Productive Habits in Tech

I'm often trying to find ways to be more productive with my time or more efficient with what I am already doing. I've found several suggestions over the years -- some that have worked and some that have not -- and want to share them here. Most come from a mix of sources and I will do my best to give credit to the original source.

Time Efficient

Since having a child I often think about one of Troy Hunt's oldest blog posts -- "Want to be a better programmer? Have a baby!". Everything in the post is true. One thing he doesn't talk about much there, but does discuss heavily in one of his other posts is optimizing his time.

While this post is not about having kids, having one really shows you just how much free time you used to have and you didn't even know it. It's a great way of forcing you to become as efficient with your time as possible and not getting distracted. Or at least it's been for me.

Here's what's worked for me to also help with that:

Getting time back

First, by making more time. Generally, I like doing things myself to save money and to have something done the way I want it done. In the majority of cases, this is still true. But identifying certain tasks that can be dropped, done a different way, or by hiring someone can give some time back. 

I used to enjoy cleaning my car pretty frequently and would insist on doing it myself. While I still do that occasionally, paying $10 to the local car wash when the car needs cleaned saves a TON of time that would otherwise be eaten after work or on a weekend when other things can be accomplished with that time. 

Waking up earlier and/or going to sleep later also help create more time. I'm not suggesting chronic sleep deprivation, but continuing to work on a project or a goal instead of scrolling on my phone in bed "creates" more productive time. Sometimes having this "off" time is important though and I will just relax in bed for the evening. More on that later.

Filling in small time gaps / multi-tasking

Multi-tasking and filling in small gaps of time throughout the day help me get more done with the same amount of time dedicated.

Pumping gas for the car? I can check email or respond to texts. In a conference call? Depending on the call, I can read and respond to emails, check dashboards, or other tasks. This type of multi-tasking isn't always possible and often 100% focus is needed for a task, but it can be very helpful otherwise. 

Optimizing

Especially in tech, part of the answer here is automating tasks. Not only does this go back to "getting time back" in that you're taking what was manual work and automating it, but computers are much faster than humans and a great way to optimize tasks. The other part is thinking about how a process can be improved to make the outcome higher quality, the work done faster, or both. This is something that can seem obvious when reading it, but finding the right places and times to optimize in practice can be very challenging.

Studying

My favorite way to study for an extended period of time is using the Pomodoro technique. Depending on how much time I have I'll do 45 minutes studying with a 15 minute break, 30 minutes studying with a 10 minute break, or some similar combination. I like listening to very low music during this that isn't distracting or something that produces background noise. 

"Study with me" videos on YouTube are great for this. Specifically, I like ones posted by a then-medical student. These are great due to the quality of the videos and they also remind me that no matter what I'm studying, it could always be worse and I could be in medical school.

Effective vs Efficient

Scott Hanselman has numerous talks, blog posts, podcasts, and more discussing productivity tips as he juggles his multiple, regular commitments. He also has a blog post listing his productivity tips.

One of my favorite tips of his is understanding being effective versus being efficient. 

Effectiveness is doing the right things.

Efficiency is doing things right.

You have to think about what the best thing to work on, accomplish, and focus on is. Then you can work on efficiency. Worrying about being efficient too early on in the process can hinder overall progress. This is similar to "analysis paralysis" in that people, myself included, have a tendency to think about a situation for too long before taking action. Now I'm not saying don't plan or analyze situations, but try to be cognizant of when you've reached an appropriate end for that phase of the work and move on to execution.

Conserving Keystrokes (and energy)

Another famous Scott Hanselman quote is "You have a finite number of keystrokes left in your hands before you die." He even made a website to show you how many keystrokes you have left. It counts down in real-time as well. I have 288,863,980 keystrokes left.

He goes on to explain that anything more than a few sentences in an email and it should instead be in a wiki, website, or product documentation. That you should not have to write the same things over and over to people -- instead send them a link. While I still find myself writing longer emails at times, I try to keep this in mind and document procedures and important information instead of throwing it in an email. After all, "email is where keystrokes go to die."

Planning and Reflecting

I try to take a few minutes Monday mornings to plan my week. This means determining what needs done that week (or month) and seeing where it fits in this week. Sometimes things get pushed to the following week if I'm working on an important project. If you don't take the time to look forward and plan your work, important work can quickly get disrupted with an unnecessary meeting that could have waited a week or two. Even so, sometimes this process gets disrupted with a mid-week urgent task, but it's always good to start the week this way.

The other half of this is reflecting. Reflecting at the end of the week or month to see what went according to plan and what didn't. What I could have done better or differently, and try to do that the following week. I find this half of the process harder to "find time for", but it's helpful when I do and I usually find a way that things could be done differently.

Be Intentional

This advice applies to many areas in life, but being intentional has a huge impact on productivity and ties into the effective versus efficient discussion. It's important to have a plan, not get distracted with other tasks, and be intentional in executing your plan. 

To quote Hanselman again, "being busy is a form of laziness." Sometimes it can be easy to get so caught up in going from task to task and feeling productive, that we miss the forest for the trees. That is, if we took time to think about what we should be doing instead of just hurriedly crossing off items on a checklist, we could actually make a bigger overall impact. Accomplishing things that matter are important both in personal life and they're important to employers, not just the number of items completed in a day.

Calendars and To Do Lists

This last one is the most obvious but I think sometimes underutilized by people. I live by my calendars, reminders, and lists. If I know I need to do something tomorrow I immediately tell Siri to remind me in the morning. Most of the time I would have remembered on my own and things would have been fine. It's the every now and then that I forget and I get the nice reminder on the front of my phone that I'm thankful I set the reminder. 

I also have personal and work calendars that I check daily. Especially for work, much like the reminder system I have with Siri, a calendar invite gets created for a future date if I know I'll need to remember something. In conjunction with that are my to do lists. I keep a large list organized by "Today", "High", "Medium", and "Low". Once the items in "Today" are cleared out I can pick new items from the "High" list and then review Medium and Low to make sure they don't need promoted in terms of urgency. This allows me to be more thoughtful about my work and ensure I'm focused on what really needs to get done. 

Not Being Productive at All - Recharging

Being extremely productive is great right up until you get burnt out. Being focused on productivity constantly is not sustainable and it's important to remember to take time for your brain to relax and recharge. I used to feel guilty when watching a TV show or reading a book knowing that I could probably be doing something better with my time. I try to remember now how important that time is as it allows me to be more productive long-term instead of getting exhausted.

Conclusion

I hope you find some or all of these helpful if you're looking to improve your productivity. I know I focus on some of these more than others at times and will often cycle through which I'm wanting to practice most, but ultimately I find them all useful.