Hmmm... ways to get into the 'zone'? I have two phases. Pure creative time and hard editing time. Both are scheduled into what little spare time I have. Both involve me thinking and planning what I will write the moment I have time so I know in advance what's going to come out and when. This saves time when your mind is already prepared for what you need to do when the time comes.
Pure Creative Time
I wait until the house is asleep and my work phones have stopped annoying me. No TV. No internet. No office for serious fiction time.
I find the 'right' music to set the scene and play it very loudly on repeat through headphones (need the house to stay asleep). I dim the lights and switch on the dim lamp beside my chair. I set up my laptop, position myself on the recliner with coffee.
Then I open a Word document and re-set the background colour to something that reflects what I'm writing (black for horror, pale mottled green for fantasy, silver/blue for sci-fi, yellow for non-fiction). I change the font to also reflect what I'm writing (bright red, fat letters for gothic, yellow font for supernatural, green papyrus font for fantasy etc etc).
All of the above gets the zone started and closes out the "outside world" for as long as I'm there.
Then I type hard and fast until I can't keep my eyes open. No editing, no deliberating over the perfect turn of phrase. Just write. Fill in any ambiguous bits with "blah blah...." and figure I'll edit those into proper prose during the edit. Just get the story out and down to The End.
Pass out. Sleep heavily. Go to work the next day with bleary eyes and a sore neck...
Hard Editing Time
Copy the raw creative effort onto a data-stick. Get it onto the mainframe. Sit up in the office at the mainframe computer, change weird backgrounds and fonts to regular white with black Arial font. Edit every word until it's just right.
Close file, leave to simmer for two days. Re-open and re-edit. Find a suitable market. Submit. Enter submission details into tracking spreadsheet.
Start again at step one.
I need more spare time
Lee