There are a number of things you can do to be more productive. Here are a few that are popular, but not all might work in your environment. Proceed while evaluating: Have a tasklist for work: If you track bugs or tasks (using sw or emails or requests); prioritize your tasks. Start with the most difficult things first... Then do the things you would normally avoid... Then everything else. If something won't get done today, star it, don't reprioritize it. Check back on it periodically. Try to find people who can keep you accountable - a mentor or pm who wants to see things done just as much as you do. Bounce ideas off this person, or report to them (even if it is in an indirect fasion). Things to research come up over the course of a workday... Make a list of those and hit stackoverflow or mdn or similar sites in the morning and read up about concerns you may have. Buy books if you can't find info. Be pro-active. Have fun :)

My $0.02 suggestion.

If emails are not very important I suggest you don't check emails, better stay away from email till afternoon. If you can reschedule meetings to afternoon then you should do that too. The will power meter would be high in the morning. You can devote that for doing your most important creative work. Emails and Meetings in the morning eats away your will power and you'll remain with less energy and will power by the time you start programming.

Do the most important work of the day in the morning. Ask this question when you wake up "What is the ONE Thing I should do today, such that by doing it, everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?"(from the book 'The ONE Thing'). When you ask this you will know what is most important task for the day. Get that done first thing in the morning. You will feel better.

Personally in the morning I do little meditation, list down my 5-6 most important tasks for the day and start doing them. During the work I can use Gmail, Facebook and other social media website for 15 minutes only and they are blocked automatically after that time. I use StayFocusd chrome extension.

Hope this helps :-) .

Try getting to work an hour or two earlier than the meeting people. Yes to the coffee but No to emails and other media until the meeting people begin to stagger into the office. At that point you've accomplished your best work and really shouldn't much care about how "productive" the rest of the day is. Relax and enjoy interacting with your colleagues, both local and remote.

As opposed to other answers here I do not believe that the morning is the most productive time, because that highly depends on the person. I am most productive between 8PM and 2 AM (bad office times).

Since I am not a morning person and you better don't ask demanding things of me in the morning (I am really wizzy in the morning) I do what is not too demanding but still helps me in my job: I read about programming news, patterns, architectural ideas, Hashnode,... It's the time when I try to improve my knowledge. Quite often I can use some of the new ideas I read in the morning later, in the afternoon, when I am more productive.

So I think you really should find out just how much you can do in the morning and try to be as productive as possible!

The morning is usually the most productive time for a person. So, you should concentrate to deliver the most difficult tasks in the morning.

In my case, every day the developers team (3 person at the moment) make a daily meeting to talk about what we did yesterday and what to do today. I think keep in things focussed is important and know what to do during the day at the first hour and not interrupt you during the day.