I'm a writer so I believe my priorities are very similar, but somewhat different than your average hacker: 1. Try to eat breakfast; the reason here is two-fold

I'm a writer so I believe my priorities are very similar, but somewhat different than your average hacker: 1. Try to eat breakfast; the reason here is two-fold, first is that it's good for your metabolism and the second is that it helps if 5. fails. 2. Eat Smart; the brain likes omega-3's but the omega-6's will kill you. 'Healthy' is very different for 'smart', you want foods that help increase your efficiency and concentration, not make you run to the toilet every 5 minutes because you're downing pro-biotic yogurts and bran muffins. 3. Weightless exercises; I'm guessing everyone here has a few extra pounds on them, squats and crunches can be done anywhere and at any time, you don't need to lug around a few 20lb weights to get your sweat on. If you do it frequently it can help boost your metabolism. 4. Get a good sleep routine, being exhausted can kill an entire day of productivity. 5. Avoid alcohol (at least before 5pm), alcoholism seems to be a non-genetic inheritable disease in writers, so try not to have a drink in the morning. Make sure you observe #1, because forgetting #1 and #5 means you're hitting the bed by 11am. 6. relax a little, play games, read some HN, but don't slack off. It's good to keep your stress levels down, not only does it help your creativity and productivity, but you also don't have the urge to break #5. 7. this follows on from #6, but is much more important in the long run, having a day off helps prevent a burn out, AKA writers (coders?) block. 9. Drink tea not coffee. Research shows that coffee can increase stress, decrease work performance and can decrease your confidence in your work. Tea however decreases stress, not only through drinking it but due to the ritual and the time taken to make it (you don't get a tea maker, you get a kettle and have to wait, waiting generally means relaxing). Overall I just try to be productive and hope that in the long run I don't end up an alcoholic like 1/2 of writers.