> hack your hamster brain and trick it into working harder

If you need to 'hack' and trick yourself into being productive, try find another line of work or just take a break.

I'm not knocking this approach - all of us are wired differently and this method may squeeze another line of code out of an under-stimulated brain - but there's something decidedly anti-'flow' about conditioning sips of coffee around how often you save your code.

Instead something like the Pomodoro method, 5 minutes of play at the end of every 25 minutes of work, might be more effective with less mental overhead: don't trick the hamster. Cede 15% of each hour to him/her while the rest of the time is work.