📺 Develpreneur YouTube Episode

Video + transcript

Building Better Habits: Improving Your Focus

2025-01-14 •Youtube

Detailed Notes

In this episode of Building Better Habits, Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche delve into an essential skill for productivity—improving focus. Drawing from personal experiences and practical methodologies, they explore ways to enhance your attention span and align your efforts with meaningful outcomes. Here’s a recap of their discussion, peppered with insights to help you sharpen your focus and stay on track.

Read More: https://develpreneur.com/building-better-habits-improving-your-focus/

*Focus Challenge of the Week*

The hosts leave listeners with a practical challenge:

1. Create a daily to-do list. 2. Reflect on the “why” behind each item. 3. Regularly assess whether your efforts align with your goals.

By incorporating these habits, you can sharpen your focus, improve productivity, and avoid wasting time on distractions.

Improving focus is a skill that requires intention, practice, and self-awareness. Whether you’re tackling a software project or managing daily responsibilities, Rob and Michael’s strategies provide a solid foundation to enhance your productivity. As they remind us, the key is not to work harder but to work smarter—one habit at a time.

* Stay Connected: Join the Develpreneur Community*

We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’s always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let’s continue exploring the exciting world of software development.

*Additional Resources*

* Maintaining Focus At The Year End (https://develpreneur.com/maintaining-focus-at-the-year-end/) * Positive Focus – Victories and Tasks That Recharge Us (https://develpreneur.com/positive-focus-victories-and-tasks-that-recharge-us/) * Supercharge Your Focus and Productivity: Expert Tips for Success (https://develpreneur.com/supercharge-your-focus-and-productivity-expert-tips-for-success/) * Pomodoro Technique: Boost Your Focus and Productivity with Time-Blocking (https://develpreneur.com/pomodoro-technique-boost-your-focus-and-productivity-with-time-blocking/)

*Follow-us on:*

* https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZOuFN_LhczvGyT2KSItH_g/featured * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://twitter.com/develpreneur * http://linkedin.com/develpreneur

Transcript Text
[Music]
morning so we are
here we are back and we are trying to
figure out what we're going to talk
about I think you something in slack
last time we had an extra there uh let's
see so we had anti-habsburg
did we do
forget no that was more New Year
see uh we had wrapping up your business
in the New Year goals I think that might
have been for the New Year's episode
yeah that's all the New Year's stuff uh
anti-habsburg
so this
is we've already talked about automating
processes right y about
automation let's see what do we got as
we're stepping into the new year what is
a good habit
um well the focus in improvements I like
um because I know we've talked about the
um Pomodoro Technique list things of
that but even with
those and I guess we also talked about
being present in
meetings
yep I think another one is
um we'll see this sort of goes with
Focus Improvement a little bit so it may
be a good pairing is level
[Music]
your leveling
Your Daily Grind basically because what
I'm think about is like maybe some
habits to help people so it's not so
much feast or fam where it's like okay
I'm having to like work all night and
you know work 48 hours straight to get
this thing done and then I'm done and
then I'm sitting around and not I don't
have anything to do and I'm twiddling my
thumbs for a couple of days you know
it's it's not as it's that kind of thing
that's not as common now when you've got
so many people have Sprints and stuff
like that and smaller projects and
smaller things but when you're doing you
know 6 12 month 18 month projects it was
very bad it's very difficult and those
to be focused in the early ones cuz
you're like I can take a day who's going
to care and then you get to the last
couple of months and it's like okay
cancel canceling vacations and holidays
and everybody's got to work seven days a
week and some of that kind of crap
that's maybe for ourselves finding ways
to help that
out so less highs and less lows sort of
like more of a steady stream on
your staying busy yeah so staying
focused both of these are sort of time
management stuff but yeah I think that's
where you were going with the focus too
because I think during the holidays we
were all over the place even with trying
to
follow you know what we've talked about
up to now but it's like trying to with
yeah with Focus Improvement I thinking
even within the task that we know we
have is making sure that
we're sort of like it is a little bit
like that it's basically it's being
present in whatever the task is that
you're working
on and
not you drifting too much squirreling
away or chasing rabbit down rabbit
Trails oh I think we did talk about that
one um a little bit because wasn't that
also like the screen time in that trying
to narrow your focus
just well that was that was eliminating
bad habits that's right
okay yeah for those of you in the
pre-show this is what happens we a lot
of the things we talked about can cross
over and become multiple
conversations yeah
chair a little higher so my knees aren't
quite as cramped well let's start with a
focus Improvement we'll see what happens
if we we can start with that and see
where it goes and then we'll come into
the next one and we'll figure out what
we want to go with that at least we have
some ideas for it yeah that sounds good
because I think the initial idea for
pushing this to this week's uh podcast
was because we the other two made more
sense together in this one I think we
thought we'd have something else to go
with it to kind of pair up the
week exactly so we'll see how that goes
let me put my do not disturb to make
sure that's not distracting me too
much and we'll do our famous 3
two well hello and welcome back we are
continuing our season where we're
building better habits building better
developers through those habits we are
develop andur I am Rob Broadhead one of
the founders of De develop andur which
doesn't always off the tongue real well
especially when I've only had like a few
cups of coffee or tea actually is my
drug of
choice anyways already digressing so it
is one of those days I guess this
episode that we are going to talk about
improving your focus so it's going to be
perfect topic for this I want to
introduce myself a little bit more I am
also a found of RB Consulting where we
are a boutique consulting firm we
basically help you Wrangle your
technology that's out there your needs
and the technology you already have have
so that technology sprawl that we tend
to have just like you may have in your
personal life you've got just too many
devices and too many things you're
looking at trying to make a find a way
through simplification automation
integration to just focus those things
down so your technology is now your
friend and your tool and not the thing
that is sucking up all of your time also
going to be some of those things going
be helpful as we talk about the topic
this episode as far as habits go really
burning in the like the pomodora has
continued to be just I cannot push that
enough to say if you haven't gone go
back to that was one of the early
episodes basically walk through what a
pomodora is we talked about doing just
instead of trying to do them all day but
just try to have a couple a day that are
focused periods it has really helped me
and it's also helped me uh with one of
the E habits we talked about is
basically doing stuff that's fun so the
things that I really enjoy is giving a
little bit of time to that uh and this
is by doing things are fun it's the
stuff that I enjoy and
work and it's also touching some of the
projects and some of the things that I
need to do so that they don't just
falter and disappear and the next thing
you know it's you know you haven't
touched that in six years and you forget
where it was at so there's a lot of
benefits in those in the habits um
automation continues to be a good one I
think it really is one of those that
that's just like if you can get into
that each week look at one or two even
just one thing that you can automate
that will build up and give you a nice
Snowball Effect related to The Snowball
Effect is my good and my bad the good
well we'll start with the bad I guess is
we just got pummeled by snow so we're
pretty much snowed in right now it's
like I don't know more than an inch
which around here is too much snow
because they don't have clearing
cleaning other than the major roads
major roads probably fine but getting to
those a bit of a a challenge so that's I
guess a bad thing but a good thing is is
now that I'm snowed in for the weekend I
get to catch up on a lot of the chores
and tasks and stuff like that that was
my ever building list of things that got
pushed to tomorrow and then tomorrow and
then tomorrow and tomorrow and coming
out of a very busy holiday season
probably a real good time to have you
know take a couple of days and catch up
on such things so that my mental health
can actually improve as well somebody
whose mental health is not improving at
all right now because he's stressing out
because I'm about to put him on the hot
seat is my co-host Michael go ahead and
introduce yourself hey everyone my name
is Michael malash I'm one of the
co-founders of developer ner building
better developers and I'm also the
founder of Envision QA where we
our entire focus of our company is to
bring test driven development to improve
software development within companies be
it's small business um mediumsized
businesses healthc care to take your
software that is potentially having
problems or user experiences are buggy
we help you streamline that whole
process to make sure that when you write
code build code it is tested and when it
gets out to the users at the end
experience they have a nice uh
experience with the software no bugs no
problems and with this process it also
helped streamline development process so
your developers aren't spending as much
time tracking down bugs or missing bugs
because they can push a button and know
if the software Works before they even
roll it out the
door talking about good and bad uh good
uh had a very productive week this week
things are moving along on our project
uh bad like Rob said we got snow in I
think we got more snow than you guys uh
we're up to about 8 in and I'm praying
it melts tomorrow cuz we are going to
the airport next week to so my wife can
fly to California hopefully not deal
with the fires but we'll see uh habits
so I have been doing really good on some
habits and really bad on others so the
Pomodoro I started really good at the
beginning of the year and I've kind of
slipped I've gotten into
uh some bad habits where I've been kind
of heads down coding and the next thing
I know I am five six hours in and I have
not moved from my desk uh which also
means I'm failing the taking breaks
habit uh
so I've kind of slipped a little bit but
the good news of that is I actually got
a lot done like I was so in the zone and
really cranked stuff out downside I'm a
little more burned out so uh getting
back into some good habits which kind of
worked into that was I was following
some good list checklist uh I was more
focused in meetings and I was actually
really working on trying to plan things
and schedule things the problem was I
was so overbooked that it just I wasn't
moving things forward so back to the
habits of this week is trying to get
back to the Pomodoro and taking breaks
and kind of like Rob said getting to the
point where we can spend time family and
friends and doing things we
want well that's what we're going to re
going be part of the side effect I guess
of what we're going to we cover this
time what I want to talk about is we're
going talk about habits related to
essentially improving your focus and
this is not just it is a little bit the
general distractions that we've talked
about whether it's your phone or your
mail or some things like that but it's
also it's really more along the lines of
being busy versus being productive it is
about figuring out what is it that you
actually need to do for the things that
you need to do it may seem like that's
too many to-dos in a you know in a
sentence but it really is it's we have
tasks we have things that are our
responsibilities and our assignments
whether it's in personal life or more
often and which is where we're going to
really focus today is in the business in
the whether it's our side hustle or our
main hustle so we've got things like we
will have you know tickets maybe that
we're working on we will have a product
that we're building or a design that
we're creating or something along those
lines and there is a lot of stuff we can
do that is effectively busy work that is
not terribly useful to us I mean it's
yes it needs to be done maybe but
sometimes even then it doesn't need to
be done it could be pushed to a later
date and then suddenly just sort of
evaporates because we didn't need to
deal with it now some people are sitting
there out there may be saying yeah
that's why we don't have to actually
document designs and requirements
because they're always going to change
like wrong that is not it not talking
about like eliminating everything that
you don't like to do which is
effectively documentation but it is
making sure that what you do is
productive and serving the goal that you
have for
example some people can write like let's
say take a weekly status and over the
years there are some developers that
their weekly status is I wrote code okay
not very helpful and so you actually in
that case you sort of wasted your time
even putting that down it's like you
need to have something that is useful
it's like hey I worked on this I worked
on that here was a challenge here was
something I overcome something that
provides whatever level of insight is
needed for that for that task that
Weekly status task hopefully your
manager customer whoever it is can help
you refine that now sometimes
overcommunication is not a bad thing but
maybe in your status instead of I wrote
code you have a breakdown of every hour
like how many lines of code that you
looked at and what you wrote and maybe
some you've got like code Snippets and
things like that that you've pulled into
it while yes that thoroughly documents
what you did nobody cares it's it's one
of those that it's like you're adding
documentation that's not needed it's the
same idea is if you generate a report to
somebody and it's got a million records
in it it is too much nobody's going to
look through a million records of data
you need to keep why in Focus so if
you're you know if you're building a
product and you're going to
show thousands and thousands of Records
in a report then instead of yes maybe
you can spend your time and now you've
built that report and you can check that
off and that's a function or a feature
that you can say like hey we can do that
maybe take a look at that and instead of
doing that figure out what is the actual
goal what is your what are you trying to
serve your customer with with that
report and then maybe you need to make
adjustments a lot of times it's things
like maybe it's a summary or maybe it's
just an exception report or something
along those lines and those are I mean
we've learned some of that like
exception reporting is sort of an
industry standard nobody cares if you
process a million records successfully
nobody wants an email that says I
processed record one two 3 four they may
want to say yes I processed a million
records but that's one you know one
value that's not a million values or
words that's one one ping to your phone
not a million pings to your phone that
everything's going well because if you
have everything going well and then
somewhere in there it went wrong you've
got too much information so that's where
we want to focus we want to focus on the
why and that's I think the easiest part
that's sort of the easiest way to
describe what we're going to have in the
challenge this week is how do we get to
the why how do we figure out build some
habits that will help us do the right
thing do the valuable thing
and how do we avoid going down those
rabbit trails that we sometimes do how
do we avoid losing a day tweaking a
color on a website that when the color
is just for us and it doesn't matter to
somebody else I mean there's things like
that I know we've all done and we come
back and we're like wow I spent a lot of
time on that and it really is going to
come back to was that time valuable was
it time well spent and so before I go
into the challenge a week I'm going to
throw this over to micro and get your
thoughts on all this
yeah so it's rather interesting uh our
conversation today you know improving
our Focus you know explain the why uh
very
interestingly a task that was given me
this week was I was handed a project
from another team with literally no
guidance other than here's some
documentation and all we're expecting
you to do is just stand up the
code what we don't know or what we don't
have access to is we don't have access
to the previous developers so we have
teams that are working with this product
but no one knows how to stand up this
product so we are literally blind and
kind of going into this like oh how the
heck do we do this and that is a
bad practice because really you know you
want your focus to be handoff software
have another team come in pick up the
software and hit the ground running you
don't want to essentially hit a
roadblock like that so to me a lot of
times when you're focusing on your why
or like focusing on you know what it is
that we're doing to stay
productive you kind of have to look at
what you're doing like you said um make
sure that the tasks you
have can be productive um make sure that
the stuff that you're working
on ask yourself you know like you said
is this moving the ball forward you know
you don't want to spend a day working on
a color but if the if your task is to
build a dashboard you do need to make
sure that some functionality and
features of that dashboard work you know
you want to make sure that the user
inputs are there you know that is
important the look and feel may be not
as important at the beginning because
what you want to do is you want to make
sure that the feature is functionally
complete and then you can come back
later and add all the bells and whistles
and make it look good now there is a
caveat to that because you know yes
sometimes look and feel may not be
important but those actions those
controls
are however you don't want to spend like
Rob mentioned you don't want to spend
days on a drop down list to make it like
cross functional make it you know look
all nice and pretty but you do still
need to make sure that it meets the
requirements of the user so it kind of
our why kind of goes back to those
requirements or maybe lack of
requirements is what is it that they
want how do they want it implemented
could be Loosely interpreted but
essentially what you need to do is you
need to make sure that you get it
functionally complete that hey this
works the way it's intended and then
kind of move on from there you can come
back and apply Focus later interestingly
enough that can also flow to those
status uh emails or the end of the week
status updates like Rob was talking
about because as you're building
something as you're working on your
tickets yes you're writing code but
you're working on requirements you're
working on functionality and features so
when you go to write those status
updates depending upon who your audience
is yes it can be very technical however
if you're dealing with customers nine
out of 10 times they don't care about
the technical they care about that
functionality they care about the
requirements what is it that you're
doing that is giving them quality or the
quality of the code what is it that
you're doing to the code that they will
see that they will understand so you
need to make sure you you essentially
can talk to that functionality hey I was
working on building you this uh
dashboard for this functionality within
that dashboard these are the features I
worked on this week you don't have to
get real technical with the code but you
might
want to specify though or highlight
features that may be featured complete
or are still in progress so as you're
working on your why as you're working on
your focus think about these things and
also think to make sure that you're
working to get to that feature complete
not oh this is a nice Bell and whistle
hey look I did something no 9 out of 10
times what we do as developers is never
seen by the end user they just see
software that works and that is all they
care about so be careful trying to show
off and make sure that you show up and
make sure that your software delivers
what you're trying to
do and that's really like the focus is
that there is a I think we over we
exaggerate how impressive our software
is to people uh to our end user there
are a lot of most often your end user is
going to be impressed when the software
works if you've got like a nice little
you know Spinning Wheel that shows up at
certain times or you've got a certain
color that's just like been you know
scientifically proven to be soothing or
whatever it is and there's all these
things that we do that we don't
necessarily need to do that we're
actually in a sense we are actually
being bad stewards of our our time of
what our customer is paying us to do or
our boss or employer is paying us to do
CU they're paying us to solve problems s
mostly now you may be in a situation
where the problem you're solving is a
marketing problem so it you have to
appeal so but that's then the focus the
design the the pop or whatever it is the
call the action then sometimes it is
very valuable to spend that time because
that is your goal that is what you want
so in that case maybe the content and
the presentation are number one if
you're at the top of a funnel but when
you get to the end of the funnel and you
you're giving a product that somebody's
purchased then it's like you need to you
walk through that funnel you built up
that story you built up all those
valuable the value proposition so you
now have to deliver on the value
proposition at this point the value
proposition is not spoken mirrors it is
not prettiness it is nailing the
requirements that you have laid out for
the customer and with any product that's
what it is for example you can look at
spreadsheets are great that's a good
example of this because really what you
want with a spreadsheet is you want to
be able to take a bunch of numbers and
stuff and present them in a way that you
can see a lot of information at once and
then you can do a lot of Wheeling and
dealing with it you can do calculations
all this kind of stuff you don't need
generally speaking you don't need like
really pretty cells and stuff like that
you just need a grid and you need the
ability to put as much crap on the
screen at a time as you can basically is
you know so it's it's very functional
it's very specific and its function and
a lot of what we do I think we over
complicate and think that we should
provide more than we should so that's
where I want to get to this is it's it's
really it is you know busy versus
productive which really comes down to is
this is this functional or is it pretty
am I you know essentially just trying to
present this in a better light than it
is or am I trying to make it better so I
could you know the goal would be that
even if it's the ugliest presentation
the functionality is so good that it's
still compelling but then pretty it up
as well now one of the wasted time
things is um is what Michael sort of
touched on is the idea that like get the
functional first you can throw something
out there that's visually okay you know
it doesn't you don't want people to like
you know oh my eyes are burning after
they see your interface but they don't
need to be like they don't need to go
and like say I have to go smoke a
cigarette after seeing the you know your
your interface either because the
functional thing needs to be complete
you're going to you may add buttons you
may remove buttons you may add fields
and remove Fields you may move fields
around you may have uh validations and
communication of some sort like
notifications and messages and all this
kind of stuff that's all going to be
part of completing the functionality now
maybe you know exactly what it's going
to look like from the start so you can
do all those things at once but normally
that's not the case because there's
going to be things that we're going to
get into that is an unknown and now
we've implemented the functionality it's
like oh yeah that's right we need to do
this differently or we need to change
that and that means what anything that
you changed it if you spent time
beforehand pting it up and trying to
make it Pixel Perfect then you've
probably wasted your time because now
everything else around it maybe has
changed and so this again it comes down
to what you know knowing where the value
is and that's the habit I want to I want
to sort of look at that's a challenge is
this is much like taking a break
it is on a given day because we've
already we're building lists we're doing
all these things is maybe look at what's
on your to-do list for today you know or
tomorrow when you're putting your list
together and with that when you put your
list items on there think a little bit
about what does it mean to check that
off what do I need to do to check that
off what I what is the goal of that
thing what is the why for that checklist
item because I can be working on that
checklist item all day and maybe not
make a lot of progress until the last 5
minutes and then it's like boom I'm done
so you just wasted all day minus the 5
minutes so that's what you want to look
at is it's sort of like Performance
Tuning your to-do list maybe that'll be
the title of the the podcast that's
actually pretty cool idea um but it's
really it's looking at your to-do list
and saying what is the essentially what
is the most efficient way for me to get
this thing done it's a little bit of
design work on your to-do list before
you get into doing your to-do items it's
think about how am I going to approach
this how am I going to work with this
and this is something that actually you
can actually benefit from as well the
idea of like maybe there's some ordering
to that to-do list maybe we've talked
about like batching things together and
things like that so maybe it makes sense
to do these three tasks and then these
other three tasks because they are very
familiar or it may make sense to do this
task and do this very different task
because it allows you to switch gears it
forces you to take a little bit of a
break so think about your why on your
to-do list and that's what I want you to
do is for the next week there as a
challenge is every day when you build
your to-do list before you dive into it
take just a couple of minutes and think
about each of those items maybe you add
another level detail to your list or
some notes or something like that to
remind you what is it that I really need
to accomplish to get this done and then
at any time during the day if you're
sitting there and you're just like I'm
heads down and I'm cranking through
stuff maybe periodically or put a
reminder alert or something like to say
am I actually doing the things I need to
do and this I think will help you with
some of the other things we've talked
about like meetings and if you're
walking around the office and people
start talking to you and you just get
sucked into you know water cooler talk
or whatever because you can say wait a
minute I got to get back and do this
thing I think it's going to help you
stay focused it's going to help you
first personally to avoid rabbit Trails
but then also when you're dealing with
other people and I want to throw that to
you Michael give you sort of the last
word on
this yeah so it's I kind of like where
you went with that so the other thing
with that is you know
don't be busy be productive you know
don't be the person running around the
office with your cell phone on making it
look like you're busy you're talking to
someone be at your desk be present get
your work done stay
focused and you're going to see probably
an improvement in productivity and a
decrease in uh
distractions so one of the things that's
very productive that you can do right
now is write us an email send us an
email at info@ develop ur.com
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so at least that's our goal that's our
why so now I'm going to let you to
continue your productive day go out
there and have yourself a great day a
great week and we will talk to you next
time bonus
material so I was thinking through this
one um
it kind of bleeds into some of the other
podcasts as far as the bonus stuff but
again as you're going through your daily
processes as you're trying to figure out
your why you know write those lists make
sure you keep track of what it is you're
supposed to be doing uh so that you can
kind of check off and go okay yes I was
trying I need to get this done I need to
get this done but also as you're looking
at those lists and you're making those
checks make sure that you're Focus focus
is on what it is and that you're staying
within the scope of your task so you
don't essentially have scope creep like
we talked about where you get stuck on a
low button adding all that functionality
and feature stick
to the scope of what your task is meant
to be if your scope if your task is too
broad yes you're going to run into that
issue where your focus is going to be
jumping all over the place look at your
task break it down redefine it and make
that that scope I me I think in testing
terms if then there should be a oneway
path to get to the end of your task now
how you get to that path maybe chopping
down trees maybe getting on the
interstate but how you get there is the
journey but you have to
Define your starting point and then
Define your destination and then your
focus and your scope is going to be to
get from A to B you shouldn't have a to
B to C to D to D back to B it should be
straight A to
B that's I like the the path analogy
because I'm thinking about that just as
something that that may help you guys
out there and gals is think about making
if you're going through you know a
heavily forested area or something like
that and you're trying to hack your way
and make a path well the goal is to have
a path through there the goal is not to
have necessarily a pretty path so if
you're if you're whacking away at the
big things and clearing out a a way
through so people can walk through it
then you are being productive if you're
going through and you're like trimming
the sides of the flower so it's far
enough out and you know there's not like
one branch out of place or something
like that then you're probably not
serving the greater purpose and while
that may be useful to some extent and
you can argue that like well somebody
could get hurt that little Branch could
whack them and they could draw blood and
they could die from bleeding to death or
something like we can we can find ways
to argue the importance of our stuff but
honestly if we're arguing that there's
importance to it even with ourselves and
it's probably not that important and
it's like it's really that argument
should be should I do it at all then you
can have that longer argument of yes
it's at least worth it to some point
come back to it but if you're arguing
right now whether there's important
enough to do it today then you probably
should just pass on that the bonus thing
I want to talk about is
really timeliness of getting stuff done
because that's we we touched on it a
little bit through the episode but I
really want to go back to that cuz when
you think of what is now sort of a has
become a big thing like the just in time
delivery just in time
fulfillment and it's really that's what
scrum and agile is about when we talk
about development is it's about doing it
when it needs to be done and not doing
it sooner and not doing it later and so
this is where especially we talk about
like maybe visual design and
functionality and things like that and
this is where particularly we're I think
it helps us when we're designing
software this a little bit one of those
Advanced Techniques or whatever is that
you you can look at the big picture like
what am I what's the problem I'm solving
what are the the steps to solve that
problem and then looking at those steps
is there commonality Michael mentioned
the idea of like components and things
like that so maybe you've got a solution
that's got a bunch of dropdowns and
maybe it makes sense to just each time
you do that build your drop down and do
your little list but maybe in looking at
it it is worth it it is a worthwhile
investment to instead say I have to do
this 10 different times and instead of
doing it in a larger sense and you know
having a lot of work 10 different times
I can do it once and then plug a couple
of things in so it's a talks about the
idea we're think about like code reuse
and things like that so looking at the
big picture and then find the way and
this is sort of to prioritize is first
there's the things that we're going to
use a lot which goes to sometimes why
there's struggle early on and you know
we're building a product because we're
really building a framework of some sort
it may not be a full-blown framework but
it's essentially the framework for this
solution for this product for this
application and so we're building these
pieces and it's things like you know it
is it's the general looking feel and
some things like that that we're going
to spend a little bit of time we're
going to put that there so now we have
placeholders for the features that we're
going to build later and so we need to
think about am I building something
right now that I'm going to actually
replace with a general solution later or
am I building something this is when
it's done it's going to be done and
that's sort of the follow-up to that is
is understanding and it goes back to the
challenge of the week is it's
understanding what does done mean what
does complete mean for this list item
for this thing that's on my task and if
I do that I think that will help me I
know it helps me and I'm hoping it will
help you I in the global sense hopefully
when you're doing that it will help you
maintain that focus and so like Michael
said it's one of those when you say I'm
going to work on this task you know that
this is where I'm at and because you
know what the goal of that task what is
completion for that task then you can
make sure you're focused on getting to
completion and anything that takes you
off of that path you can rain yourself
back in and get to the completion of
your
task that being said we have gone a
little bit I guess not too long but
little over on this one mostly because
we were trying to figure out what the
heck we're going to talk about and I
think it did turn out pretty good so
stick around because we'll probably do
this again in the very near future that
being said go out there and help
yourself a great day I'm going to go
have some more tea because I'm not
caffeinated enough and we will talk to
you next time
[Music]
Transcript Segments
1.35

[Music]

28.039

morning so we are

30.48

here we are back and we are trying to

33.239

figure out what we're going to talk

35.12

about I think you something in slack

37.76

last time we had an extra there uh let's

43.76

see so we had anti-habsburg

62.64

did we do

65.76

forget no that was more New Year

70.04

see uh we had wrapping up your business

72.68

in the New Year goals I think that might

75.159

have been for the New Year's episode

76.72

yeah that's all the New Year's stuff uh

79.28

anti-habsburg

94.92

so this

96.56

is we've already talked about automating

99.2

processes right y about

102.96

automation let's see what do we got as

105.04

we're stepping into the new year what is

107

a good habit

110.439

um well the focus in improvements I like

113.6

um because I know we've talked about the

115.799

um Pomodoro Technique list things of

120.32

that but even with

125.119

those and I guess we also talked about

127.52

being present in

129.92

meetings

132.4

yep I think another one is

136.04

um we'll see this sort of goes with

138.239

Focus Improvement a little bit so it may

139.68

be a good pairing is level

140.87

[Music]

142.08

your leveling

145.04

Your Daily Grind basically because what

148.2

I'm think about is like maybe some

150.64

habits to help people so it's not so

152.16

much feast or fam where it's like okay

153.959

I'm having to like work all night and

155.8

you know work 48 hours straight to get

158.28

this thing done and then I'm done and

160.599

then I'm sitting around and not I don't

161.879

have anything to do and I'm twiddling my

163.159

thumbs for a couple of days you know

164.48

it's it's not as it's that kind of thing

167.239

that's not as common now when you've got

168.8

so many people have Sprints and stuff

170.239

like that and smaller projects and

171.68

smaller things but when you're doing you

174.239

know 6 12 month 18 month projects it was

178.519

very bad it's very difficult and those

180.28

to be focused in the early ones cuz

181.92

you're like I can take a day who's going

183.48

to care and then you get to the last

184.68

couple of months and it's like okay

186.159

cancel canceling vacations and holidays

188.64

and everybody's got to work seven days a

190

week and some of that kind of crap

191.2

that's maybe for ourselves finding ways

193.519

to help that

197.319

out so less highs and less lows sort of

201.159

like more of a steady stream on

203

your staying busy yeah so staying

207.879

focused both of these are sort of time

209.439

management stuff but yeah I think that's

212.319

where you were going with the focus too

213.84

because I think during the holidays we

215.28

were all over the place even with trying

217.36

to

218.879

follow you know what we've talked about

220.879

up to now but it's like trying to with

224.48

yeah with Focus Improvement I thinking

225.799

even within the task that we know we

227.239

have is making sure that

229.239

we're sort of like it is a little bit

231.4

like that it's basically it's being

232.36

present in whatever the task is that

233.799

you're working

235.799

on and

238.2

not you drifting too much squirreling

242.12

away or chasing rabbit down rabbit

245.68

Trails oh I think we did talk about that

248.239

one um a little bit because wasn't that

250.239

also like the screen time in that trying

251.879

to narrow your focus

253.56

just well that was that was eliminating

255.92

bad habits that's right

259.799

okay yeah for those of you in the

261.68

pre-show this is what happens we a lot

264

of the things we talked about can cross

265.88

over and become multiple

268.479

conversations yeah

275.12

chair a little higher so my knees aren't

277.6

quite as cramped well let's start with a

280.199

focus Improvement we'll see what happens

281.56

if we we can start with that and see

283.72

where it goes and then we'll come into

284.919

the next one and we'll figure out what

286.639

we want to go with that at least we have

288.039

some ideas for it yeah that sounds good

290.16

because I think the initial idea for

291.479

pushing this to this week's uh podcast

296.24

was because we the other two made more

299.12

sense together in this one I think we

301.08

thought we'd have something else to go

302.56

with it to kind of pair up the

304.68

week exactly so we'll see how that goes

308

let me put my do not disturb to make

309.639

sure that's not distracting me too

312.639

much and we'll do our famous 3

315.88

two well hello and welcome back we are

319.199

continuing our season where we're

320.52

building better habits building better

322.24

developers through those habits we are

324.28

develop andur I am Rob Broadhead one of

326.52

the founders of De develop andur which

329.08

doesn't always off the tongue real well

331

especially when I've only had like a few

332.52

cups of coffee or tea actually is my

334.919

drug of

336.039

choice anyways already digressing so it

339.199

is one of those days I guess this

340.8

episode that we are going to talk about

342.56

improving your focus so it's going to be

344.16

perfect topic for this I want to

346.199

introduce myself a little bit more I am

348.72

also a found of RB Consulting where we

350.6

are a boutique consulting firm we

352.88

basically help you Wrangle your

356.12

technology that's out there your needs

358.44

and the technology you already have have

360.12

so that technology sprawl that we tend

362.039

to have just like you may have in your

363.88

personal life you've got just too many

365.319

devices and too many things you're

366.639

looking at trying to make a find a way

368.599

through simplification automation

370.319

integration to just focus those things

372.36

down so your technology is now your

374.68

friend and your tool and not the thing

376.639

that is sucking up all of your time also

379.4

going to be some of those things going

380.52

be helpful as we talk about the topic

383.12

this episode as far as habits go really

386.759

burning in the like the pomodora has

388.919

continued to be just I cannot push that

391.12

enough to say if you haven't gone go

393.039

back to that was one of the early

394.199

episodes basically walk through what a

396.52

pomodora is we talked about doing just

398.319

instead of trying to do them all day but

399.56

just try to have a couple a day that are

401.28

focused periods it has really helped me

403.639

and it's also helped me uh with one of

405.68

the E habits we talked about is

407.12

basically doing stuff that's fun so the

409.88

things that I really enjoy is giving a

411.4

little bit of time to that uh and this

413.8

is by doing things are fun it's the

415.24

stuff that I enjoy and

416.84

work and it's also touching some of the

419.919

projects and some of the things that I

421.24

need to do so that they don't just

422.879

falter and disappear and the next thing

425

you know it's you know you haven't

426.039

touched that in six years and you forget

427.639

where it was at so there's a lot of

429.52

benefits in those in the habits um

433.08

automation continues to be a good one I

434.639

think it really is one of those that

435.84

that's just like if you can get into

437.28

that each week look at one or two even

439.879

just one thing that you can automate

441.36

that will build up and give you a nice

443.08

Snowball Effect related to The Snowball

445.56

Effect is my good and my bad the good

448.479

well we'll start with the bad I guess is

450.199

we just got pummeled by snow so we're

452.8

pretty much snowed in right now it's

454.44

like I don't know more than an inch

456.28

which around here is too much snow

458.319

because they don't have clearing

459.68

cleaning other than the major roads

461.52

major roads probably fine but getting to

463.639

those a bit of a a challenge so that's I

467.4

guess a bad thing but a good thing is is

469

now that I'm snowed in for the weekend I

471.479

get to catch up on a lot of the chores

472.919

and tasks and stuff like that that was

474.44

my ever building list of things that got

476.759

pushed to tomorrow and then tomorrow and

478.24

then tomorrow and tomorrow and coming

480.12

out of a very busy holiday season

482.28

probably a real good time to have you

484.68

know take a couple of days and catch up

486.319

on such things so that my mental health

488.28

can actually improve as well somebody

490.759

whose mental health is not improving at

492.8

all right now because he's stressing out

494.759

because I'm about to put him on the hot

496

seat is my co-host Michael go ahead and

498.199

introduce yourself hey everyone my name

500.639

is Michael malash I'm one of the

501.919

co-founders of developer ner building

503.52

better developers and I'm also the

506.759

founder of Envision QA where we

510.4

our entire focus of our company is to

513.159

bring test driven development to improve

515.88

software development within companies be

518.8

it's small business um mediumsized

521.519

businesses healthc care to take your

524.2

software that is potentially having

527.56

problems or user experiences are buggy

530.72

we help you streamline that whole

532.24

process to make sure that when you write

534

code build code it is tested and when it

537.68

gets out to the users at the end

539.48

experience they have a nice uh

542

experience with the software no bugs no

543.88

problems and with this process it also

545.959

helped streamline development process so

547.839

your developers aren't spending as much

549.839

time tracking down bugs or missing bugs

552.76

because they can push a button and know

554.72

if the software Works before they even

556.6

roll it out the

557.92

door talking about good and bad uh good

562.16

uh had a very productive week this week

565.12

things are moving along on our project

567.24

uh bad like Rob said we got snow in I

570.32

think we got more snow than you guys uh

572.32

we're up to about 8 in and I'm praying

575.56

it melts tomorrow cuz we are going to

577.88

the airport next week to so my wife can

580.04

fly to California hopefully not deal

582.16

with the fires but we'll see uh habits

586.68

so I have been doing really good on some

590.279

habits and really bad on others so the

593.48

Pomodoro I started really good at the

595.76

beginning of the year and I've kind of

597.88

slipped I've gotten into

600.399

uh some bad habits where I've been kind

602.8

of heads down coding and the next thing

605.079

I know I am five six hours in and I have

608.6

not moved from my desk uh which also

612.56

means I'm failing the taking breaks

615.48

habit uh

617.24

so I've kind of slipped a little bit but

620.8

the good news of that is I actually got

623

a lot done like I was so in the zone and

626.36

really cranked stuff out downside I'm a

629.68

little more burned out so uh getting

633

back into some good habits which kind of

634.8

worked into that was I was following

636.68

some good list checklist uh I was more

639.44

focused in meetings and I was actually

642.399

really working on trying to plan things

644.44

and schedule things the problem was I

646.32

was so overbooked that it just I wasn't

649.519

moving things forward so back to the

651.76

habits of this week is trying to get

653.04

back to the Pomodoro and taking breaks

655.44

and kind of like Rob said getting to the

657.8

point where we can spend time family and

659.839

friends and doing things we

662.6

want well that's what we're going to re

664.839

going be part of the side effect I guess

666.8

of what we're going to we cover this

668.32

time what I want to talk about is we're

670.839

going talk about habits related to

672.2

essentially improving your focus and

674.639

this is not just it is a little bit the

678.279

general distractions that we've talked

679.72

about whether it's your phone or your

681.839

mail or some things like that but it's

685.12

also it's really more along the lines of

687.56

being busy versus being productive it is

690.399

about figuring out what is it that you

692.44

actually need to do for the things that

693.88

you need to do it may seem like that's

696.279

too many to-dos in a you know in a

698

sentence but it really is it's we have

700.6

tasks we have things that are our

703.72

responsibilities and our assignments

705.399

whether it's in personal life or more

707.12

often and which is where we're going to

708.68

really focus today is in the business in

710.519

the whether it's our side hustle or our

712.76

main hustle so we've got things like we

716.279

will have you know tickets maybe that

717.76

we're working on we will have a product

720.16

that we're building or a design that

722.24

we're creating or something along those

724

lines and there is a lot of stuff we can

726.8

do that is effectively busy work that is

729.8

not terribly useful to us I mean it's

732.839

yes it needs to be done maybe but

735.56

sometimes even then it doesn't need to

736.68

be done it could be pushed to a later

738.199

date and then suddenly just sort of

739.8

evaporates because we didn't need to

741.88

deal with it now some people are sitting

744.32

there out there may be saying yeah

745.48

that's why we don't have to actually

746.76

document designs and requirements

748.76

because they're always going to change

750.16

like wrong that is not it not talking

752.519

about like eliminating everything that

754.199

you don't like to do which is

756.079

effectively documentation but it is

759.24

making sure that what you do is

761.56

productive and serving the goal that you

763.32

have for

765.04

example some people can write like let's

768.279

say take a weekly status and over the

770.76

years there are some developers that

772.079

their weekly status is I wrote code okay

775.839

not very helpful and so you actually in

778.399

that case you sort of wasted your time

779.92

even putting that down it's like you

781.36

need to have something that is useful

782.8

it's like hey I worked on this I worked

785

on that here was a challenge here was

786.959

something I overcome something that

789.48

provides whatever level of insight is

791.48

needed for that for that task that

794.36

Weekly status task hopefully your

796.56

manager customer whoever it is can help

798.639

you refine that now sometimes

802.68

overcommunication is not a bad thing but

805.16

maybe in your status instead of I wrote

807.8

code you have a breakdown of every hour

811.24

like how many lines of code that you

812.519

looked at and what you wrote and maybe

814.12

some you've got like code Snippets and

815.72

things like that that you've pulled into

817.04

it while yes that thoroughly documents

819.88

what you did nobody cares it's it's one

823.079

of those that it's like you're adding

824.76

documentation that's not needed it's the

827.04

same idea is if you generate a report to

830.36

somebody and it's got a million records

832.36

in it it is too much nobody's going to

835.68

look through a million records of data

837.68

you need to keep why in Focus so if

841.839

you're you know if you're building a

843.12

product and you're going to

845.36

show thousands and thousands of Records

847.92

in a report then instead of yes maybe

851.48

you can spend your time and now you've

852.839

built that report and you can check that

854.16

off and that's a function or a feature

855.8

that you can say like hey we can do that

858.12

maybe take a look at that and instead of

860.8

doing that figure out what is the actual

862.399

goal what is your what are you trying to

864.759

serve your customer with with that

866.759

report and then maybe you need to make

868.519

adjustments a lot of times it's things

870.079

like maybe it's a summary or maybe it's

872.519

just an exception report or something

874.6

along those lines and those are I mean

876.6

we've learned some of that like

877.8

exception reporting is sort of an

879.68

industry standard nobody cares if you

882.199

process a million records successfully

884.399

nobody wants an email that says I

886.519

processed record one two 3 four they may

889.56

want to say yes I processed a million

891.48

records but that's one you know one

893.72

value that's not a million values or

897.56

words that's one one ping to your phone

900.04

not a million pings to your phone that

901.88

everything's going well because if you

903.92

have everything going well and then

905.12

somewhere in there it went wrong you've

907.199

got too much information so that's where

909.88

we want to focus we want to focus on the

913.24

why and that's I think the easiest part

915.68

that's sort of the easiest way to

917.079

describe what we're going to have in the

918.759

challenge this week is how do we get to

921.519

the why how do we figure out build some

924.399

habits that will help us do the right

927.12

thing do the valuable thing

929.68

and how do we avoid going down those

932.36

rabbit trails that we sometimes do how

933.959

do we avoid losing a day tweaking a

936.959

color on a website that when the color

939.04

is just for us and it doesn't matter to

940.6

somebody else I mean there's things like

941.72

that I know we've all done and we come

944.199

back and we're like wow I spent a lot of

946.6

time on that and it really is going to

948.88

come back to was that time valuable was

951.6

it time well spent and so before I go

954.319

into the challenge a week I'm going to

955.56

throw this over to micro and get your

956.759

thoughts on all this

960.319

yeah so it's rather interesting uh our

963.12

conversation today you know improving

965.44

our Focus you know explain the why uh

969.279

very

970.48

interestingly a task that was given me

972.72

this week was I was handed a project

975.279

from another team with literally no

978.8

guidance other than here's some

980.6

documentation and all we're expecting

982.44

you to do is just stand up the

984.639

code what we don't know or what we don't

987.639

have access to is we don't have access

989.959

to the previous developers so we have

993.04

teams that are working with this product

996.759

but no one knows how to stand up this

998.44

product so we are literally blind and

1002.24

kind of going into this like oh how the

1003.959

heck do we do this and that is a

1007.24

bad practice because really you know you

1010.04

want your focus to be handoff software

1013.079

have another team come in pick up the

1014.6

software and hit the ground running you

1016.519

don't want to essentially hit a

1018.04

roadblock like that so to me a lot of

1021.44

times when you're focusing on your why

1024.319

or like focusing on you know what it is

1027.72

that we're doing to stay

1029.959

productive you kind of have to look at

1032.4

what you're doing like you said um make

1035.6

sure that the tasks you

1038.24

have can be productive um make sure that

1042.039

the stuff that you're working

1044.039

on ask yourself you know like you said

1047.12

is this moving the ball forward you know

1049.919

you don't want to spend a day working on

1053.16

a color but if the if your task is to

1056.64

build a dashboard you do need to make

1059.12

sure that some functionality and

1060.44

features of that dashboard work you know

1063.76

you want to make sure that the user

1065.08

inputs are there you know that is

1067.28

important the look and feel may be not

1070.799

as important at the beginning because

1072.6

what you want to do is you want to make

1073.799

sure that the feature is functionally

1076.559

complete and then you can come back

1078.36

later and add all the bells and whistles

1079.76

and make it look good now there is a

1082.88

caveat to that because you know yes

1085.52

sometimes look and feel may not be

1088

important but those actions those

1090.28

controls

1091.76

are however you don't want to spend like

1095.24

Rob mentioned you don't want to spend

1097.559

days on a drop down list to make it like

1100.72

cross functional make it you know look

1102.44

all nice and pretty but you do still

1104.48

need to make sure that it meets the

1106.32

requirements of the user so it kind of

1109.12

our why kind of goes back to those

1110.679

requirements or maybe lack of

1112.44

requirements is what is it that they

1115.44

want how do they want it implemented

1118.08

could be Loosely interpreted but

1121.2

essentially what you need to do is you

1122.52

need to make sure that you get it

1125.039

functionally complete that hey this

1127.72

works the way it's intended and then

1131.48

kind of move on from there you can come

1133.52

back and apply Focus later interestingly

1136.76

enough that can also flow to those

1139.28

status uh emails or the end of the week

1141.919

status updates like Rob was talking

1143.4

about because as you're building

1145.48

something as you're working on your

1147.48

tickets yes you're writing code but

1149.48

you're working on requirements you're

1151.159

working on functionality and features so

1153.559

when you go to write those status

1155.36

updates depending upon who your audience

1158.12

is yes it can be very technical however

1162

if you're dealing with customers nine

1164

out of 10 times they don't care about

1166.039

the technical they care about that

1167.72

functionality they care about the

1169.039

requirements what is it that you're

1170.76

doing that is giving them quality or the

1174.64

quality of the code what is it that

1176.039

you're doing to the code that they will

1178.12

see that they will understand so you

1180.2

need to make sure you you essentially

1182.48

can talk to that functionality hey I was

1185.32

working on building you this uh

1188.52

dashboard for this functionality within

1191.76

that dashboard these are the features I

1193.88

worked on this week you don't have to

1195.96

get real technical with the code but you

1198.36

might

1199.36

want to specify though or highlight

1201.96

features that may be featured complete

1204.559

or are still in progress so as you're

1207.88

working on your why as you're working on

1209.64

your focus think about these things and

1212.2

also think to make sure that you're

1213.72

working to get to that feature complete

1217.44

not oh this is a nice Bell and whistle

1220.32

hey look I did something no 9 out of 10

1223.12

times what we do as developers is never

1225.64

seen by the end user they just see

1227.48

software that works and that is all they

1229.88

care about so be careful trying to show

1233.12

off and make sure that you show up and

1236.159

make sure that your software delivers

1238.12

what you're trying to

1240.12

do and that's really like the focus is

1244.559

that there is a I think we over we

1249

exaggerate how impressive our software

1252.12

is to people uh to our end user there

1254.32

are a lot of most often your end user is

1257.28

going to be impressed when the software

1260.08

works if you've got like a nice little

1263.36

you know Spinning Wheel that shows up at

1265.28

certain times or you've got a certain

1266.84

color that's just like been you know

1269.32

scientifically proven to be soothing or

1271.159

whatever it is and there's all these

1272.559

things that we do that we don't

1275.919

necessarily need to do that we're

1277.559

actually in a sense we are actually

1279.12

being bad stewards of our our time of

1283.24

what our customer is paying us to do or

1285.24

our boss or employer is paying us to do

1287.039

CU they're paying us to solve problems s

1289.36

mostly now you may be in a situation

1291.32

where the problem you're solving is a

1294.039

marketing problem so it you have to

1295.72

appeal so but that's then the focus the

1298.08

design the the pop or whatever it is the

1301.2

call the action then sometimes it is

1303.039

very valuable to spend that time because

1305.24

that is your goal that is what you want

1309.159

so in that case maybe the content and

1311.679

the presentation are number one if

1314.24

you're at the top of a funnel but when

1316.08

you get to the end of the funnel and you

1317.76

you're giving a product that somebody's

1319.679

purchased then it's like you need to you

1322.24

walk through that funnel you built up

1323.799

that story you built up all those

1325.76

valuable the value proposition so you

1328.2

now have to deliver on the value

1329.88

proposition at this point the value

1331.919

proposition is not spoken mirrors it is

1333.96

not prettiness it is nailing the

1337.12

requirements that you have laid out for

1339.08

the customer and with any product that's

1342.279

what it is for example you can look at

1345.919

spreadsheets are great that's a good

1347.84

example of this because really what you

1349.48

want with a spreadsheet is you want to

1350.919

be able to take a bunch of numbers and

1353.48

stuff and present them in a way that you

1356.559

can see a lot of information at once and

1358.24

then you can do a lot of Wheeling and

1359.64

dealing with it you can do calculations

1361.12

all this kind of stuff you don't need

1363.72

generally speaking you don't need like

1365.36

really pretty cells and stuff like that

1368.32

you just need a grid and you need the

1370.559

ability to put as much crap on the

1372.24

screen at a time as you can basically is

1375.88

you know so it's it's very functional

1377.76

it's very specific and its function and

1380.279

a lot of what we do I think we over

1382

complicate and think that we should

1383.24

provide more than we should so that's

1385.96

where I want to get to this is it's it's

1388.039

really it is you know busy versus

1390.2

productive which really comes down to is

1392.72

this is this functional or is it pretty

1396.52

am I you know essentially just trying to

1399.36

present this in a better light than it

1401.12

is or am I trying to make it better so I

1404.88

could you know the goal would be that

1406.24

even if it's the ugliest presentation

1407.84

the functionality is so good that it's

1410.2

still compelling but then pretty it up

1413.48

as well now one of the wasted time

1416.08

things is um is what Michael sort of

1419.24

touched on is the idea that like get the

1421.32

functional first you can throw something

1424.52

out there that's visually okay you know

1428.08

it doesn't you don't want people to like

1429.44

you know oh my eyes are burning after

1431

they see your interface but they don't

1433.2

need to be like they don't need to go

1435

and like say I have to go smoke a

1436.32

cigarette after seeing the you know your

1438.159

your interface either because the

1440.279

functional thing needs to be complete

1443.4

you're going to you may add buttons you

1445.76

may remove buttons you may add fields

1447.6

and remove Fields you may move fields

1449.039

around you may have uh validations and

1451.279

communication of some sort like

1452.44

notifications and messages and all this

1454.08

kind of stuff that's all going to be

1455.6

part of completing the functionality now

1458.76

maybe you know exactly what it's going

1460.279

to look like from the start so you can

1461.64

do all those things at once but normally

1463.48

that's not the case because there's

1465.2

going to be things that we're going to

1466.159

get into that is an unknown and now

1468.84

we've implemented the functionality it's

1470.279

like oh yeah that's right we need to do

1471.84

this differently or we need to change

1473.559

that and that means what anything that

1476.159

you changed it if you spent time

1478.399

beforehand pting it up and trying to

1480.2

make it Pixel Perfect then you've

1482.039

probably wasted your time because now

1483.44

everything else around it maybe has

1484.919

changed and so this again it comes down

1488.6

to what you know knowing where the value

1491.88

is and that's the habit I want to I want

1494.24

to sort of look at that's a challenge is

1496.64

this is much like taking a break

1498.96

it is on a given day because we've

1501.64

already we're building lists we're doing

1502.84

all these things is maybe look at what's

1504.24

on your to-do list for today you know or

1506.2

tomorrow when you're putting your list

1507.84

together and with that when you put your

1510.84

list items on there think a little bit

1513.24

about what does it mean to check that

1515.279

off what do I need to do to check that

1517.72

off what I what is the goal of that

1519.84

thing what is the why for that checklist

1521.96

item because I can be working on that

1524.32

checklist item all day and maybe not

1526.679

make a lot of progress until the last 5

1528.48

minutes and then it's like boom I'm done

1530.399

so you just wasted all day minus the 5

1532.84

minutes so that's what you want to look

1534.96

at is it's sort of like Performance

1537.36

Tuning your to-do list maybe that'll be

1539.72

the title of the the podcast that's

1541.32

actually pretty cool idea um but it's

1544.52

really it's looking at your to-do list

1545.919

and saying what is the essentially what

1548.84

is the most efficient way for me to get

1550.799

this thing done it's a little bit of

1552.72

design work on your to-do list before

1554.679

you get into doing your to-do items it's

1556.88

think about how am I going to approach

1557.96

this how am I going to work with this

1559.6

and this is something that actually you

1561.039

can actually benefit from as well the

1563.76

idea of like maybe there's some ordering

1565.2

to that to-do list maybe we've talked

1566.88

about like batching things together and

1568.6

things like that so maybe it makes sense

1569.96

to do these three tasks and then these

1572.76

other three tasks because they are very

1575.2

familiar or it may make sense to do this

1577.72

task and do this very different task

1579.32

because it allows you to switch gears it

1581

forces you to take a little bit of a

1582.52

break so think about your why on your

1585.279

to-do list and that's what I want you to

1587.6

do is for the next week there as a

1589.399

challenge is every day when you build

1591.48

your to-do list before you dive into it

1593.76

take just a couple of minutes and think

1596.279

about each of those items maybe you add

1597.679

another level detail to your list or

1599.64

some notes or something like that to

1601

remind you what is it that I really need

1603.32

to accomplish to get this done and then

1605.84

at any time during the day if you're

1607.36

sitting there and you're just like I'm

1608.6

heads down and I'm cranking through

1610.12

stuff maybe periodically or put a

1612.12

reminder alert or something like to say

1614.72

am I actually doing the things I need to

1616.72

do and this I think will help you with

1618.88

some of the other things we've talked

1619.919

about like meetings and if you're

1621.559

walking around the office and people

1622.84

start talking to you and you just get

1624.12

sucked into you know water cooler talk

1626.799

or whatever because you can say wait a

1628.2

minute I got to get back and do this

1629.52

thing I think it's going to help you

1630.919

stay focused it's going to help you

1632.84

first personally to avoid rabbit Trails

1635.159

but then also when you're dealing with

1636.399

other people and I want to throw that to

1638.48

you Michael give you sort of the last

1639.64

word on

1640.88

this yeah so it's I kind of like where

1644.039

you went with that so the other thing

1646.159

with that is you know

1649.159

don't be busy be productive you know

1651.679

don't be the person running around the

1653.159

office with your cell phone on making it

1654.799

look like you're busy you're talking to

1656.72

someone be at your desk be present get

1659.44

your work done stay

1661.399

focused and you're going to see probably

1665.279

an improvement in productivity and a

1667.519

decrease in uh

1671.279

distractions so one of the things that's

1673.2

very productive that you can do right

1674.6

now is write us an email send us an

1676.6

email at info@ develop ur.com

1678.679

you can also contact us out on Facebook

1680.399

at the developer Nur site you can check

1681.72

us out on developer.com there's contact

1683.72

forms there you can provide comment

1685.76

comments and feedback on any of our

1687.559

content that's out there which is

1688.72

literally over thousands of Articles out

1690.96

there between podcasts and videos and

1693.88

blog articles and all kinds of stuff

1696.559

wide range of technologies that we cover

1698.88

uh everything for beginning developers

1700.399

and there's even some more advanced

1701.799

Topics in there as well love for you to

1704.799

check that out you can also find a lot

1706.84

of the video stuff

1708.64

amazingly enough out on YouTube we've

1710.2

got lots of stuff there on the

1711.2

development or channel uh old Mentor

1713.72

sessions and presentations of varing

1715.84

sorts and then a lot of these you may

1717.519

even be there hello to all of you that

1719.08

in the YouTube audience uh because we

1721.279

also do the podcast uh we have a video

1723.76

version of that as well every uh

1726.2

actually every couple of days when we

1727.399

put these things out feel free to also

1729.279

leave us feedback on wherever you listen

1731.36

to podcast because there's so many of

1733.76

those out there the Pod catchers that

1735.559

are out there uh would love to get

1737.72

feedback from you whe good or bad we

1739.559

just want feedback because we want to

1740.919

know how we can serve you better We Want

1742.64

To Build The Better developers but we're

1744.399

also building a better podcast in doing

1746.32

so at least that's our goal that's our

1748.919

why so now I'm going to let you to

1751.96

continue your productive day go out

1754.159

there and have yourself a great day a

1755.6

great week and we will talk to you next

1759.399

time bonus

1763.88

material so I was thinking through this

1766.279

one um

1769.2

it kind of bleeds into some of the other

1771.64

podcasts as far as the bonus stuff but

1775.64

again as you're going through your daily

1777.84

processes as you're trying to figure out

1780.36

your why you know write those lists make

1783.6

sure you keep track of what it is you're

1785.6

supposed to be doing uh so that you can

1788.08

kind of check off and go okay yes I was

1790.399

trying I need to get this done I need to

1792.2

get this done but also as you're looking

1794.679

at those lists and you're making those

1796.519

checks make sure that you're Focus focus

1798.44

is on what it is and that you're staying

1801.12

within the scope of your task so you

1804.039

don't essentially have scope creep like

1806.72

we talked about where you get stuck on a

1808.159

low button adding all that functionality

1810.399

and feature stick

1812.159

to the scope of what your task is meant

1815.48

to be if your scope if your task is too

1818.72

broad yes you're going to run into that

1821.08

issue where your focus is going to be

1822.519

jumping all over the place look at your

1824.919

task break it down redefine it and make

1828.159

that that scope I me I think in testing

1830.24

terms if then there should be a oneway

1833.88

path to get to the end of your task now

1836.48

how you get to that path maybe chopping

1838.519

down trees maybe getting on the

1840.36

interstate but how you get there is the

1843.399

journey but you have to

1846.2

Define your starting point and then

1848.24

Define your destination and then your

1850.399

focus and your scope is going to be to

1852.36

get from A to B you shouldn't have a to

1854.64

B to C to D to D back to B it should be

1857.519

straight A to

1859.44

B that's I like the the path analogy

1862.519

because I'm thinking about that just as

1864.039

something that that may help you guys

1866.159

out there and gals is think about making

1869.519

if you're going through you know a

1871.519

heavily forested area or something like

1873.84

that and you're trying to hack your way

1875

and make a path well the goal is to have

1877.84

a path through there the goal is not to

1880.159

have necessarily a pretty path so if

1882.08

you're if you're whacking away at the

1883.679

big things and clearing out a a way

1885.559

through so people can walk through it

1887.36

then you are being productive if you're

1889.24

going through and you're like trimming

1890.639

the sides of the flower so it's far

1892.159

enough out and you know there's not like

1893.88

one branch out of place or something

1895.36

like that then you're probably not

1896.919

serving the greater purpose and while

1899.279

that may be useful to some extent and

1902.08

you can argue that like well somebody

1903.559

could get hurt that little Branch could

1904.96

whack them and they could draw blood and

1906.2

they could die from bleeding to death or

1907.679

something like we can we can find ways

1909.919

to argue the importance of our stuff but

1912.2

honestly if we're arguing that there's

1914.2

importance to it even with ourselves and

1916

it's probably not that important and

1918.159

it's like it's really that argument

1919.96

should be should I do it at all then you

1922.32

can have that longer argument of yes

1924.32

it's at least worth it to some point

1925.88

come back to it but if you're arguing

1927.76

right now whether there's important

1928.919

enough to do it today then you probably

1930.399

should just pass on that the bonus thing

1932.84

I want to talk about is

1934.399

really timeliness of getting stuff done

1937.72

because that's we we touched on it a

1939.6

little bit through the episode but I

1941.799

really want to go back to that cuz when

1943

you think of what is now sort of a has

1946.399

become a big thing like the just in time

1949.08

delivery just in time

1950.919

fulfillment and it's really that's what

1954.399

scrum and agile is about when we talk

1956.919

about development is it's about doing it

1959.48

when it needs to be done and not doing

1962.48

it sooner and not doing it later and so

1965.159

this is where especially we talk about

1966.919

like maybe visual design and

1968.32

functionality and things like that and

1969.96

this is where particularly we're I think

1971.519

it helps us when we're designing

1974

software this a little bit one of those

1975.399

Advanced Techniques or whatever is that

1976.919

you you can look at the big picture like

1978.72

what am I what's the problem I'm solving

1980.48

what are the the steps to solve that

1983.679

problem and then looking at those steps

1986.24

is there commonality Michael mentioned

1988.799

the idea of like components and things

1991.2

like that so maybe you've got a solution

1993.799

that's got a bunch of dropdowns and

1996.24

maybe it makes sense to just each time

1997.84

you do that build your drop down and do

1999.32

your little list but maybe in looking at

2001.279

it it is worth it it is a worthwhile

2003.44

investment to instead say I have to do

2005.159

this 10 different times and instead of

2007.96

doing it in a larger sense and you know

2010.279

having a lot of work 10 different times

2011.96

I can do it once and then plug a couple

2014.519

of things in so it's a talks about the

2016.279

idea we're think about like code reuse

2017.919

and things like that so looking at the

2020.279

big picture and then find the way and

2023.399

this is sort of to prioritize is first

2025.72

there's the things that we're going to

2026.679

use a lot which goes to sometimes why

2029.799

there's struggle early on and you know

2031.679

we're building a product because we're

2033.32

really building a framework of some sort

2035.6

it may not be a full-blown framework but

2037.559

it's essentially the framework for this

2039

solution for this product for this

2041.399

application and so we're building these

2043.279

pieces and it's things like you know it

2045.84

is it's the general looking feel and

2047.519

some things like that that we're going

2048.48

to spend a little bit of time we're

2049.32

going to put that there so now we have

2051.44

placeholders for the features that we're

2053.8

going to build later and so we need to

2055.639

think about am I building something

2057.399

right now that I'm going to actually

2058.52

replace with a general solution later or

2062.599

am I building something this is when

2064.359

it's done it's going to be done and

2066.359

that's sort of the follow-up to that is

2067.72

is understanding and it goes back to the

2070.159

challenge of the week is it's

2071.56

understanding what does done mean what

2073.56

does complete mean for this list item

2076.8

for this thing that's on my task and if

2079.159

I do that I think that will help me I

2082.76

know it helps me and I'm hoping it will

2084.2

help you I in the global sense hopefully

2087.32

when you're doing that it will help you

2089.28

maintain that focus and so like Michael

2091.399

said it's one of those when you say I'm

2092.76

going to work on this task you know that

2095.639

this is where I'm at and because you

2097.359

know what the goal of that task what is

2099.4

completion for that task then you can

2101.32

make sure you're focused on getting to

2103.16

completion and anything that takes you

2105.119

off of that path you can rain yourself

2107.32

back in and get to the completion of

2109.52

your

2110.48

task that being said we have gone a

2112.96

little bit I guess not too long but

2115.079

little over on this one mostly because

2116.599

we were trying to figure out what the

2118.32

heck we're going to talk about and I

2119.92

think it did turn out pretty good so

2122.119

stick around because we'll probably do

2124.2

this again in the very near future that

2126.56

being said go out there and help

2127.72

yourself a great day I'm going to go

2129.52

have some more tea because I'm not

2130.839

caffeinated enough and we will talk to

2133.119

you next time

2136.35

[Music]