DEV Community

Cover image for 7 Easy Hacks for Developers to become a Productivity Jedi ⚡️
Tapajyoti Bose
Tapajyoti Bose

Posted on • Edited on

7 Easy Hacks for Developers to become a Productivity Jedi ⚡️

Everyone wants to get a lot done while putting in the least amount of effort. This article contains 7 such tried & tested hacks that will help you achieve more while working less!

1. Don't Memorize Google-able info!🔎

We live in a world of abundant information, and most questions can be answered within 1 minute using Google, so there is no point in trying to memorize everything.

The only things you should be learning by heart are the core concepts of programming, without which you would not know what you don't know.

Eg: If you are trying to repeatedly search for elements, knowing a hash list will result in blazing fast searches that will help you a lot. How to actually use a hash list varies from language to language, but can easily be looked up on Google

hash_list = set(our_list)

for search_element in search_list:
    if search_element in hash_list:
        pass # handle element
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

2. Use Time Boxing ⌛

Time Boxing is the technique of blocking out & allocating time to a specific task. This allows you to do deep work. Just remember to keep your phone on silent before you start working.

8:30 --> 9:00
Emails & Catch up on Slack

9:00 --> 13:00
Working on XYZ project

13:00 --> 14:00
Lunch and break

14:00 --> 15:00
Team meeting

15:00 --> 16:30
Working on XYZ project
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

3. Eat the damn Frog! 🐸

If it's your job to eat the frog, best to do it first thing in the morning. If you have to eat two frogs, start with the larger one.

Let's be honest, nobody likes eating frogs, even metaphorical ones. But getting the hard tasks on your to-do done early in the day has a huge advantage: you trade the feeling of being someone who can't get things done (that slowly eats away your soul), for an acute pain of action followed by incredible pride later in the day!

4. Use Biology to your Advantage! 📈

The energy levels vary throughout the day. Take a few days to document your energy levels hour by hour and create a schedule suited to your body.

The results of working with your body instead of against it, will astounding for most people & the productivity will simply go through the roof!

super productive

5. Stay DRY! 🏜️

The DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) principle is one of the core principles of Programming. It advocates saving time by reusing and recycling work you’ve already done.

Repetition is by its nature inefficient. The DRY Principle encourages you to create workflows and templates to minimize them. The true power of this method comes from the fact, that it is not restricted only to coding, but can be applied to emails, automating your card payments, and much more!

6. Forget Multi-Tasking! 🤹

Research states around two percent of people can multitask effectively. How everyone believes that they are the mythical two percenter is mind-boggling.

While multi-tasking you are not truly handling multiple tasks at the same time, you are actually constantly switching between multiple tasks, missing out on deep work, and effectively doing a mediocre job at all of them.

7. Make the Chain Longer! 🔗

The “Don't Break The Chain” method commits you to complete a daily goal for an extended period. Each day that you complete your daily goal, you add an ❌ to a calendar.

chain

The first few days of commitment are usually the hardest – but your motivation to make a change pulls you through.

As the chain grows longer, not breaking your streak becomes the priority that pulls you through the times when you want to quit, resulting in life-changing improvements!

Wrap Up

That's all folks! Now you have the tools in your arsenal to become a productivity god!

The world is up for your taking!

Finding personal finance too intimidating? Checkout my Instagram to become a Dollar Ninja

Thanks for reading

Need a Top Rated Front-End Development Freelancer to chop away your development woes? Contact me on Upwork

Want to see what I am working on? Check out my Personal Website and GitHub

Want to connect? Reach out to me on LinkedIn

I am a freelancer who will start off as a Digital Nomad in mid-2022. Want to catch the journey? Follow me on Instagram

Follow my blogs for Weekly new Tidbits on Dev

FAQ

These are a few commonly asked questions I get. So, I hope this FAQ section solves your issues.

  1. I am a beginner, how should I learn Front-End Web Dev?
    Look into the following articles:

    1. Front End Development Roadmap
    2. Front End Project Ideas

Top comments (0)