Indeed, it is amazing how many 'soft' things surrounding the software can be improved without requiring to 'get into the zone' as a developer. Of course, you also need to do the actual work and not get bogged down in these peripheral tasks.
It's unusual these days that I just grab a feature or a hotfix and knock it out - generally only the ones too big and scary for anyone else to handle, and my guys are good enough that those are pretty rare.