The problem with these threads is that skill is largely in how you use these tools. It's very hard to communicate techniques with just a list of tools. I have no solution.
As someone who uses Gentoo, Xmonad, Zshell, and Emacs, there's more than enough config code to tweak than there are hours in the day. The happy result is that if I'm stumped, I always know I can pop open a buffer and hack something a bit.
Hell, the alternative to wasting your time in a fully hackable environment is wasting your time on the interwebs.
If you're going to procrastinate, you could do worse than by hacking .emacs. Like Runescape.
When I'm hitting a dead end, I usually find it more helpful to get away from the computer entirely and go for a bike ride, work out, talk to someone, have some fruit, etc., and see the problem with a fresh mind later.