Ask HN: My brain refuses to think, what should I do?

All it took was to start keeping a log book. Any time I get something new to do (e.g. new feature, bug fix), I write it down, prefixed with "TODO" and highlight it to make it easy to spot as I flick through the book looking for unfinished tasks. Any time I solve a problem, I write down what the problem was, why it was happening, and how I solved it.

Having the book next to my keyboard serves as a constant reminder of what I should be working on, and that really helps to focus whenever I get the temptation to open my browser and get distracted. Keeping a record of how I solve problems always has a chance of being useful in the future, but it's incredibly rewarding (and therefore motivating) to see the pages fill up each day. It's just a nice, quick visual indicator of progress.

Some suggestions that sometimes work for me:

Get enough sleep (though, sometimes I find that lack of sleep, to a point, can help with focus, especially if paired with loud music).

Cut down on the caffeine.

Segment your time. Specifically allocate blocks of time to do something totally unrelated to work (see a movie, read some mindless fiction, whatever you like to do for fun). Make an effort not to think about your work projects during those periods.

Exercise and/or meditate.

Train yourself to be mindful of what you are doing, so that you catch yourself when you switch from work to some distracter.

When you sit down to work, use a timer to set how long (at a minimum) you will stay on task. When you feel yourself starting to drift during that time, close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing for a minute or so, then back to work.

If all else fails, you can try psychotherapy, but shop around for a therapist who specializes in this sort of disorder (adult ADHD would be one way to classify it). The person you visit will probably try to prescribe some drug as treatment. From my experience (long ago), Ritalin really really worked as a focus-enhancer -- perhaps too well, in some ways -- though the side-effects were unpleasant enough not to want to use it for very long periods.

Every programmer has trouble sitting down to code at certain times.

You say that when you are not at your computer you think about how to code it. Why not keep a paper notebook with you and write down how you think you are going to code it? Or keep a laptop with you and boot it up and start coding when you get excited thinking about it?

Later on, when you want to jump start your programming process, read through the notebook and let yourself get into the mental state you were in when you were excited about it. (Also, unplug the internet).

In my experience, coding isn't as easy as 'making' yourself code (unless you are typing boilerplate or doing copy/paste coding).

You have to either take advantage of the times that you are excited and want to code, or you have to coax yourself into that mental state.

It is just like creative writing. Most good writers do not sit at a desk with a blank piece of paper and just start writing. They make notebooks and journals and they write down ideas as they come. Later when they do have to write, they have all of these cues to start the creative process.

For me, at least, this is roughly equivalent to "writer's block," so you may want to read some literature on that.

(first off of google: http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/acadwrite/block.html)

To say 'you're burned-out' and to say that 'you need a break' combined with the statement that his gf keeps him from being burned-out half the year indicates a use of the term burn-out that does a dis-service to both those that are really burned out (because someone might read this and think that his friend that is really burned out needs a break whereas in fact what he needs is a radical change of career path or professional help to avoid worse) and to those that will pick this up and think that they are burned out, when in fact all they need is a break or a change of scene.

To me the OP does not sound burned out but has reached a phase in his work where the normal tricks of the trade aren't enough to put him back on a productive path.

Compare that with the symptoms listed for burn-out in the wp article and see if you can match them up, it's a lot less fuzzy than you imply and from what I know about the subject once you are burned out you are not going to cure it easily and permanently.