7a. Write out your mental cache at the end of the day. I always type up a quick todo list (or update the one on the current mental stack). It reduces my boot time in the morning.
there will be bad days. Some days just aren't meant for programming. Do something else those days or you'll cause more harm than good.
+1 I do this every single working day without fail. #7 is excellent too. Ernest Hemingway said:
The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.
I would also add 9a. Understand what was causing the bug once it's fixed. I'd say a key hallmark of a bad engineer is if they are happy with a fix even though they don't understand what the underlying problem was.
