The toilet is definitely number 1! *grin*
There's not many places a man can hide and find enough tranquillity to think about a problem...

As for the "Eureka-Erlebnis", this often happens to me when debugging.

I seem to be doing a lot of debugging (don't we all...) and for some reason, I seem to be quite good at it.
Some days ago, I was able to figure out why :
- before working on a problem, I always seem to make some sort of mental map of the system: programs, environment, data, anything involved in the issue really...
- experience in problem solving
- an open mind - meaning that EVERY single 'environment variable' should be taken into account and seen as a possible source of errors. Don't rule anything out!
- loads of patience...

Some of my colleagues seem to be able to pinpoint THE source of a problem in a matter of minutes. You know the sort: "It must be the data. My program just can't be wrong...".
Usually, the problem turns out to be caused by several things at the same time... and they are proven wrong.

Cheers,
MichaelD