First day back after vacation... always hectic.  This week is even worse, as it is the confluence of both a number of regularly scheduled monthly meetings and we have multiple visitors from external teams coming in this week for meetings about the project.  It's definitely going to be a week with a pretty low amount of actual time at keyboard.

A few years ago, I found weeks like that very frustrating, as I measured my productivity in the most direct way possible, in terms of the bugs fixed, systems built, and features added to the game.  There would typically be a direct correlation between time at keyboard and the quantity of that coding contribution.  But as I've gotten more involved as someone who is not just a programmer, but responsible for coordinating and planning project issues (primarily programming), I've had to make a shift in that mindset.

Now I try to best measure the productivity of the team as a whole... as long as my fellow programmers on the team are cranking away then I consider that we are in the "green" state and things are good.  Helping remove obstacles, promote coordination, and do longer term planning is just the stuff I do to try and keep us in that state for as long as possible. 

Of course, I still really enjoy my actual time at keyboard.  For every week like this one there is usually a week where we are all heads down and hammering away at our tasks.  Programming is something I deeply enjoy, and I think I'd be worse off if I moved away from it entirely.  So now the real trick is making sure I don't put myself on the critical path, but that I stay flexible and can take on all the annoying tasks that otherwise would fall through the cracks.