I first realised the benefits of playing my favourite music to help me focus years ago when I was at university. I would put an album on (see I told you it was years ago), sit back to work on a program, and the next thing I knew was the "click" of the head lifting off the record and the music stopping. I rarely actually heard any of the music.

Today's distractions are far more than just background noise though. As you pointed out there are emails, phone calls, the need to send my troops back out farming NPC's on Evony (oops - scratch that...) and far more.

It's a constant battle to try and focus, but I agree with you that sometimes it's better to get some of the smaller jobs out of the way. If you have 10 things to achieve, 8 of them are quick fixes and 2 are going to take hours, I much prefer to get the 8 quick tasks out of the way, then I can focus on the major tasks. That is of course unless another 8 minor ones come along, which happens too often...

How to do lists, not To Do Lists at the end not the the start

Excuse the heading, I note what needs to be done at the end of the day, either on the train home or away from the computer. I need my mornings to focus and I find if I spend time, like Nathan says, planning whilst in front of the geek machine it doesn't get me into the code-flow.

It is also important to write lists of solutions not problems, even if the solution is simiply "Test something as a unit" rather that "This is broken". It is a GSD (get shit done) advice, note the way to solve something! Its about pumping the positives and not getting caught in the negatives.

Paper not screen

If you are stuck, contrainted by time and tired! Get away from the geek machine. Walk and use paper to write down a mass of ideas to solve - even if they are way off the simplest solution. There are techiques in creative problem solving which relie on a non-judgemental mind. Paper is great for a collection of brain storming ideas and disjointed flow, it connects a different part of your mind.

Thanks mate, I get back to work now!

I've been in a funks before and always get myself out by

subconsciously applying many of the principles you listed. I've learned through

hard experience that the advice you write is true. Sometimes you just need to
program to get yourself in the mood to "Program", i.e. create quality software.

I want to add that testing, debugging, documentation, research and various other

design and organizational problems can be the death knell for a programmer if he

is running on empty. By simply letting programmers do what they love and get into

the mood, you can generate energy for the essential non-programming ( read:

BORING, difficult/tedious non-technical tasks).

What's interesting about this advice of "just program", a.k.a. Cowboy Coding is

that it seems to contradict modern iterative software development paradigms.

AGILE, Documentation/Feature/Test driven development,
XP,
SCRUM,
etc..

All of These models put emphasis on many non programming related tasks. Testing,

debugging, documentation, people interaction (client review, client feature

requests/change/management); and all of these models condemn programming that

isn't apart of their carefully laid development method.
What this means is the
programmer is no longer a programmer, he is now a software engineer.

The skills of a software engineer is vast. He must multitask between various

interdisciplinary skills. He must be a manager, a team leader, a customer service

representitive, a businessman and on top of this he must be a master programmer.

It's easy to see how programmers can quickly lose interst and fail to get

motivated in their projects. That's why it's so critical to let programmers just

program some days. I'm not sure the advice of "Program on your project no matter

what" is good here, because in a team enivornment I don't see how cowboy coding

can fit in. Maybe you can explain to me how a programmer could just do his own

thing in one of these development paradigms?

It's hard to say becuase I often have those times where you would rather be doing something else than coding a project you don't enjoy much.

I find this acts like exactly like a reset button. It disturbs my PA though!

I take a shower when I'm in need of some focus. Relaxes me, makes it easier to get into my zone. Coupled with music, it's a solid 1-2.