There’s nothing quite like a looming deadline to make me wonder just how a car’s alternator works.

I guess you start with some coils of copper wire arranged kind of in a circle. Then you introduce a spinning electromagnetic field somewhere in the middle, and then there’s something about a right hand rule, and then electrons squirt out the other end. You can use those electrons for firing spark plugs to make the engine go, to power the headlights, or to recharge your phone. It’s magic!

It’s also a great way to keep from getting anything productive done (unless you’re in the alternator business).

See, there’s something about needing to get to work on a project that makes a mind wander. Some people call it procrastination, or poor time management, or just fucking off. But I like to look at it differently.

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut when it comes to problem solving that you’ve been working on for a long time. Tunnel vision takes over and we tend to fall into closed loops of “critical thought.” We can sit surrounded by white boards and computer screens all day and never generate a new idea, but then as soon as we hop in the car to drive home, or take a shower, or start cooking dinner, or read about engine compression ratios on Wikipedia (or really, it seems, start doing anything during which it’s hard to take notes) a light turns on.

Sometimes it takes relying on the periphery of our minds to tackle projects in a new way, and that takes putting blinders on what’s right in front of us. Those blinders can be a crappy sit-com or an online forum for diesel enthusiasts, or sometimes just lying in bed until 10am trying to figure out how to have a lucid dream.

And so if you catch me spacing out some time, or screwing off while I should be working, I hope that I can get the benefit of the doubt. I’m probably plugging away.