I think one of the key skills required to be a good programmer is the ability to understand and work with abstract concepts. There is probably even some kind of

I think one of the key skills required to be a good programmer is the ability to understand and work with abstract concepts. There is probably even some kind of lower bound (if such a thing can be measured) below which one cannot program at all. I spent a lot of my formative years studying mathematics and playing chess (amongst other games) and I believe these activities helped to sharpen my ability to work with abstract concepts. Spending time doing this may not necessarily work for you - particularly if you lack the passion for those things to be able to really study hard. But anything which could be considered "deliberate practice"[1] in the craft of thinking about problems will likely help you program better. This includes reading and writing a lot of code. [1] http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=deliberate+practice http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=deliberate+practice