See Work 2.0, an excellent article of the "advice from the trenches" variety penned by Steve Streeting. He's the (former, I hear) lead of the OGRE project; back problems are forcing him to modify his old work habits.
...the first 15 years of my career was much the same as every other enthusiastic developer: you put a ton of hours in. 12-16+ hour days, evening and weekend coding marathons, pizza in the keyboard, crunch times, 3am debugging sessions where you just can’t go to bed because you can feel the source of that bug just beyond your fingertips, dammit, desperate last-minute sprints to deadlines where you manage to slot that last piece in, Jack Bauer-like, just before the world goes to hell.
We call this "flow". I first heard about it from Peopleware back in the day and it sounded great: better concentration, more productivity, less human interaction! For a young programmer what wasn't to like? And yet, as a young programmer, I had about as much say in how the office got run as the water cooler. My attempts at "flow" were perpetually foiled by meetings, phone calls, and chatty neighbors. I got frustrated, believing that things could be better, pushing against the situation instead of learning how to work within it.
Farther along now, I think that flow is not only over-rated, but potentially harmful. Let me qualify that: I find flow to be counterproductive. A quiet work place free from distractions: very good. Getting into a zone and sitting in it for hours: very bad.
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