Do not worry, this will not be another article telling you to wake up at 4am to be more productive or to shout "I am a winner" in front of the mirror...
Here I want to share some concrete habits that I transformed into a daily routine and that helped me to improve as developer.
As for any project, I started with one task and kept repeating it everyday. With time, this became familiar, almost automatic. I then combined new practices and consolidated them into the following points:
Answer at least one question on Stack Overflow per day. It is easier if you concentrate on the topic you are currently working on or you are already familiar with. This will not only help other developers in overcoming their issues, but it will also push you to really understand the subject in order to explain it to others. You will research the topic and learn new aspects about it in the process.
Don't skip a task on the Todo board simply because you are unfamiliar with that part of code or it is hard to implement.
This is not exactly a daily routine, but anyway something I keep doing it at least once per Sprint.
We learn from challenges, therefore don't be scared to fail, you can always ask a colleague to program some parts with you.
This article underlines the benefits of pair programming and also mentions its potential risks.
Be always curious and eager to learn. There are so many things we do not know. Especially in web development, it is almost impossible to stay up to date with the latest trends, frameworks and best practices.
However, while making researches on internet, if I bump on a new interesting topic - for instance, today it was "Progressive Web Apps in multi origin sites", as I am passionate about PWAs - I look up its documentation for more details and create a bookmark to read it later during my next coffee break.
👉 Even though it can be convenient, I refrain from printing the articles. As technologies evolve quickly, you would end up with a bunch of obsolete material and wasted paper. A fresh search with the proper keywords would ensure you always the most up to date information 🌳 ❤️ 🌲
Always write down your ideas. 💡 I am currently working at three different personal projects and with a full time job, I cannot invest time in each of them.
Nevertheless, whenever I get a new idea that could be translated into a cool feature, I write it down on Evernote, on a classic paper block-note (this works the best for me if I have to quickly add a diagram or schema to my notes) or email myself the details.
It doesn't matter which media or program you choose, it just have to be practical and fast, since you do not want your ideas to fade away by the time you start putting them down...
These points are working for me. You can start integrating one of them into your daily routine and benefit from it.
Do you have similar habits that you practice at work? Share them in a comment below 👍
Top comments (15)
Great points, thanks; being productive is something I'm constantly fighting for: against youtube, HN, reddit, twitter... 😅
Whenever I'm feeling unproductive, I try to write down exactly what I'm feeling, and why my mind is trying to skip the work I have to do. It doesn't always work, but I often find that I'm able to get back on task after just writing down why I'm trying to sidetrack myself.
I also like your point about doing at least one productive thing everyday, and developing a habit out of that. Recently, I've been trying to produce at least one quick code tutorial everyday; and that's been working pretty well... but it's still a struggle!
Creating a code tutorial a day (no matter how quick) is a great challenge!! You have all my admiration.
It takes a lot of energy and determination to find an interesting topic and then code a practical example out of it!
Yeah, it's often a challenge 😅 But it keeps me learning all the time.
Example: my latest round has been all about React hooks; and I chose hooks, because I wanted to get better at them myself. And it's definitely worked: I can now say that I know hooks pretty well, and all because I had to force myself to learn them in order to teach them. It's a great "hack"!
That's great! I started learning React since a couple of weeks (currently I work with Angular). After some initial conflicts (aka JSX 😂) I started liking it's way of writing, very close to vanilla JS.
I will definitely read your posts about React, please keep writing!!
This is so true, when we help other people and cooperate open source projects we learn a lot by doing that!
For instance if we do it everyday and answer 1 question on stack overflow and making this job consistent, after 1 year we have answered up to 300 questions and that's awesome.
Great tips! I've set up a series of Google Keep notes for several different categories. These include front-end ideas, movies to watch / books to read, app ideas, game ideas, blog post ideas and last but not least technologies to learn in the current year.
Some of these also work great as paper-based checklists that I keep displayed in my flat, but regardless of what it is, making lists like these helped me get my ideas together!
Cool! I think it is always good to keep track of our intuitions/ideas, even if we do not have time at that moment.
Google Keep notes is indeed another very valuable resource! I will try it next time too, thanks for sharing!
Another Thing I Find Helpful Is Scheduling The 'Burnout'. I Find It Ruins My Habits If I Go At Them, But Then Get Worn Out. My Solution Is To Make The Wear Itself Regular. Schedule A Daily Meditation, Or A Weekly Zero Productivity Day. This Helps Me Maintain Consistency And Keep The Train Chugging On.
It is indeed important to decompress from time To time in order to break down under stress and pressure.
Do you have regular days scheduled or do you plan a relaxing day only when you feel the need?
Nice post!!
I like to use a pomodoro extension in chrome to help me manage time at work.
I used a Chrome Extension implementing the pomodoro technique for some time.
However I found it strange having to take a break after 10 minutes, when eventually I was just right in the middle of implementing an algorithm.
I think it is a valuable instrument, but for me unfortunately it did not work well.
hehe, you can change the amount of time with this one
chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/...
If you want to try. It helps me a lot.
:)
I will give it a try tomorrow morning, trying to find the best tune with my working times, but still within the Pomodoro technique principles. Thanks for the hint.
consistency is what is hard to achieve
It needs good will and training. It might be hard at the beginning, therefore I suggest to start with a simple or small task and try to keep it up with it. With time that task will become a natural part of our day life, therefore the "cost" of maintaining it constant will be low or null.
The most critical part is the first two weeks, in my opinion. But then, as soon as you can see the benefits, it should get easier.