The first question I need to put out there is: are you bored or simply burnt out? This can often masquerade as an inability to concentrate. Fact is, if you like

The first question I need to put out there is: are you bored or simply burnt out? This can often masquerade as an inability to concentrate. Fact is, if you like what you do it's a lot easier to just do it. That being said, many (most?) people benefit (or even need) a relatively distraction-free environment. This means no TV near your computer (particularly relevant if you work from home), stopping distractions from other people and can go so far as cutting yourself off from HN and other prime sources of distraction (there are various programs, plugins and extensions for this kind of thing). As for distractions from other people, this can take many forms. If you work from home, it means saying that certain time blocks are for work and you're not to be disturbed. It's easy for other people to fall into a pattern where they'll ask you for stuff or to do stuff simply because you're there. In my case I can't stand people walking around me, particularly behind me. I position my monitors such that I don't really see people walking by and, where possible, position my desk such that no one walks behind me. If that's not possible, I at least ensure I don't have a thoroughfare behind me. Other people can distract you by asking things they could easily find out themselves. Joel Spolsky talked about this [1] as a reason for giving engineers private offices. It's too easy to ask a colleague "where is X?" when you could find it in 30 seconds thus crashing them out of "the zone". Headphones help a lot here. Some people are distracted by music. Many will argue they're not. Testing indicates otherwise [2]. Still I find the right music with its distractions, at least for me, tends to trump the distractions of other people so it's still a win. People tend to bother you less when you're wearing headphones (it's a psychological barrier). There's also a certain "fake it til you make it" aspect here too, which is another way of saying that your inability to focus is the sum of many behaviours. You probably have many bad habits and you need to change them one at a time. Blocking distractions like HN, reddit, etc is one way of doing this. Another is, well, just grinning and bearing it. This can take you far but could lead to burnout. Part of this is attitude though. If you're stuck doing something uninteresting (or simply an uninteresting phase of something otherwise interesting) finding little challenges and measurable milestones in that can go a long way. [1]: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html [2]: http://www.quora.com/Does-listening-to-music-while-programming-really-increase-a-programmers-performance http://www.quora.com/Does-listening-to-music-while-programmi...