7 fucking rules for developers to get shit done

I am obsessed about being more productive and believe that everyone should be

Think about the amount of work you generally do in 5 days, what if you can do the same in 3 days. With better quality and without being stressed. I have done this, so can you.
This is what I have observed and many of us would agree, we start a project with enthusiasm but slowly we lose the momentum, we leave things for the last moment and eventually we miss the deadlines.
After many failures, frustration, giving up my smartphone for 6+ months. I was able to fine-tune my productivity. You don't have to go through the drill I have gone through. I have summarized the simple rules we all should follow. This will dramatically change how much we can achieve.

Everyone has same 24 hours, it’s about how you use them.

The 7 fucking rules

1. Know your fucking priorities: If this is your work time, add this article to your “To Read List and leave this post right now. There are tons of important and necessary things you have to do, but you can do only one thing at a time, which one should it be, you’re fully capable of making that right choice if you want to.

2. Be fucking mindful: Be mindful about what you are doing in “The moment”. This is easier said than done, only practice can help. Know that you will lose motivation and momentum at some point of time, you need to be ready to face those moments. There will be moments when a quick break to scroll Facebook endlessly may feel satisfying and harmless, after sometime you wouldn’t even realize how much time you have wasted just on that. Always be fucking mindful about what you’re doing in the present moment. Take a deep breath, be present in the moment.

3. Fucking eliminate interruptions: Block all possible interruptions and distractions during work time. Phone, news, fb, twitter, email, colleagues, blog, reddit, product hunt, game and everything that can possibly ask for your attention even for a moment. Make peace with the fear of missing out.

4. Have a big fucking picture for the day: Have an overview of what you are going to achieve today. Unplanned things will come your way, don’t worry, be like water. When we throw a pebble in the water, it gets disturbed but gets to it’s natural calm again easily.

5. Fucking focus on the first step: Do not fear the overwhelming long to-do lists. Decide your immediate goal and deadline to finish it.

6. Fucking block time for work and break: Divide the time you have in blocks of work-time and break-time. Generally 5 mins break after each 25 mins work can boost your creativity(known as pomodoro technique), you can figure out what suits you the best, if it’s 1 hour work and then 10 mins break, do that then. But do not work for long hours continuously. Leaving work for a break may seem unnecessary initially, it’s not. Having an unplanned break when you’re stuck may seem necessary, it’s not. Have a monk-like focus, be fully available for the task.

7. Fucking pause and think: Even after doing your best you’ll miss some deadlines. Now it’s time to pause and think objectively for a moment 1. Why is it taking time? 2. Can you finish it quickly by giving some extra time? 3. Can you move on to next task without completing this one and adding it to to-do list again? 4. To finish this task, do you need to do extra things e.g. learning a new concept, research or experiments. Can you allot time separately for that? 5. Are you not moving forward because you want to make it perfect? Can this perfectionism wait?

Some might be thinking there’s nothing new here in the article and some might be overwhelmed by the information. It is not about knowing, it's about actually doing it, doing it consistently. If I can do it, I’m sure, you can do it too. Just remember the rules.

When we are having fun like watching a movie, having a party etc. we create a stimulating environment by switching off lights, playing some music and many other things. We don’t make similar efforts for work while that’s what we do during most of our time. There is always a scope to do better.

I can be reached on twitter.
Update: I run a cult of top developers passionate about remote work called Invide. Do check it out and if you want to join this, use referral code: "ThePracticalDev" to speed up the curation process. It's 100% free but screening takes some time to maintain the standards.

Comments

[Bassam Ismail]

s/fucking//ig

[Vincenzo]

yeah, I agree, is completly unecessary to swear in this post...

[Ralf de Kleine]

+1

[Lyon]

The profanity made this article stand out to me today. I don't know what that says about me or society as a whole, but it bumped the article from "I should bookmark that for later" to "I'm going to read this now" (I am aware of the irony when the author says "if this is your work time, bookmark this for later") Thanks for posting Pradeep!

[Ben Sinclair]

I don't know what that says about me or society as a whole

It means you're a great target for clickbait, I expect.

[edA‑qa mort‑ora‑y]

I believe the language is intended to appeal to people that concern themselves over details and worry about too much. It's trying to say how simple these things are, and should just be done.

[Pradeep Sharma]

Bang on!

[Daniel Kassen]

Wouldn't have gotten as much attention without it, I think. Personally, I fucking love it.

[Ben Sinclair]

I tend not to read the content of articles that are using gimmicks or clickbait or edginess to try to get my attention.

[Daniel Kassen]

And yet here you are ;)

[Ben Sinclair]

I didn't read the post... :)

[Arif Cerit]

I fucking love unnecessary swearing!!!

[Líkið Geimfari]

I fucking love peoples which love unnecessary swearing. Cheers!

[rachid el kedmiri]

easier than done, a person with such self-control is more robot than human. we will be like the figure depicted by charlie chaplin in his movie 'les temps modernes' modern times.

[Amy Pellegrini]

Sorry, wanted to +1 this, still I don't understand what's the deal with the little <3 decreasing numbers. Is it a bug?

Every time I click a <3 the number decreases...

[Andy Zhao (he/him)]

Sorry, that's fixed now. Go forth and +1 away!

[Pradeep Sharma]

What?
Don't make it complex buddy!

[Igor Santos]

I sort of thought like that until I got into a downwards ramp of very low productivity and could barely focus ~4h/day of decent work.

[Kristian R.]

Apart from your fucking pointless swearing: There are some things in your article I agree with more and some I do not really agree with at all. Personally, however, I think (7) is most important: Pause. Step back. Think. Reflect. Try to figure out how things work(ed) out for you in the past, try to see where you do better and where you do not so good. And try to improve in small steps. Trying to quickly change "difficult" behaviour in one big step is almost always doomed to fail. ;)

[Pradeep Sharma]

Hi Kristian,
Author here. Thanks for the feedback.
There is almost nothing new in this article, that anyone wouldn't know about. It's just that either people will make it complex and won't have fucking discipline to follow it. I dare everyone to have these rules in front of their eyes during work-time and do their best to follow them for 3-6 months and come back again and tell me if you haven't doubled your productivity. It's easy, it's simple.

About "big change", I think when it comes to "eliminating distraction", you have to take a big step, that worked very well for me. I gave up my smartphone, blocked facebook. I did not feel that focused and relaxed ever before and I'm still alive without the smartphone/fb ;)

Can you please let me know what points you do not agree with? I'd be happy to discuss that.

[Gregor Gonzalez]

I feel related. Really nice list, I was using it when I started to work but now I think It's more important to rest and have a life.

I go to facebook for 5 minutes and try to relax but suddenly I wasted my time.

Some times I turn my cellphone off and avoid to use it in front of my teammates or boss (some people don't like to see you on the cellphone every time)

The swear... It's unnecessary but I always wondered how it will be a series of "WTF is x technology or concept", swearing means frustration example: "WTF is a thread in java?", "WTF JavaScript is so complicated" =)

[Arden de Raaij]

I think the question is; how the fuck do you do all these things without turning into a fucking robot? I was reading 'Getting Things Done' and ended up using a lot of the methodology but never finished the fucking book (Didn't get that fucking done now, did I?). At one point it felt like it told you to turn your entire live into a fucking list and I can't fuck with that. We can't be that fucking productive all the fucking time and every once in a while we need to chill the fuck out!

[Pradeep Sharma]

How the fuck do you do all these things without turning into a fucking robot?

Perspective and Habits

Perspective: The more productive you get, less you have to work, more time you'll have for personal life and growth. We all have certain professional and personal goals and ambitions. Something that's bigger than us. How to not get in the comfort zone without letting those ambitions die? How can we enjoy life and not punish ourselves for pursuing those ambitions? The answer is Habits.

Habits: The choices we make each moment shape up our life, it takes you in the direction of achieving your bigger goals or opposite of that. There are good choices and bad choices. What's good for you, only you can decide. All I encourage you to do is to have a bigger perspective while thinking that.
Your question has an underlying challenge:

The efforts(mental energy & time) one need to invest to make those good choices is too much. Let's call it "Interesting-Challenge".

Let's solve that.
One big difference in a human and robot is: Emotions
Emotions can be good for us or bad.
Example:

• We feel good when we help others
• We feel good when we accomplish a challenging task
• We also feel good while scrolling the fuck out of facebook feed
• We feel good to go on vacation and do that for the rest of life
• We feel bad when we don't achieve our goals, personal & professional both

One open secret about emotion is that it helps us make decisions faster. Developing intuition!
We can utilize this to overcome "Interesting-Challenge". How?
By building habits. You will start developing intuition to make the right choices if you can make a habit to be aware and follow the principles I talk about in the post. It's a framework like Django is a framework for building web apps, this is a framework for productivity. It's upto you whether you prefer Django, Nodejs or start building your own framework today.

[Carles Mata]

Great post! You're fucking right :)

[James Flynn]

Charming

[michaeltd]

Cheers! Profanity is the spice of life, so I for one keep my censoring self at bay...

[Thomas Melville]

Not sure I agree with the swearing but that's beside the point. I completely agree with all your rules. You are in control, make the most of it.
Thank you for sharing