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5 Productivity Tips For Developers

5 Productivity Tips For Developers

The performance of a developer is often measured by his productivity. In this post we discuss 5 tips to increase your productivity.

#1: Concentrate On The Process, Not The Results

It sounds a little bit counter-intutiative, but if you want to increase you productivity you should not concentrate too much on your productivity. Instead you should try to concentrate on the work itself. Most developers became developers because they’ve had a lot of passion for software development. However, if you are trying too hard to increase your productivity, your internal motivation will change to external motivation. Then you will loose your passion for work and without passion you cannot be productive.

#2: Do Important Tasks Before They Become Urgent

Many developers have the tendency to do important things not before they are urgent. This is some sort of procrastination and we all know it. But the problem with this behaviour is that it is much more difficult to do a thing well when the deadline is close. So even if there are a lot of small things to do that are urgent but not so important, you should always see the big picture. Identify the important tasks and do they as soon as possible.

#3: Learn Regularly And Achieve Mastery

If you want to be very productive, you have to have a lot of knowledge. Otherwise you don’t know exactly what to do and that wastes a lot of time. So learning is very important to achieve mastery and to be very productive.

The best way to learn is to learn regularly. If you devote just 30 minutes every day to learning, your knowledge will be much bigger after one year. 30 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but I believe that most developers are not learning 3,5 hours every week.

Just get up 30 minutes earlier every day and read a book or listen to an audio book on your way to work. There are a lot of possibilities to learn if you want to.

#4: Focus On One Thing At A Time

Many people pretend that they are good at multitasking, but that’s not true! Our brain can do just one thing at a time and if we are changing the focus, the brain needs some time to focus on the new task.

So instead of trying to do all things at the same time you should have a clear structured todo list. Pick just one point from it at a time and focus on that thing.

#5: Take A Break, If You Are Stuck On A Problem

As a software developer you will face very often problems that are difficult to solve. And sometimes you will spend a lot of time working on that problem without solving it. If that happens, it can be a very good idea to take a break. Leave the room and do something different and don’t think about the problem. If you get back to work, there is a good chance that you will crack the problem.

This holds true even more if you are working long hours. At some point it doesn’t make sense any more to work if you are tired and not concentrated.

References

How To Get Shit Done – The Inner Game of How To Be Productive
How to Be Prolific
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