Essential Habits for Software Developers: Practical Steps for Long-Term Success

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer podcast, where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back. We are here building better developers with AI. We are spending this season taking a prior season and we are basically pushing our prior episode topics through AI and seeing what comes out. So far it's been really good. I don't want to spoil what's coming ahead. So first I will introduce myself. My name is Rob Brodhead, happen to be one of the founders of Developing or Building Better Developers. I am also a founder of RB Consulting where we help you wrangle technology. If you have that technology sprawl that everybody is like starting to get used to, you have that technology junk drawer that needs to be cleaned up. We sit down with you. We talk about your business, not your technology, but your business. What is it that you are trying to do? What is your why? What is your secret sauce? We craft a special recipe just for you. Take that technology and the technology that's out there because sometimes you don't even know what's available. But we do because we've spent decades over three, even though we're so young, over three decades in technology, learning how it works, learning what's out there, learning what works for our customers, whether they're big or small. And then we help you craft a roadmap going forward. We can hand that off to you and you guys can go forward or we can help you implement it, whether it's building a team, adding technology, RFPs, you name it. We start with that technology assessment and then we go from there based on what you are served best by. Good thing, bad thing for this week. Good thing is sunshine. I love sunshine. I left the north of the U.S. Chicago. I'm not going to name names, but I just did because it's too cold and too dark for like eight months out of the year. And I came to a sunnier part of the world. Great. I feel better. I'm getting my vitamin C, D, whatever, all E, F, Z, all of those. Yes, I'm not a biology major, but getting all that good stuff out of the sunshine, it makes me happy, brings me joy. The bad thing is it is freaking hot out there. And I'm one of these people that if you put put me in a room that's hot like seventy five or seventy six degrees, I will sweat. You put me in 90 to 95 degrees in like, you know, in a 99 percent humidity. It drives me nuts. I am like dripping water. And that is the bad thing right now. But you know what? I will take it because it is actually pretty nice. Also what I will take because he drives me nuts, but he's not that bad a guy is Michael. So go ahead and introduce yourself. Hey, everyone. My name is Michael Molloch. I'm one of the co-founders of developer building better developers. I'm also the founder of Envision QA, where if you're a passionate entrepreneur or business looking for help with software solutions, we recognize your desire for a reliable, high performing solution that sets you apart from the competitors. We offer tailored software and quality assurance solutions to optimize the performance and reliability of your e-commerce platform, pitch your flawless user experience, increase sales and the competitive edge in the market. Now it's hard going after Rob because a lot of times I just want to say ditto. But anyway, good and bad. Good and bad this week. The good couple of weeks ago, there was a lot of like good previews online for upcoming software releases, video games, things of that nature. Bad. I have no time to play any of them. It's like there's so many cool things coming out. It's like, oh, I want to play that. I want to play that. I want to play that. I want to play it. I'm like, I don't have time. I don't have time to think about my thinking. So it's like, OK, which one of the three and when are they coming out? It's like, cool. This year, my wife might actually have a chance to buy me a Christmas present because I will not have a chance to buy it for myself before the end of the year, unless it happens to be a switch to if I can happen to find one between now and then, because I doubt she would. Back to you. Yes. Switch to a geek out for a second. Switch to is on my list. I'm going to get one for my wife first because she has zero switches, which is probably why she's such a sad individual. If she had just one, she would be a happier person. But I go ahead as soon as I can get her on. Yes. Smack upside the head. Try to get her one if I can. She's choking me now. I said, don't buy used. Oh, definitely. I know apparently is brick those. So be careful with that. Yeah, they've they've taken a very that's a whole nother topic, a whole nother world. Maybe we'll talk about that like in Thanksgiving or Christmas episodes. Nintendo took a really interesting stance on the switch to release, which has been very interesting. Anyways, we'd love to get one. Get one for my wife first. I am just waiting for. I know I'm probably the only person that does this, but oblivion, the like new release on the Steam Deck is still driving me nuts. Sometimes it crashes sometimes, like as soon as I do a quick travel to somewhere, it's like, no, you're not going to do that. And the heat that pours off of that is phenomenal. OK, geek mode off. Let's get back to our topic for this episode because we need to actually get back to building better developers and not gamers. OK, so this episode, I asked them. What about essential habits for software developers boosting productivity and career growth? And of course, because GPT loves me, chat GPT said great choice for your development or podcast. And this is what it gave me. OK, first, it actually gave me a core message. I don't think I've had this one before. Court message. Success as a developer isn't just about what you know, it's about what you consistently do. The right habits compound over time into productivity, expertise and opportunities. Oh my gosh, that is so much the message that we have built for almost a decade now. So. So. Shush, shush. I want to finish. I thought it was you. See I told you we're like an old married couple. We talk about momentum. We talk about the like just do a little bit every day. That message is so much about consistently doing every day. And now I'm going to pass it to my partner who apparently has something to say. I'm going to have you reiterate that a little bit slower so that everyone could hear you because you went through that very quickly. Wow. My wife just said, OK, I'm just kidding. Success. I'm going to go. I'm going to go very slow. Because this is really important. Success as a developer isn't just about what you know, it's about what you consistently do. The right habits compound over time into productivity, expertise and opportunities. This is the core of the developer book. It is about you will stay every day in your job learning stuff, making progress. You don't have to spend hours and hours and hours. Just a little bit every day moves you forward and eventually that journey of a thousand miles when you do it a step at a time, you eventually get there. All right. Now I'll take on to that. So building better habits, the core of this. If you do something for more than 10 days, repetitively, it becomes a habit. If you do. Well, I know. But I find that if you force yourself to do a task daily for at least 10 days, almost a week and a half, it generally you'll pick it up and it becomes a habit. There's good and bad of that. You can pick up bad habits during that. While you're trying to do a good habit, you could pick up a bad habit. So habits are habitual, but be by the nature of habit. But one of the things that I'm very conscious of, and I've talked about this a lot, is make sure you make lists. Write down, write down what it is you want to do in a day. Get it done. If you're not getting it done, you have a bad habit. You have a habit of saying, I'm going to do this and not do it. The question is why you need to ask yourself, why are you not doing it? Are you not doing it because what you're writing on your little notepad, your little sheet here is not what's important. Are you putting. Are you putting being are you putting busy tasks ahead of important tasks? And that is the key distinction here. Make sure that what you're working on, what habits you want to build are focused on the things that keep the dial moving that are really what it is you need to accomplish, not what you need to do to make it look like you're being busy and you're accomplishing things. All right. So first off, for those of you that are watching the YouTube channel, you saw me going, no, it's not 10 days. It's actually I've heard it's 21 days. And then I've heard speakers that are habit experts that say it's actually more than that. I the key is and I can't remember who told me this or didn't tell me this specifically, but I heard a speaker that they said the key is not that you miss a day, it's that you don't miss two days in a row. And I want to say it's the atomic habits guy. I'm not sure who it is, but that's the key is to build momentum. If you miss a day, it's not going to kill you. If you miss two days in a row, you will lose momentum. That is the key. I'm going to jump ahead to a couple, but I do want to come back to this because I think this is so, so important. So the first thing is suggested. We didn't even get to the first topic was daily coding discipline. Habit, write a review code every day, even for 30 minutes. Why it matters. Keeps skills sharp, builds muscle memory, reduces mental cold starts. How to do it. Many challenges, open source contributions or small side project sprints. Pro trip, track coding streaks or use a developer journal to stay consistent. This is so much. I will give you a second. This is so much what we preach. This is why we do the 15 minutes of learning and stuff like that, that we do. This is something that has been such an incredible benefit to me in particular, as a developer, I'm going to throw this out and I'm going to let Michael actually talk because I've been cutting them off for so long. Um, this is so important to do with the technologies that you're not actually working on. So if you are sitting in a Java developer job, but you want to keep your Python skills sharp, have a side project that is Python development, or likewise, if you are in a C sharp job and you don't want to lose your job, your C sharp will be kept sharp for no pun intended through your day job, but you need to make sure that you're still keeping current and it's not even current, but just not letting rust build on the Java side of it. And I'm going to go ahead and throw it right to you. All right. Plain and simple. You're a developer. There are code repositories at the end of the day, whatever you're working on, you need to commit to your code repository. Take five minutes. Go look at GitHub, whatever, create a temporary PR. I don't care. Go look and see what you did for the day in your code. And does it make sense? If it doesn't make sense, two things need to happen. One, you need to quickly fix it. Or two, you need to document your code quickly so that when you push it back up, you know what you did, because if you're looking at that PR or that code review and you immediately cannot understand what the hell you did, you have a problem. And that is the first thing that jumped in my mind when you brought this up. That's honestly. All right. Want to jump the gun. That is a mega bonus because that actually is not in our book. That is a very, very useful tip to have. If you don't, we've never, I don't know that we've ever talked about reviewing your own code. This is something we have recently. Um, I have never used SonarQube before with my Git, with GitHub. I've used it with like, you know, here and there, and I've used other code, uh, static code analysis tools like that. But to use it in a regular basis has actually been a very informative process for me, because every time I do a commit and a push, it barks at me about whatever it likes or dislikes. And that forces me to go back and actually review my own code more often than I would like to admit. That is an incredibly useful habit to get into is commit your code. Even if it's your own little repository and side hustle PR yourself, and then code review your own code, just that extra set of eyes when it's your own stinking eyes will help immensely. It is amazing what you will catch in those kinds of things, particularly. And this is why I love so much the static code analysis tools that are out there all the way back to, uh, some of the like the very high end tools that are out there. And I forget the names off the top of my head. They're very expensive, but they're very useful because they will give you feedback that is exactly what you need as a developer, because we get into our little silos, we have our way to solve problems, we have our way to write code. We have all of our, uh, preferences built out into our IDE. Use the, if you're in Python, use the, uh, the pep. I get choked up. I'm so emotional about this. Use pepe and Java. Go out and use the various Java sites that are out there. PHP has got its own version. I wish I could think of all of these that are out there. They're I'm missing them right now. Go to the standards. How is the most current version use it being that's out there? That's being used as being developed. How is that being written? What are the styles that are out there? And this includes like naming standards and stuff like that. Go look at those because they will make you a better developer. I'm going to move on. I'm not going to move on because Michael has something to say. I think we have time for one more topic. We do. All right. What's the next bullet point? Yes, we've gone too far. Effective time management. This is so average. Michael doesn't know. I'm just going to let you know. He did not know that that is the next bullet point. Effective time management habit. Use time blocks or Pomodoro. Oh, I love this to avoid burnout and context switching tools, calendar blocking, toggle, TOGGL, notion or visual studio code timers, side hustle angle, maximize limited hours, protect your maker time, discussion prompt. When are you most productive and how do you defend that time? I am going to use this before I toss it back to Michael to say that I still, I have adjusted. If you, if you go back to the last season, you will hear how much I loved the Pomodoro stuff. It was because of the place I was in work-wise at that moment, but I still, I use a very different Pomodoro technique. I use a, a focus app, which I'm going to look up right now called Brain FM. Brain.fm. There's other ones like that. It's got a lot of different settings essentially, but it is just, it is music that is, it is sound and music that is intended on like enhancing certain mental aspects. I use that on a regular basis as my Pomodoro basically, and I have grown, I use a one hour, 60 minute Pomodoro on a regular basis and it has been very, very effective. But now I own my time more than I did before. Before the 25 minutes is what I needed because I needed to actually do like a little bit of everything. I have, I have less chunks right now. And so it works very well to do a one hour. I am literally exhausted in a mental sense by the time I'm done with the one hour and I get so much accomplished. So I, I, I'm sorry that I keep singing the praises of that technique, but it really is. If you can sit down and focus for a set number of minutes, I don't care if it's 25, 45, 60, 90, whatever your focus is, you will be amazed at how productive you will get. Now I'm going to pass it on to somebody that has always struggled with saying that word, but that's okay. He's going to work on his Italian. Go for it, Michael. All right. But how are we going to say it? That is a safe approach. Um, my biggest problem with this is in a lot of companies I've worked for or in a lot of situations, they do not foster the culture or the environment for you to thrive in the Pomodoro technique to actually do what Rob is suggesting, which is why I've gone with the list approach where I write down what I need to get done in the day and I try to stick to it. Project management tools are great for this. Jira and Trello, things like that. But the problem you run into with those is still you get scope creep. You need to commit to something. Say I'm going to get this done. If you don't get it done, make a note as to why. Was it because you ran into scope creep? Was it because, oh, this problem you're trying to solve is bigger than it is. This is a big problem in software development. If you work on a ticket and you pointed it as a team, as a one, because it looked simple, but you get into it and it starts blowing up, you need to bring that to everyone's attention. So the next standup you have, comment the ticket, say, Hey, I've uncovered this, document what you found and then bring it up. Do not try to bring it up without documenting it because if you sleep on it, you're going to forget about it. And the next thing you're going to be like, I have no idea. Um, just be clear and concise and document, document, document. Keep in mind that cover your ass, see why a approach to everything. Even if you're on the Pomodoro technique, make sure that what you're working on is what you're working on. And if it starts bloating or expanding, bring that up immediately. That means that what you're focused on is not focused enough and you may need some additional direction to make sure you get to where you need to be to get it complete. Gosh, that is, is rare that I say that, but that is really in an incredible, I'm kidding. That was, that is an incredible point to make. Part of what I find so much valuable with the Pomodoro technique, and I will note that Michael said it correctly, didn't stumble over and he's been drinking. If you're on the podcast, no, he hasn't. Go check the YouTube channel. It is very useful to have that Pomodoro because it really does time box stuff. And I think that is what, as I have expanded the Pomodoro length that I use, it has been really helpful with me and helping me understand even more my estimates for work. Because honestly, most of what I do, I think I can cover in a one hour Pomodoro. If I get to the end of it, whatever my point is, basically, well, my points, this is like a little secret behind the thing. My points when I'm doing Scrum pointing and stuff like that, it's basically the number of Pomodoros that's going to take me to get that thing done. And if I take, like, if I, if I point it as one and it takes me more than one Pomodoro to get it done, then I note that. And Michael has really nailed what we need to do as developers. Whether you do it, however you do it, you need to document, you need to know where you misestimated it. It's not necessarily where it was misestimated by somebody else because you can only control what you estimate and what your abilities are. But this is what will help you become a better estimator. If you understand that this took longer than I expected. And of course, with your team, if it impacts them, you need to let them know, say, hey, this took longer than I expected. Like, throw that out there. That helps you. That helps the team. This, there are so many levels of value that that brings to you. Now, I'm going to move on because I want to at least jump into one other. And I have no idea how long I've gone because I apologize. I didn't look at the time before we started this one. We are too long, but I'm going to jump into this real quick and then I'm going to wrap this one up. Continuous learning. I love this. Even before I read it. Habit, read or watch something technical weekly. Book, document, blog, YouTube or podcast. Hey, hey. Growth edge. Stay current with frameworks, languages and soft skills. My gosh, this is the bulk of what our book is. Career boost. Learning equals leverage. It's how you move from junior to lead. The best way to move from junior to lead is to read our freaking book and listen to our podcasts, our regular basis, because this is what we live and we are there with you. I will throw out, Hey, Brain FM, if you need a sponsorship, give us a call. We would love to talk to you. Love your app would love to like boost you guys on a regular basis. As always, shoot us an email at info at developer.com. I will even offer you right now. You shoot me an email and it is the end of June. You send me an email by the end of July. Me being info at developer.com. I will send you a copy of our book. Gratis free. All of those other words. Libre. I don't even know if that's actually the word that I'm trying to think of, but we will give it to you free. We'll shoot you one. Just give us your email address or actually your physical mailing address or your email address. We'll shoot you the digital copy. I would love to offer that for now because it is really got a lot of the stuff that we've talked about. I think it's very valuable, particularly if you're trying to figure out how do you map out your career. Maybe you've topped out. Maybe you plateaued. Maybe you're struggling to figure out where you go from here. It is actually a very useful book. If you don't think so, I would love to get that feedback because we'll do a version too and we will do a better version of it. As always, we have Facebook. We have developer.com developer Facebook page developer.com. If you want to leave us feedback at developer on X, you know, used to be Twitter. I think we finally got so we can just call it X. Thank you, Elon Musk, for that to get a year later or whatever it is. Also, developer.com. We have a contact us form every single article, every podcast. There's ways to leave us feedback. We will get it. We would love to hear it. We would love to make this better because we are also building a better podcast for you, not for ourselves. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. As always, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to building better developers to develop a new podcast. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success.