I would love to know what things you do to stay motivated?
Here's a quote from Jim Wendler (5/3/1 workout program) I like quite a bit
"Discipline always trumps motivation. Motivation is about emotion and too many times, we rely on emotion to raise our performance. Unfortunately, this can quickly wear you down and if you aren't motivated, lead to lackluster or missed training sessions.
Discipline doesn't care how you feel, what the weather is or if you've had a bad day. Discipline will carry the strong. Discipline will drive success. Discipline doesn't need a "hype" video or loud music."
If you are having trouble, start small. I got into the habit of making my bed every single day before anything else. Once I built that habit I started applying that to other things, and now I hardly think about it at all.
Take the emotion out of getting stuff done. Also keep hydrated and well rested. It's amazing what proper sleep and being hydrated will do for focus.
I will procrastinate when what I need to do is hard (requires too much effort), when it is too easy, or when there is too much uncertainty involved (worst out of the three).
So personally instead of trying to combat the symptoms with techniques like forced breaks or powering through any urge to do something else, I try to address the causes by taking up appropriate tasks or breaking them down sufficiently.
I note dates when I think of an idea, or when I begin coding them, the reasons for the choice of tools and of general progress. Whenever I feel exhausted/bored or completely disillusioned by anything I'm currently working on, I leave it, I walk away from it. But I make sure I write down my reasons for choosing to leave the work and, most importantly, my emotional state around that decision. I journal as I think.
Many days later, sometimes years, I simply read my journal, paging though and recollecting my thoughts and emotional states. Many times I have found that things have changed in the intervening time such as my workload, improved skills, better understanding of the problem domain, or general state of energy. Many times I have resumed abandoned projects/features to completion.
Good luck!
And only doing tasks which are planned with visibility, which give them meaning to myself or someone else.
Otherwise you are just playing around and may as well be playing the piano or working on your tan, or learning a new framework (some hobby, pick one that applies).
Have a snack and drink, possibly with caffeine.
Clean your desk and keyboard to within an inch of its life.
Work on your sleep hygiene and general health.
Some people can go mad scientist/prolific hacker and work without a list, more power to them. You need a list.
To start, Even smaller items than normal (open text editor, start server, open first file needed, add first interface item if UI, add first Model property, add first function).
You are making progress with each item you knock off, that is a fact.
There is no time for the mind to wander when you need to just knock off the next small item.
You do it and then you can do what you want -- but your mind will probably want another dopamine hit of knocking something off. So you will do another item.
Once you can do the extremely small items, add actual features (or parts of them) to the list. Because now you can handle the small stuff. Now you are where people work. They usually work in sprints of a small list of tasks.
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Your mind is probably wandering because of indecision. Take the decisions out of the process for now by breaking down the task.
Important: items on the list should include real decisions to make (architectural, strategy of something, etc).
The result of those tasks will probably result in adding new items to your list.
Good luck!
I don't drink coffee all that often. I typically drink tea and diet coke, which contain less caffeine.
Perhaps you are overdoing the coffee as just one factor. Too much caffeine interferes with focus.