How to Be Productive as a Software Developer: An Expert Guide
As a software developer, your productivity directly impacts the success of your projects and your career growth. But in the face of countless meetings, constant notifications, and complex coding challenges, it can feel impossible to make real progress. Many devs feel like they‘re stuck reacting to other people‘s priorities instead of proactively tackling their most important work.
The good news is, you can take back control of your schedule and dramatically increase your output, without burning out. As a full-stack developer who has worked on teams of all sizes, I‘ve experimented with countless productivity strategies. In this guide, I‘ll share the techniques that have made the biggest impact for me and other top developers I know.
The Power of Deep Focus
Did you know the average developer wastes 21.8 hours per week on meetings and distractions? That‘s over half the typical workweek! When meetings and messages are haphazardly scattered through your day, it decimates your ability to focus deeply on cognitively demanding tasks like coding.
Yet research shows focus is exactly what developers need to do their best work. Studies have found it takes about 15 minutes to enter a state of flow – total immersion in a task. Once in flow, your productivity skyrockets. One famous study suggested programmers are over 200% more productive when in flow!
The trouble is, it only takes a 3 second distraction to break your flow. With team chat apps and open office plans, those interruptions happen all the time. No wonder 98% of developers say they feel most productive when working uninterrupted for long stretches.
If we want to write great code quickly, we need to prioritize deep focus over reactivity. Here‘s how:
Time Block Your Calendar
My #1 recommendation is to proactively block off 1-2 hour chunks of uninterrupted focus time on your calendar every day. Treat these like any other can‘t-miss meeting. Let your team know you‘re unavailable during these sessions barring true emergencies.
Many top developers I know aim for at least a 2 hour block in the morning, when their mental energy is highest, and another 2 hour session in the afternoon. Context switching carries a heavy cognitive cost, so it‘s better to cluster meetings together and have a few long focus blocks rather than constantly alternating between the two.
Pomodoro Technique
During your focus time, try working in short sprints using the Pomodoro Method. Set a timer for 25 minutes and commit to focusing exclusively on one task, with zero distractions – no email, no phones, nothing.
After 25 minutes, take a 5 minute break to rest your mind, check messages, use the restroom, etc. Then dive into another focused 25 minute session. After 4 sprints, take a longer 15-30 minute break.
This trains you to focus intensely for short periods and creates a rewarding cadence to your day. You‘ll be amazed how much you can get done in a few cycles.
Defend Your Attention
Of course, all the calendar blocking in the world won‘t help if you let notifications derail you. It‘s on you to strengthen your attention muscle and defend your focus.
At the very least, use "Do Not Disturb" mode liberally. Turn off notifications during your focus sprints. On Slack, set your status to "Focusing" so colleagues know not to expect quick replies.
Many developers also swear by website blockers to curtail the allure of social media and other distractions. Tools like Freedom and Cold Turkey let you temporarily block specific sites and apps so you can focus on what matters.
The goal isn‘t to be completely unavailable to your team, but to batch communications so they don‘t fragment your whole day. Once you experience how great it feels to make tangible progress on important work, you won‘t want to go back.
Prioritize Ruthlessly
Of course, to make the most of your focus time, you need to work on the right things. As a developer, it‘s easy for your to-do list to become overrun with minor bugs, "nice to have" features, and other low-impact tasks.
Highly productive programmers are ruthless about identifying and prioritizing work that will have the biggest influence on their main objectives. Everything else can wait.
Conduct a Personal Sprint Planning
At the start of each week, conduct a personal "sprint planning" session. Review your task list and upcoming meetings, then identify the top 2-3 things you absolutely need to complete that week to make meaningful progress.
Be realistic about what you can achieve given the time you have. It‘s better to commit to fewer high-impact items you will definitely finish than an overly ambitious list you‘ll only get partway through.
Once you‘ve picked your top priorities, block off time on your calendar to work on them. Dedicate your peak focus blocks to these items before anything else.
Use the Eisenhower Matrix
If you‘re struggling to identify true priorities, try using the Eisenhower Matrix. This technique helps you separate the important from the merely urgent.
Draw a square and divide it into four boxes:
- Urgent and important (tasks you will do immediately)
- Important, but not urgent (tasks you will schedule to do later)
- Urgent, but not important (tasks you will delegate to someone else)
- Neither urgent nor important (tasks you will eliminate)
Place all your outstanding tasks into one of the four boxes. Be honest with yourself about what really moves the needle. Aim to spend most of your time in Quadrant 2 on important, non-urgent work, as that‘s where real progress happens.
Optimize Your Environment
Once you‘ve carved out focus time and know what to work on, turn your attention to optimizing your surroundings for maximum productivity.
Upgrade Your Workstation
Start with the physical basics: is your chair comfortable? Do you have good posture at your desk? An ergonomic setup can work wonders for your ability to focus for long periods without discomfort.
If possible, invest in a large external monitor or even multiple monitors. The extra screen real estate makes it much easier to navigate complex codebases without constantly tabbing between windows.
Reduce clutter on your desk and computer to minimize visual distractions. Use dark mode where you can to reduce eye strain during long coding sessions. Even small environment tweaks can pay big dividends for your focus over time.
Leverage Automation
Whenever you find yourself doing repetitive tasks, look for tools to automate them. From code snippets to keyboard maestro macros to IFTTT recipes, there are endless opportunities to reduce busy work as a developer.
Thoughtful automation lets you spend more time on stimulating work that requires your full brain, and less on mindless tasks a machine could do. Keep a list of all the actions you repeat regularly and consider how to streamline them.
Build Productive Habits
More than any single tactic, becoming a highly productive developer is about consistent, focused habits practiced daily. Research shows up to 40% of our daily actions are determined by habits! So if you can shape your default behaviors, your output will soar with less effort over time.
Design a Productivity Ritual
One of the most powerful habits you can build is a pre-work ritual that gets you in the right mental state to do focused coding. Your ritual could include things like:
- Tidying your workspace so it‘s free of clutter
- Reviewing and prioritizing your daily task list
- Doing a quick meditation or breathing exercise to calm your mind
- Making a cup of coffee or tea to enjoy as you start your focus block
- Putting on noise-canceling headphones with productive music
The specifics matter less than the fact that you do the same things in the same order each day. This trains your brain to associate those actions with a state of deep work.
Take Effective Breaks
Downtime is not a distraction from productive work – it is essential for it! Regular breaks help maintain your mental stamina throughout the day.
When you step away from your computer, resist the urge to check email or social media, as that will just clutter your thoughts. Instead, do an activity that genuinely rejuvenates you, whether that‘s going for a walk, doing some stretches, reading a book, or talking to a friend.
Aim to take a 5-10 minute break at least once per hour. You‘ll return to your work with more energy and clarity.
Track and Improve
To keep honing your productivity skills, track your daily habits and output. There are many time tracking tools designed specifically for programmers, like Wakatime and Rescuetime. These give you metrics like number of commits, lines of code written, and time spent in each file or project.
Keep a journal to note what you accomplish each day and any observations about your energy and focus. Each week, review your stats and journal. Look for patterns around when you were most productive. What helped you make the most progress? What hindered you?
Measuring your results will help you refine your habits and routines over time. Treat your productivity like an ongoing experiment and keep iterating to find what works best.
Prioritizing Mental Health
In the quest to maximize your output, it‘s crucial not to sacrifice your mental wellbeing. Countless developers have crashed and burned pushing themselves too hard for too long.
Keep an eye out for physical, mental, and emotional signs that you may be overworking, like:
- Persistent fatigue and low energy
- Difficulty focusing or lack of motivation
- Feeling anxious, irritable, or depressed
- Physical aches and pains, especially in the back, neck, and wrists
- Trouble sleeping or relaxing after work
If you notice these red flags, give yourself permission to ease up. Take a mental health day. Unplug from screens in the evening. Spend time on hobbies and relationships outside of work. Consider working with a coach or therapist.
Remember, your productivity is a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourself so you can show up with energy and focus for the long haul.
With the strategies we‘ve covered, you have everything you need to become a productivity powerhouse as a software developer. Build a fortress around your focus. Single-task on what matters most. Shape your environment and habits for flow.
It won‘t happen overnight, but with consistent practice, you‘ll be amazed how much more you can achieve, while still having a life outside of work. You‘ve got this!