The pursuit of productivity
Be it production or productivity, both have always been a source of concern for developers. You see the relationship, right? We all get 24 hours, but only a few manage to spend them well. "The world is your oyster. It's up to you to find the pearl."
This Thursday (7th April, 2022), we gathered by the fire in the discord lounge and discussed about Dev Productivity. We were joined by various folks from across the globe. We had with us community managers, senior developers, and students who had different views altogether. Here's a short wrap-up of what we came up with.
Meaning of productivity
All the members on call shared their meaning of productivity. And we received different opinions such as
- A sense of satisfaction after doing all the tasks on time
- Some extra time for family
- Getting a good night's sleep after being able to count the things I had done that day
This conversation was really insightful, and everyone lost track of time. And that helped us categorize productivity into two buckets.
Categories of productivity
Productivity is not about achieving nearly impossible feats, but about doing things efficiently. Productivity can be further classified into two types.
- Short-term: When you assign small, relatively easier but critical tasks to be completed in a short period of time. They might be less important, but they are quite regular. These can be easily managed by smart planning and leave you with enough time for recreational activities.
- Long-term: When you set large, relatively difficult tasks that you want to complete by a certain date, they are surely of great importance and require early planning and strategy. Long-term productivity might have some small periods of low output as well.
Most people nowadays believe busy people to be productive, but there is a huge difference between being productive and busy. A productive person doesn't appear busy with the right management of time.
How to boost productivity
There are several ways to increase productivity. Some of them are,
- Write a daily ToDo list
- Use 2 minutes rule
Doing a boring yet necessary task for 2 minutes and then discontinuing. Eventually, over time, these 2 minutes increase to the desired duration. - Use 9 day hurricane
Each month, spend 21 days doing a task with the aim of learning and understanding things. Turn on God mode for the last 9 days and dive deep into concepts and MVCs! - Use Kanban boards
You can use various platforms like Trello, Notion, etc. to make your personalized Kanban boards with your goals and their expected dates of completion.
I hope you will apply these hacks and become more productive. Join us every Thursday for more amazing events; we'll be waiting in the lounge. Come join our Discord now!