[notduncansmith]

I find this to be largely true as well. If your team is making an effort, the project management tool's utility is a symptom - it will never be a cause, one way or the other. The only way for me to be productive is to find somewhere relatively quiet (but not silent), get comfortable, and convince myself that working on X is the most productive use of my time right now. Usually opening the editor and firing up the terminal is enough to get me in the swing of things. If playing with whatever I'm working on and finding broken stuff to fix isn't enough to kick-start my brain into problem-solving mode, checking the issue tracker is a good crutch. After the first commit, I can usually start flying. It's all about momentum.