Within a few years after his discovery, Raichle was able to determine why our brains get so busy when we’re absentmindedly doing nothing: it’s our default mental state. In other words, a wandering mind may be something hardwired into our mental machinery. It turns out that our default state is most engaged when we’re doing something that doesn’t require much conscious attention: driving, staring off into space, daydreaming. What Raichle’s fMRI studies showed conclusively was that during the absentminded default state previously assumed to be one of mental dormancy, the brain is in fact at its most creative. Matthew May, Laws of Subtraction
I’ve always felt more creative when I am distracted. I almost have too much to think about most of the time (my mind is in a active, non-dormant state).