The zone is something I'm very familiar with and have been aware of for a long time, even before programming. To me, the zone is a product, not only of complex problem-solving, but also, high creativity (but perhaps these are one and the same). By day, I'm an architect (as in physical buildings), and I often find myself in the zone particularly in early design, when thinking very big picture and developing new concepts; asking myself questions like.. - what are the different components of hte project - how do they relate to each other - how do they fit into the existing infrastructure - how does it change the existing - what is the experience of each type of user - how do these experience differ from expectation (good or bad) - how do these new relationships and interactiosn affect the business model

just to name a few... So these are a lot of questions to handle all at once. I find myself asking suprisingly similar questions now that I'm coding/designing. The basic principles of physical space don't differ much from web space. My analogy for this sort of juggling is an image of a person standing one-legged on a ball with a stack of plates on his head and juggling an array of different objects.

When I'm in the zone, my mind is hyper-extended and I tune everything else out. I often won't even answer someone who comes up to speak to me. In college, my mother would call me and I wouldn't answer for hours. She'd get angry and say.. you couldn't spare 5 minutes? 5 minutes means having to drop all the things I'm juggling, fall off the ball and break the stack of plates on my head.

In the most extreme cases, when in the zone for extended periods of time, I've forgone eating and sleeping (no caffeine needed in the zone), without any ill effects until snapping out of zone, which ends in a crash.