- Sharp axe: develop strong health habits, so that you are rested, fit, alert, balanced aware. Consider your work as performance. You need to arrive in good shape.
- Focus: tune out everything around your work that is not your work. Go deeply into it. Stay with it, through flow and discomfort. I am of the opinion that a solid day of work is 4-5 hours of focused time, if you pause the timer when you take a break.
- Mental play/visualization: find the deeper context for your work while not working. Remember the dreams that brought you to it. Ponder the dificult problems at a distance, detached. Interesting solutions and possibilities arise from a non-focused state where the work is in the background.