A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating. You're there now doing the thing on paper. You're not killing the goose, you're just producing an egg. So I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working. I have never had the problem of a writing block. I've heard about it. I've felt reluctant to write on some days, for whole weeks, or sometimes even longer. I'd much rather go fishing. for example. or go sharpen pencils, or go swimming, or what not. But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, 'Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write.' There's no difference on paper between the two.
One of the most effective things you can do is become a virtual smoker. Smokers get an urge and step out for a cigarette every hour - or every time they get stuck.
I don't smoke (never have) but I am trying to emulate that; the most effective way to solve a problem is to step out and do nothing for about 5 minutes. Take a walk. Look at the trees. Anything. Then when I come back I have either solved the problem or decided to leave it with a hacked together patch and work on something else; Ill probably still resolve the hack sometime later.
The opposite is to seek out some distraction, click around on facebook or HN or something - you solve nothing but spend lots of time....
I do this by going to the water cooler for a refill. I use a small cup, so I go every hour or so. I usually take the slow way there, and think about my work on the way.
Before I started working from home I would sometimes get up and pace. Fortunately we had an empty part of the building where I didn't disturb people. I felt a little self-conscious about it at first, but being eccentric is sort of fun. :-)
Absolutely. I have been working remotely for many years, with a brief stop in a couple of offices 2-3 years back. I've found that a break of a day or a few can do wonders. Don't push yourself too hard, it's not efficient. Being critical of your output without going overboard and in to the stress-zone is a hard balance to find, but gets easier over time. Another thing: when I was younger I could push myself on financial grounds; now when I lack the spark for implementation I instead push myself on integrity grounds. Not sure if anyone else has this experience? I for one still really enjoy my work.
Writing code when you know you dont have a solution is a complete waste of time. You end up with bad code you have to throw away. Or worse, you dont throw it away and end up with huge tail end costs of user errors, QA time, futile attempts to fix the rotten, and eventually rewriting the whole thing anyway.
Throwing away code should be a regular part of your workflow. The best programmers I know do it often.
Programming isn't just about generating more lines of code. It's about understanding the problem you're working on. Sometimes writing code is a good way to understand the problem.
--Frank Herbert