Timeboxing worked well for me. Find a time that works five or six days a week and put it on your calendar. The length of time matters less than doing something every day. Then, figure out when works for you—starting or ending your day. You can slip in 30 minutes over lunch. Either way, the goal is to build a new muscle while forming a better habit.
I also don't beat myself up if I only get 15 minutes to create new issues, research, or clean up a confusing area of the code. Those small daily chunks add up over time, and they help build some clarity on what you should be focusing on.
As a parent, kids made it easier for me to focus. Kids don't care if you are in the flow or not, which made me realize flow is mostly bullshit. They also gave me an excuse to be home more and not feel like I needed to be at every social function. Kids also sleep pretty early, giving me a nice block of time at night to work on anything I want. I'm not saying, "have kids to be more productive," but as someone with kids, it's easy to make up excuses when I didn't have kids for why I couldn't focus or why I wasn't making time for it.
Timeboxing worked well for me. Find a time that works five or six days a week and put it on your calendar. The length of time matters less than doing something every day. Then, figure out when works for you—starting or ending your day. You can slip in 30 minutes over lunch. Either way, the goal is to build a new muscle while forming a better habit.
I also don't beat myself up if I only get 15 minutes to create new issues, research, or clean up a confusing area of the code. Those small daily chunks add up over time, and they help build some clarity on what you should be focusing on.
As a parent, kids made it easier for me to focus. Kids don't care if you are in the flow or not, which made me realize flow is mostly bullshit. They also gave me an excuse to be home more and not feel like I needed to be at every social function. Kids also sleep pretty early, giving me a nice block of time at night to work on anything I want. I'm not saying, "have kids to be more productive," but as someone with kids, it's easy to make up excuses when I didn't have kids for why I couldn't focus or why I wasn't making time for it.