Developer Performance Made Easy: Smart Strategies to Get More Done Daily

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer podcast, where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season where we are talking about actually past topics. We're going to do it with AI. So we're going to throw it back through chat GPT basically say, hey, tell us what we should have done. And then we're basically going to assess whether AI does a better job than we do, or we're going to allow you to do so. First off, I need to introduce myself. My name is Rob Broadhead. Have I actually introduced the I don't think I said the name of the podcast. Let me get back to that. We'll rewrite. This is Develop and we're building better developers. This is season. I don't know what it is. Lost track of the number of episodes. Now we can go forward to me. My name is Rob Broadhead. I'm one of the founders of Develop and are also the founder of RB Consulting. Where we help you do technology better. We sit down with you, walk through your business, your organization, talk about where you're at, where you want to go. And then what is your technology path to get there? We're going to help you do a technology assessment. We're going to get out there with you and help you build a technology roadmap. We can help you implement it. We can let you implement it. There's a lot of different ways things can be. You can work with you as you can have existing technology or you may need some new stuff. We may need to simplify. We may need to integrate. We may need to automate. We may need to innovate. All of those are totally accessible to you wherever your organization is. I think that's one of the biggest messages we need to have is as long as you sit down and understand your processes, there are tools that will help you get those done faster and better and they are affordable. You can find stuff that works within your budget. You don't have to spend a billion dollars to have a really good technology footprint that meets the needs of your business. Good things and bad things. Let's see. Bad thing. I'll start with the bad thing. I guess there's a good side of this too. Bad thing is I went to, I had a dental appointment. I was going to go to the dentist. I ended up 10 minutes late. They were, they sat there and like had me sit there for 10 more minutes. And the next thing they're like, Oh, it's too late. We can't take you today. I need you to reschedule. So the bad thing is I wasted probably an hour of time going back and forth to the dentist to only have to make sure I get there much earlier next time around. The good news is I had too much crap to do anyways. So I really did not need to lose the extra. I probably would have lost another hour and a half or two hours if I dealt with the dentist. So there's a, you know, there is a little silver cloud or silver lining to that big black storm cloud. The other silver lining is that I've got somebody on the other side that's going to introduce himself. Michael, go for it. Hey everyone. My name is Michael Mollash. I'm one of the co-founders of building better developers, also known as developer. I'm also the founder and owner of Envision QA where we help startups and growing companies build better software faster and with fewer problems. Our services cover software development, quality assurance, test automation, and release support. Companies come to us when they want to avoid delays, reduce bugs, and launch with confidence. Whether you're building your first MVP or scaling a live project, we help make sure that your software is reliable, efficient, and ready for growth. You can learn more about us at EnvisionQA.com. Let's see. Good thing, bad thing. Had a whole lot of bad and a little bit of good. Bad just compounded this week. So at our other house, we go out and we're there for an hour and all of a sudden we go from having water pressure to no water pressure. Wife thinks I didn't pay the water bill, which can happen because it's on auto pay and sometimes it doesn't go through. No, we had a busted water line under the ground somewhere and had no water getting into the house. Waited for the plumber to come out. They couldn't come out that day so we had to reschedule the next day. Next day they came out. They found the leak, fixed it. Next day, oops, another leak. So long story short, we had to replace all the lines from the street to the house. So after paying for a leak fix, we had to pay for new lines. So that was very costly, painful, and frustrating. On top of that, we lost our AC at the other house the night before they came out to replace the lines. So that was a lot of fun having to be at two different places at once with housing issues. You know, being a house owner just is fun. Good news, it's all fixed. Knock on wood. Everything's working good. Air's back, water's running well. So things are happy again and I pray it's going to be good and quiet for a while. So able to focus and get back to work. So we're going to focus now on, which is funny enough, our title that we've brought from a couple of seasons back. The original title was Supercharge Your Focus and Productivity, the Dev's Guide to Getting Stuff Done Without... Wait, is that? I'm sorry. The original one was Supercharge Your Focus and Productivity Expert Tips for Success. This one just jumped right in and said, here you go. And they redid our title and it says Supercharge Your Focus and Productivity, the Dev's Guide to Getting Stuff Done Without Burning Out. So it added a little bit. Opening hook. Ever feel like your coding day disappears into meetings, slack pings and random rabbit holes? Yes. Today, we're putting your productivity on performance enhancing code without the side effects. That's a little bit different, but okay. I don't like their wording, but hey, it's AI. Episode flow, setting the stage. First one, two to three minutes. Relatable dev life scenario, jumping between bug fixes, PR reviews, trying to learn a new framework, all while email notifications keep chiming. Why focus is harder now than ever. Switching costs, remote work distractions, dopamine traps from social media. Let's jump into this is right on our text. We're gonna go right in the second one. Expert tips for laser focus. The Pomodoro remix, 25 minute sprints with a developer twist breaks for code refactor nodes, tech reading, or even a quick GitHub browse. Digital fences using tools like cold turkey, focus at will, or even do not disturb mode for uninterrupted blocks. Morning energy mapping, tackling your most challenging code problems during your peak brain hours. These three, I want to, they really work together. I'm just going to start with that. The Pomodoro remix it talks about, I have really gotten just fallen in love with a Pomodoro technique that I use. I've shifted it, so I usually do 45 minutes. I have a brain FM that I will set for 45 minutes, depending on what my task is. I will put the headphones on and I will let it give me its nice little thought producing music and I have found that it is very, very, very productive to do so. I can take 45 minutes of that and probably get done what it would normally take me two hours to do. A lot of it goes to the other thing is the distractions because part of what I've gotten that I've done to do and going through these things is I will sit down and I will shut off. I will turn off everything, turn off notifications. I've gotten so I don't, I make sure mail is not up. I'll turn off notifications so slack doesn't hit me. Now when I turn them back on, yes, I get blown up sometimes with stuff, but during that time I can be very effective. One of the things that I'm playing around with actually in the next little bit is just checking my productivity. I've got a certain schedule that I use, but I'm going to start playing around with that a little bit probably from week to week. Go test it for a week and see how I feel and test it slightly different because I'm trying to figure out really where are my peak, peak and then where are my mid-range peaks. Then I know where I typically drop off, but I'm thinking as I've been making some adjustments and able to have more control over my schedule and what I'm working on and when, definitely something worth playing around with. And I recommend that to everybody is I think that that laser focus that they set at the top of the section is I think the key to your greatest success. What about you, Michael? So you're a big fan of the Pomodoro. I work well with it, but I tend to work a little bit better and longer kind of sprints of time. So I typically go to the note approach. So I'll write down the tasks I want to get done or I kind of preload my calendar for here. I want to get this done, this done, this done within those timeframes. But with like you, I keep all the other notifications turned off. So I'm not getting emails or distractions unless it's like emergency. I think that's the only thing that comes in is like if it's certain family members can get in unless they beg me too much and then they get blocked. What I've really been focusing on a lot, especially since the last GLS Summit is the morning energy mapping or mapping, like finding that peak time of the day when you're mentally focused. For me, ironically, it used to be late in the evening. Like I would do really well first thing in the morning and then like about I'd say five, six o'clock at night till whenever in the AM, I would be wired. I would be going great. And then the next morning, like I would have no energy. But lately, I found that I have really strong energy in the morning. And then it's more about the about midday is when I start to taper a little bit. And then at night, I could still have a peak or valley. Just kind of depends on how the workday went. So with that, I've been playing around with getting up earlier. So like today, I don't recommend this for everyone, but I had fallen a little bit behind this week because of the said bad things that happen kind of set off my schedule this week. So I got up at three o'clock this morning. I'm like, let's see how well I really do if I cut my sleep time a little short. Not ideal, but let's really try to reset my day. And from like three o'clock to eight o'clock, I was just hyper focused, no distractions, no noise. I mean, it's just a piece of quiet nighttime. I got a whole lot done. And then once day started, I started getting all those calls and meetings. And then, like, my energy just tapered off. And then it started coming back up again about an hour or two ago. But it's kind of going through those waves. And it's listening to your body. But sometimes you have to force your body into a different routine. So if you do see yourself doing better in the morning, wake up a little bit earlier, maybe go to bed a little bit earlier or go to bed a little bit later. Adjust a little bit. You may have a couple of days where you're a little bit of a fog or you kind of jet light a little bit, but I recommend it. Might be better to try it on a weekend to get yourself reset. But give it a shot, because I've really found that you don't know. And it does change. Like, there will be times where I am definitely a night person. Like my mornings, it's like, no, I need a pot of coffee before I can get going. So that's my thoughts. I agree. I think it's something that I know that I was saying for a long time. My my peak period was 10 p.m. till about 3 a.m., something like that. And then there was also like, you know, I think like late morning, maybe. It's still sort of a early to mid morning. But then I sort of like, yeah, I sort of valley out. And then I'll come back up in the late afternoon. It's something that changed over time. So definitely take a look at it. And like you like Michael said, you've got to give yourself give it time to settle in, because if you just do it for like two days, your body is not going to adjust and it's it's not going to help. You've got to give it, you know, several days to do it. Moving along. Productivity hacks you haven't tried yet. Single tab coding, one browser tab, one task, no quick stack overflow detours unless truly stuck micro deadlines, break stories into tiny deliverables that keep momentum high code music playlists using rhythm and tempo to match your task type. Fast beats for debugging lo fi for deep architecture work. This is I'll go backwards on that. So the code music playlist, that is exactly why I found brain. If it has worked really well. There is different focus types and stuff like that. I think one is like there's a motivation, there's a artistic, there's a deep thought. There's all these different playlists that they've got. And I have found that I play around with them a little bit like what I play when, but have definitely found that they are useful to me. Again, it's it helps block out other stuff, but helps keep me sort of like in a little bit of a rhythm and a little bit of like, especially it's just like it breaks the monotony of stuff. I love micro deadlines. I didn't know that that's what they were, but I really do like sitting down and saying, OK, this is my schedule for today. During this block, this is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to focus on. It's a little bit, as you mentioned, about having that list is it's basically like, OK, this is what I'm going to do. All right. And I'll do it. I like I'll write out. Here's my list of stuff I got to do today. Here's the time I want to put sort of to each of them, because now I'm trying and having to account for that stuff and make sure that I'm balancing stuff out. And then beside all those, then I'll go back and be like, OK, you know, I got a half hour for this. So this is the my key focus. Or I've got an hour for this. So this is my key focus. So that gives me these little like micro, you know, these milestones or deadlines. The bonus with those is if I get one done faster than whatever that time allotment is, is that I can usually I can either if I need to, I can have a little bit of a break. But usually what's going to happen is instead, I'm going to save that I'm going to be able to put that to something that I'm more worried about. And if I get as I get towards the end of the day, one of my like midday breaks that I'll have is I'll say, OK, if I've got plenty of space left, then I can add stuff onto my list. And if not, then it's like, OK, well, I'll just, you know, somewhere along the way, maybe I get one thing done sooner, but then I can shift a little bit of time to something else later. So it does allow me to sort of keep in my my rhythm while still getting some stuff done. Your thoughts on that? Yeah, so I liked how you started with the music, the code music playlist. I've got a couple of different things I use. One once I turn off the notifications and you kind of get a quiet, you start to hear other noises going on around you. Interestingly enough, with the Mac, they added something one or two updates back. You can actually turn on background noise. So if you hit the little button, it'll turn on like white noise or like rain or fire or just kind of enough of a white noise to block out all the other noises that are around you, which is kind of cool. But sometimes you need a little bit more than that. So I'll like use like CodeFocus on like Microsoft or not, Mac music, Apple music to just like do focus like classical music or sometimes they have white noise or like spa music. Spa music, I find is actually good, but it can be too relaxing and can put you to sleep. So you got to find the right tempo of music or white noise to listen to that doesn't put you to sleep, but can at least block out or keep you focused on what you're working on. Single tab coding is probably one of my biggest favorites and probably one of my biggest pet peeves about the way modern ideas have gone. I'm calling you out, IntelliJ. I don't like the fact that you have to open up multiple windows for multiple projects and you can't have one project window with a like a file manager where you can just open up your one file for this project. Instead, I have to go manage all these multiple IDEs to go to this tab to do code. I like one thing simple. Give me one ID. Yes, maybe a couple of tabs, but you're only working one tab at a time. And then, OK, you can jump to the code you need to go to. And if the browsers or the tools you have allow you to seamlessly follow your flow of what you're working on. Perfect. Go with it, because it's going to keep you from getting too distracted of, oh, what's this? If you can like hit control, click what you're going and it jumps into the next place of code, you're on that path. You're, you know, working through that logic. You're following that bug. You're on task. But if you're having to go control, shift, R, look for a word, you're going down the rabbit hole because you could be in many different places. You don't know where you're going. So by keeping you consolidated to one browser, one task, it helps you avoid that multitasking. It may also help your system performance. And then, you know, you're going to get more work done. I think that, yeah, I will just say that, yeah, I don't think the purpose is to have multiple projects in one thing anyway. So you're supposed to be like focused on your one project. But I agree 100%. It's like it's if you start having to click around to find what you're working on, that's definitely going to slow you down. So next one, preventing burnout while staying productive, how rest improves code quality, the 90% rule, leave a little juice in the tank each day. So tomorrow isn't a struggle. The role of hobbies and side projects and keeping your brain fresh. And we're actually going to get through all of them this time, I think. So I want to roll those into something that I think is going to be something that I've found that is very useful. It goes back to this little bit of scheduling your time is schedule breaks, is schedule things that get you away from what you're doing now. If you're like me and you're trying to avoid checking your mail, like when you get to the end of a break, checking your mail or going off and reading some site for a little bit or something like that during your breaks, especially because I do I'll do a little bit of a longer break instead of doing like little five minute breaks. I'll do a 15 minute break, which is easily enough time to get yourself lost in some rabbit hole. Find a secondary thing that you want to work on, whether it's things like you get to your break and you're going to like, you know, go pay some bills or you're going to like I have I have these secondary, these little like side projects that I'm working on. It's like, okay, I'm working on this, but now I want to go work on this thing or I'm going to write a maybe I'm writing a blog article or I'm writing some content for something or I'm going to go, you know, review something somebody else did. So it's that change of mentality, that change of your focus. And it also allows you to just like reset a little bit. But then I think during the day, one of the things I've gotten away from, but work best for me in the past was have a set like lunch break. At the time, it was like I would work until it because of how my rhythms worked. I'd work till 11 a.m. And I'd basically kick kick back in at 1 p.m. So I'd have like this two hour lunch break where I would eat. I could go exercise, depending on the day of the week. Almost every day, I would spend 10 or 15 minutes reading something that was not fiction, but I would always do something that was educational. So it would be like, you know, biography of somebody or how to be, you know, better as a leader or manager or something like that. So your self-improvement kind of books or like, you know, we've mentioned many times like for our work week or those kinds of books. Because it just shifted, allowed me to really shift gears and allowed me to rest, doing like a walk or exercise, something like that got me away and helped me from a healthy point of view from and it helped me come back more recharged. So definitely think about those kinds of things. We've talked so many times about if you get stuck, stand up, walk away. But I think we need to make sure that we pace ourselves with that as well. It's too easy to say, all right, I'm going to go, bam, I'm going to go four hours straight, and that's not the most productive way to go about it. It's not the most productive way to do things. You need to make sure that you're cutting those, putting those brakes in there so that you can recharge even if you don't. And this is that 90% rule. Basically, it's just like sports. If you go hard and now you're done, you go to a hundred percent. That means you have nothing left. So if you're going to do all that, then what you want to do instead is have a little bit left in the tank, use that recharge, and now you can come back even stronger. Thoughts on that one? Yeah. Brings to mind, I think something someone said that the GLS, but, um, if you are running into situations where your work, you're not following the Pomodoro, you're constantly focusing on one task, you're giving it that 100%. Look at one kick back to 90%, but two look at what your day looks like. Look at not just your tasks, but what are you doing during the day? Because one of the biggest indicators that I found that this was a great example was I would start my day off. I would get my coffee. I would open up my digital newspaper and I would read some of the daily headlines, which lately has been all negative. So you kind of start your day off with that mindset and then you go into work. Oh, now you read your work emails and those can put you in a different mindset. Watch your mindset because if you're finding out that the tasks you're doing are basically very negative or very repetitive in a way that is putting you off on being productive, shift that around, change up that, uh, your way of doing things. The other thing is, you know, preventing burnout is hard. You have to also check yourself mentally and just see where you're at. Um, you got apps for that. There are things you can do where, uh, or just some reminders at certain times of the day, check yourself. How do I feel right now? What have I done since I started my day and what is good and what is bad? And then the other thing at the end of the day, you know, people talk about journaling and things like that, but right down at the end of the day, what is the most pressing thing that is still to be done that you need to do first thing tomorrow? So basically start your day for tomorrow, set yourself up for success so that when you start the day, the next day, you're not like, what am I working? Nope. I need to get this done, get this off my plate, get it done and start fresh. Um, just these few little tricks here will help you avoid the mindset. And the biggest one, turn your phone off when you are done working for the day. Lock it up, put your technology away. If you find yourself pacing and you are touching that phone at least once or twice an hour, put it in another room. Um, I, I, I admit, um, I've caught myself doing that and I'm trying to do the digital fast when I check out at night and just do something else, but I will tell you, it is hard being developers. I touch that phone probably two to three times every half hour after I check out, sometimes more if I'm playing games, but it's a crutch, turn it off, walk away from it, take those walks, do something else and just make sure that what you're doing isn't in that same, uh, kind of Avenue. So you take a break from what is stressing you and do something that is not the same thing, just doing something else. It was very freeing once you can get past that it is, but it's like, it's very, we've talked so much about like you make in most of your time. So it's very easy to be sitting there where you've got two or three minutes of dead time or something where you're waiting on something, you just like, Oh, I'm going to check my mail. Getting out of that habit will help you immensely. And it will be tougher in this modern world, because if you're like me, you'll sit there and you're like, you go to a restaurant and you don't have your phone with you or you're not pulling it out. Everybody else has their phone out. It's like you're sitting there waiting for, you know, the food to come and everybody else is pulling out their phone. And there's just like that. Hey, why don't you join the crowd? It's like, don't fight it. Trust me. It is worth it. Um, and this is from, so I'm still struggling with it. So it's not like I've mastered this, but I have had moments where it's worked and I've been very happy, so, uh, want to keep, you know, keep working on that. Just like I let you guys know every single episode, shoot us an email at info develop a nerd.com. Actually had a great conversation today with somebody who's like, Hey, how's the best way to get ahold of you? It's like, you know what info develop a nerd.com. That is the best place to get ahold of us. Uh, you can also lead us, leave us a review anywhere you see it, whether it's out on the developer channel on you, on YouTube. Uh, out wherever you're getting this podcast. If you're listening to podcasts, develop a nerd.com itself, you can go out there. You can leave feedback on any of our articles. You can contact us. We've got a form there. You can check out our developer page on Facebook, you name it out on X at develop a newer, shoot something out there. You've, you know, send something with that and we will find it. And we will be more than happy to say thank you and respond. If you have any questions or anything like that, we're always looking for feedback because you're the reason we're doing this. That being said, it's time to wrap this one up. So we're going to get back on our, uh, our little Mary AI way. You do the same, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week. And we will talk to you. Thank you for listening to building better developers to develop a newer 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.