[randallsquared]

In 2003 I worked on the same project and nothing else for about 70 hours a week for 3 months. In absolute terms, I'm a lot more productive now, but given the tools I was using at the time, it was by far the most productive period of my life so far.

Here's what I did:

* I went to a vacation rental * I had someone with me to handle non-code things who would leave me alone to work even though we were in the same 1BR apt * I had a tiny office with one entire wall being a window looking out over city, which was a wonderful combination of low local distraction combined with a broad distance full of things to occupy my surface attention while thinking * I ate only after work, by planning, so that I didn't think about meals or snacks for most of the working day

I did not turn off social media. Well, in those days it was a combo of slashdot and about 10 messaging systems; the problem with actually not checking messages is that I worry about what I'm missing, but if they're on (or I think they are...) and I'm not getting anything, then I don't think about them for hours on end.