Dec 19, 2022 4 min read Productivity

Become an efficient coder before 2023

There is a huge demand for productive engineers. Not only are they able to code faster, but they also write high-quality code. Read this blog to learn about how to become an efficient coder.

All coders code but not everyone does it efficiently

The more efficient you are, the more options you’re likely to have in your career. However, productivity, for coders, is highly debatable.

1. Learn how to learn

Learning must never come to an end, no matter how skilled or experienced you are in your field. You always improve as a result of learning. Similar to this, keep expanding your programming expertise by picking up new languages and using them.

You should always be working on challenges and projects that test your limits and help you develop as a programmer in addition to your usual work. In your programming endeavors, try to always be doing something you have never done before to ensure that you are continuously learning. Create supplementary projects as you gain additional knowledge.

The most effective places to begin exploring new topics, languages, and methodologies are frequently personal ambitions and projects.

2. Track your productivity

You can use Developer Diary to track your productivity.

Developer Diary

Developer Diary brings clarity and the insights help you become more efficient.

Developer Diary is a minimalistic offline journaling and progress-tracking app for developers inspired by "Deep work" by Cal Newport. It is an amazing tool to support help you focus. When you are working on your coding problem and realize that you need to note something down, you can use a simple shortcut (`⌘+Shift+I` or `Ctrl+Shift+I`) to open the app and start journaling.

3. Don't limit yourself to one language.

Gaining knowledge of another language gives you a fresh outlook and may enable you to manage projects with greater skill in the future. Each programming language has specific benefits and drawbacks of its own. Don't develop the unfortunate habit of believing that one language is superior and all others are essentially useless and unworthy of comprehension.

C/C++, Ruby, Python, Django, Java, Pascal, and NodeJS are just a few of the numerous new languages you could begin working on and may not be as familiar with. You can gain the ability to approach issues from a variety of perspectives by learning more coding languages, each of which has its methods and vantage points. Be more creative.

4. Learn from your failures

Failures must be acknowledged and improved upon if you want to get better. Experiences always teach you something. Before releasing the finished product to the user, true programmers try to find every problem and flaw in their code since they know that the consumers would find the errors.

5. Implement the Scrum technique

Making the most of challenging coding projects is the main goal of the agile development framework known as Scrum. It is widely applied in the IT sector and built around sprinting and ongoing planning instead of having a single, lengthy milestone.

Every two to four weeks in Scrum, a team is given the task of implementing a feature. At the beginning of each day, scrum masters(team leaders) hold daily meetings to ensure the work is progressing as intended. Scrum is a good strategy to follow for increased productivity when innovation is the top goal.

6. Optimize efficiently

The coding community has a severe problem with premature optimization. The need for optimization arises in real-time initiatives. For a better user experience, certification for publication, etc., other projects, like games, also need optimization to a certain extent.

But it doesn't imply you should be optimizing your game when it's still in the early stages. Optimization is a good idea after implementing a substantial portion of functionality. You will be able to avoid unneeded effort and remain productive thanks to the late start.

7. Consult others

By working on projects with programmers who have more knowledge and expertise than you have, you can learn a lot. By doing this, you can get help and explanations from others who have more experience when you run into a task or problem you're unfamiliar with.

Using internet resources and solutions is another beneficial strategy. Just Google your issues and take advice from others on websites like YouTube, Geeks for Geeks, blogs, or GitHub, among many others.

Make sure you read the code of other talented developers you collaborate with, both in person and online. Reading code written by more skilled programmers is a terrific way to broaden your views and discover how others approach challenges that you might have approached differently.

8. Work in the Flow state

Being in the Flow state is rewarding and essential for developers. Instead of leaving it to luck, we can do some things and use some tools that can lead to a Flow state faster and more often.

To learn more about how to do so, read my blog on how developers can enter the Flow state faster.

Of course, when it comes to productivity, there is no silver bullet, but we as a community can help each other.

Join our developer community and chat more about productivity with us on discord.