A continuous process for improving programming productivity
Set aside 30 minutes at the end of your working day to work on tooling/technique that’d save you time.
You don’t have to use the whole 30 minutes. Don’t use the time at all if you don’t have a good reason to. Reserving the time forces your subconscious to actively scout for opportunities during the day.
Find tasks that you can complete within the 30 minutes. That way you’ll feel improvements the next day.
Here are some examples of things I recently did if you’re looking for inspiration:
- Patched
git pushto automatically open a GitHub PR when a new branch is pushed - Learnt how to configure “Run Tests On Save” in my IDE
- Enabled live-reload in a front-end app that I work on every day
- Learnt the keyboard shortcut to close all tabs except the current tab in my IDE
Has this made a measurable impact on my productivity? Hard to say. It has definitely made me a happier programmer though. The feedback loop is addictive. I look forward to my 30 minutes every day.
