it, because there's no wasted time going down wrong paths.