The 10%'ers seems really low and the 95% from @JanVladimirMostert seems just a bit to high. It's also, context specific IMO. Am i trying to solve for something I've never done before or is it just another day installing Wordpress, building a custom newsletter system or a static page?
Stuff I know how to do / have done dozens of times? 95% probably is spent writing code that'll directly go into production. I may have to google a specific Wordpress function or a CSS property that's escaped me, but that shouldn't take more then moments to remember / find.
Something I don't know how to do? Say... sending a text message via PHP / Twillio ? (which I actually know how to do) If I had to think back to the first time I did that, it was probably 75% writing code and 25% reading the docs.
Learning a new framework? I'd think 0% of the time is on code that'll make it into production until I'm actually comfortable with using the framework in production. But then, you could say, what you learned will eventually make it into production because programming is all about experience. What I learn today may be used for years in production code on various projects. Ie: when I first learned AJS - it was probably 25% of the time, code being written for production and 75% learning. Now (2 years later) it's closer to 90% of the time code being written for production and 10% on a quick search here and there to see if theres a pre-made directive / filter / service to do X or if I have to write my own.
Mario Giambanco
Director of User Experience Development