[10ren]

Talk to a rubber duck - it's not just for technical problems. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?RubberDucking

I take a walk and observe nature, the smallness of myself and how little control I have over the rest of the world - yet everything keeps going. Go to a cafe, go to the supermarket - even a DVD is good for a change in a sense of place. Making progress on 'unimportant' side-projects is very encouraging. Making progress on little utilities (like bash techniques) is very satisfying, and even marginally justifiable. Make time to do things that you think are really cool. Credit yourself for each little step of progress you do make, by comparing with where you were before that step - you did that! (when focussed on the big, distant goal, it's easy to not notice the progress that we do make. But the journey of 10,000 miles is made of steps.)