Getting Code Done: How to Stop Wasting Time and Start Investing it

As full-stack developers, the code we write powers the beating heart of modern businesses and our hyperconnected lives. It‘s both exhilarating and daunting to think that our fingertips hold the power to shape the future and nudge the world in new directions.

But that power is a double-edged sword. The same tools that enable us to create innovative software and solve complex problems also provide an endless stream of distractions and opportunities to waste time.

Social media, Slack, email, memes, gifs, cat videos. The hits keep coming and before we know it, hours have slipped by in a haze of mindless browsing with no real coding progress to show for it.

It‘s an insidious loop. The more time we waste, the further behind we fall on projects. Overwhelm and stress build. We try to catch up by working longer hours, which ironically leaves us even more unfocused and prone to time-wasting the next day as we‘re exhausted and burnt out.

If we truly want to realize our potential as full-stack developers and wield our coding superpowers effectively, we need a radical mindset shift in how we approach our time and productivity.

We must realize that not all hours are created equal. Unfocused, low-energy coding time sprawled on the couch at 11pm is not equivalent to an intentional deep work session with a clear plan tackled first thing in the morning when our cognitive capacity is highest.

Productive coding time is our most precious asset, a non-renewable resource to invest strategically and spend on only the most essential tasks. We can either choose to proactively structure our days to maximize focused output, or allow distraction and randomness to dictate what does or doesn‘t get done.

The High Cost of Wasted Time

Still not convinced your time-wasting habit is a major problem? Let‘s look at some statistics on how developers typically spend their time:

Activity	Average Hours Per Week	% of Total Time
Coding	17.3	43%
Emails & Communication	6.4	16%
Meetings	5.5	14%
Bug Fixing & Firefighting	4.3	11%
Admin & Other	6.5	16%

Source: 2022 Stack Overflow Developer Survey (https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#section-work-work-activities)

The average developer spends just 17 hours per week, or 43% of their time, actually writing code. The majority is eaten up by communication overhead, meetings, unplanned interruptions and fixing issues.

But here‘s where it gets really concerning. Research shows it takes an average of 23 minutes to regain focus after an interruption, and that multitasking can reduce productivity by up to 40%.

So even a quick 5-minute email check or Slack scroll can completely derail your focus and eat up nearly half an hour of productive coding time as you struggle to reimmerse yourself in the problem at hand. Repeat that a few times per day and the wasted hours really start to stack up.

The most productive 10% of developers report spending 4 more hours per week coding compared to the average, a full 20% productivity boost. Over the course of a year that adds up to an extra 208 hours, or five additional 40-hour work weeks worth of output.

Clearly, learning to shave off wasted time and reclaim even a fraction of those 23 non-coding hours each week can be absolutely gamechanging for your productivity and output as a full-stack developer.

Treat Your Time Like the Precious Resource It Is

So how do we actually make this shift from haphazard time-wasting to intentional time investment? It starts with clearly defining what is and isn‘t a valuable use of your coding hours.

High-Leverage Activities:

• Focused coding time on core product features
• Code reviews and collaboration to improve code quality
• Mentoring and coaching other developers
• Learning new in-demand skills and best practices
• Improving documentation to speed future development
• Writing clean, modular, reusable code
• Developing and optimizing core team workflows
• Proactive communication to gather needed info and unblock yourself
• Thoughtful planning to break down complex projects
• Taking breaks to recharge and avoid burnout

Low-Leverage Activities:

• Mindlessly scrolling social media and online forums
• Constantly checking analytics and metrics
• Unproductive meetings without clear agenda or goals
• Hacking messy quick-fixes instead of thoughtful solutions
• Reactively context-switching between many different tasks
• Spinning your wheels on low-priority bugs and features
• Reinventing the wheel instead of leveraging existing tools
• Diving into coding without sufficient planning and specs
• Chasing shiny new languages and frameworks you don‘t need
• Overcommitting and spreading yourself too thin

Regularly audit how you spend your time compared to these lists and ruthlessly cut or delegate anything that‘s not essential. You may also consider doing a personal energy audit to identify when you have the most focus. Eliminate or batch low-energy tasks like emails and admin into your afternoon slump times, and fiercely protect your peak hours for coding.

Engineer a Productive Development Environment

Where and how you work plays a huge role in your ability to focus and get code done. You want to be proactive and design an environment that promotes flow state and deep work, not one cluttered with distractions.

Invest in the right tools – a blazing fast computer, multiple large high-res monitors, a mechanical keyboard perfectly suited to your typing style. Every second spent waiting for your code to compile or squinting at small text adds up to hours of frustration and wasted time. The ROI of upgrading will pay for itself many times over.

Dial in your ergonomics with a standing desk or adjustable chair to keep your body energized and pain-free throughout long coding sessions. Poor posture, eye strain and carpal tunnel will kill your productivity.

If possible, find a quiet, distraction-free place to work, whether that‘s a private office, co-working space, or just a tucked away corner of your home. Keep your workspace clean and clutter-free to minimize visual distractions and overstimulation.

Consider multiple workstations optimized for different tasks – an isolated deep work coding zone, a collaborative space for pair programming and brainstorming, a separate area for emails and communication. Moving between them can also help prevent mental fatigue and "coder‘s block".

Productivity-Enhancing Techniques for Developers

Even with a perfect environment, you still need a solid arsenal of productivity tactics to combat distraction and low motivation. Here are some of the most impactful techniques I‘ve found:

Time Blocking and Day Theming

Group similar types of work into dedicated blocks or days. Context switching between disparate tasks like debugging, writing documentation, and answering emails can eat up 20-80% of your productive time.

Theme each work day around a specific focus – Coding Mondays, Bug Fix Tuesdays, Architect and Planning Wednesdays, and so on. This allows you to fall into a flow state and make rapid progress.

You might also experiment with front-loading your most important coding work into the first few hours of the day when your energy and willpower are highest.

Pareto Principle and Eisenhower Matrix

The Pareto Principle states that 80% of your results come from just 20% of your efforts. There are likely a vital few features, optimizations or bugs that will create the vast majority of user value and business impact. Relentlessly prioritize them.

The Eisenhower Matrix can help you visualize this and separate the merely urgent from the truly important. For each task ask: Is this urgent? Is it important?

Focus the bulk of your coding time in Quadrant 2 – Important but Not Urgent. This is where your most strategic, impactful work lives.

Leveraging Tools and Automation

Modern development work involves massive amounts of repetition and boilerplate. Luckily, there are a plethora of tools to help streamline your workflows.

Use code snippets to quickly insert frequently-used code. Set up shell aliases for commonly run terminal commands. Write scripts to automate code formatting, linting, backups, deployments.

Leverage IDE extensions and editor plugins like Emmet and VIM keybindings to slash keystrokes and navigate files at lightning speed. Use boilerplate generators to automatically set up new projects with basic CRUD operations.

Find every opportunity to shave off wasted time and make the computer do the heavy lifting. A few seconds saved on each mundane task can compound into hours or even days of extra productive coding time over the course of a project or year.

Manage Your Mental and Physical Energy

Full-stack development is intensely cognitively demanding. You can‘t expect to churn out high-quality code for 8+ hours straight without strategic breaks.

Use the Pomodoro technique to maintain focus by working in short sprints (25-50 minutes) followed by brief recovery periods. Get up, take a walk, stretch, grab water or a snack. Aim to take a longer 15-30 minute break every 2-3 hours as well.

Stay in tune with your mental state and let it guide your task selection. Tackle your most challenging problems when you have peak focus and energy. Switch to low-intensity tasks like code review, documentation or planning when you‘re feeling overwhelmed or fatigued.

Don‘t neglect your physical health either. It‘s tempting to grab quick junk food when you‘re slammed, but poor nutrition will leave you sluggish and under-fueled. Invest in nourishing whole foods and stay hydrated.

Exercise and fresh air can do wonders for your creativity and problem-solving abilities. Schedule a lunchtime stroll or morning workout before starting your coding sessions.

Embrace Continuous Learning and Experimentation

Productivity is a highly individual thing. What works for one developer may not work for you. The key is an experimental mindset and dedication to continuous improvement.

Regularly reassess your current strategies and look for new techniques, tools and habits to optimize your workflow. Ask yourself: Where are my time sucks and energy drains? What repetitive tasks can I automate or streamline?

Keep a time log or use an app like RescueTime to discover hidden sources of inefficiency and wasted coding time. Measure the impact as you test productivity hacks and adopt new approaches.

Study the habits of developers you admire and pick their brains for game-changing ideas. Read books and blogs on productivity, performance psychology and skill acquisition.

Remember that developing your own productivity system is a marathon, not a sprint. Start with a foundation of essential best practices, then iterate and optimize as you go.

Don‘t beat yourself up about lost hours. Reflect, adjust and aim to get 1% more effective each day. Those incremental gains will compound into a remarkable boost over the span of your career.

Bringing It All Together

Full-stack development is one of the most fascinating and impactful careers of our time. But with great power comes great responsibility.

Our effectiveness and output hinge on our ability to focus and wield our coding hours with ruthless efficiency. These hours are both highly valuable and highly perishable. We can invest them like a productive asset or let them drain away like a leaking faucet.

True coding productivity is a function of energy and attention, not raw hours spent. It‘s possible to have a tremendously impactful day in a few deep work sprints and then recharge guilt-free.

Start prioritizing quality over quantity when it comes to your development time. Fiercely protect a few undistracted deep work blocks each day. Say no to any non-essential tasks and meetings that pull you away from coding.

Invest heavily in your skills, tools, workspace and physical health. Your productivity is your competitive advantage as a developer and is well worth the time and resources to optimize.

And remember, perfection isn‘t the goal. You will still have off days and unproductive coding sessions. The key is committing to slowly improving your coding habits and building a workflow that helps you spend more time in flow and less time fighting distraction.

One focused hour at a time, you‘ll compound these productivity gains into a remarkable boost in your output and impact as a full-stack developer. And perhaps more importantly, the sense of accomplishment that comes with doing your best deep work.

Your coding time is a gift. Treat it accordingly and amazing things will happen. Not just for your career, but for all those who will benefit from the game-changing software you have the power to create.

Now if you‘ll excuse me, it‘s time to close all these distracting tabs and get coding.