Distractions or Part of the Thinking Process?

LISA BELKIN in NYT makes an interesting observation in her article referring to recent studies of the amount of time people "slack off" at work.

There is a point, of course, where distraction becomes blatant slacking off, but I would argue that some percentage of time wasted during work is actually a part of the work. I call it gel time, when a corner of your brain noodles with a problem while the rest of your brain checks the baseball scores or looks for replacement coffee mugs on eBay. In other words, gel time is what you have to do to make you ready to do what you need to do.