How to Optimize Your Productivity as a Software Developer

Are you always frustrated when you try to get some work done but then you frequently get distracted, whether it’s a phone call or a message from a friend or an email?

Here is a list of tips that I have used and found very helpful in optimizing my productivity and I hope it works for you too.

1. Minimize distractions

Software developers work on so many complex problems in their everyday activities that require a bunch of tools, coding platforms, online resources, and apps that require understanding.

They need to stay focused and pay attention to code and to solve complex problems, If they are interrupted, it will be hard to get back in the grove and it could take around 15–20 minutes to regain that focus.

When you’re working turn off all the notifications from your desktop, mobile phones, or other gadgets. It just hinders your focus and decreases your overall productivity. You can take the help of some apps or extensions to limit your time on certain sites or you can also block the websites.

Try to minimize the tabs or windows open in your browser, the more windows, and tabs you have open, the more distractions you’ll have, which could increase the chances of errors in your code.

2. Time management

Time management helps you prioritize your tasks so that you ensure you have enough time available to complete every project. Spend some time thinking about how you work best. Do you prefer taking short sprints or long stretches of time to complete a project? Work out what works for you and organize your time from there.

Personally, what I utilize for time management is the Pomodoro Technique, The technique is used to encourage people to work with the time they have rather than against it, The aim of the technique is to reduce the impact of interruptions in your workflow.

3. Use scrum

Scrum is an agile development framework that helps teams work together and focuses on making the most out of complex coding projects. It is extensively used in the IT industry and it’s based on sprints and constant planning, rather than having a single, long milestone.

It can be applied to any project that has complex requirements, aggressive deadlines, and a generous amount of uniqueness. Its benefits and ease of use explain why many organizations adopt it.

4. Take full advantage of automation

With the vast variety of tools available these days, leverage the power of automation. Automation is the future, It helps you to focus on the bigger tasks by taking care of the monotonous ones for instance if you need to push small code changes, frequently to a repository and test each code change, This task can be automated by using Continuous Integration and Continuous Development CI/CD for more information on this you can check out this article.

5. Spend more time thinking than coding

Don’t jump straight into writing code without first properly exploring what you are doing and how you can solve it. Always try to keep things simple, spend extra few minutes coming up with simpler solutions to the coding problems you are trying to solve, This helps you with other aspects of productivity like writing clearer code, as well as improving the quality and scalability of your code.

Conclusion

The reality is there is so much advice out there on how to increase productivity, Everyone wants to be productive and get as much done as possible. There is actually no secret to productivity you just need to put in the work, dedicate the needed time and space where you can focus on one specific thing at a time without distractions and that’s all you need to accomplish your goal.