But, personal productivity (i.e., getting the most done that _you_ possibly can) pretty much begins and ends with motivation. Motivation is the engine that gets you places.

This is very true if you look only at yourself. Still, one of the points of my post is that personal productivity is sometimes not as important as productivity of the team. It can even hamper the productivity of the team. In retrospective, I have often been most "productive" (at least from the viewpoint of my clients or employers) when I had a very low personal productivity (at least I perceived it this way).

Hacking away at the editor is no substitute for thinking.

Personal musing: I find it somehow funny to read that "opening the editor" for some people apparently is an act that needs some special effort. Maybe they use the wrong editor ... *my* editor is open all day ... how could I read mail or do anything else without it ;-) ? ... (see this recent discussion in gnu.emacs.help about how often people fire up their favourite editor).

Christian Lemburg
Brainbench MVP for Perl
http://www.brainbench.com