3 Productivity Tips Every Software Engineer Needs

What's up, everyone? It's Nuno here, and today I'm going to give you three tips, which hopefully are going to make you much more productive. There are truly things that make me more [music] productive every single day, and they really work for me as a staff software engineer. And the very first thing I have to you is healthy habits are non-negotiable. Probably a lot of you hear things on the internet that you should make sport, you should have healthy food, and you should have nice nights of sleep. This is not like This is honestly something really important that truly have an impact in your productivity. [music] Now, as a software engineer, something that I used to do all the time in the past is that I would literally negotiate my healthy habits. I would work on something, and I would feel that I'm behind schedule, and then I would say something like, "I'm going to skip gym to actually accomplish this task." Doing that decision actually makes you go much faster on that particular task, but have a high impact in the future of your productivity. Meaning that if you're not a healthy person, over time you just get less stuff done. So, right now, healthy habits are literally non-negotiable for me, meaning that never skip a gym session because of work, I will never skip a healthy meal because of work, and I will literally go to bed at the same time every single day, regardless how behind I feel. The second tip I have for you is protect your attention. The social medias are literally made these days to keep your attention on the phone all the time. So, something really important is literally take the phone you have on your hands right now and put it away off your laptop. Meaning that while you are working, you don't have your phone next to you because something that may happen to you all the time is that you are working, and suddenly you are in your phone, and you didn't even understood how did you end up with a phone to begin with. So, if I have a tip to give you, which is really, really important, is that while you are accomplish your [music] daily goals in your laptop, just put your phone away a little bit. This single thing honestly saves me dozens of minutes every single day. Tip number three I have to you, which is probably one of the most important tips I have here is do not get sidetracked. I know dozens of very talented software engineers that literally don't get anything done because they get sidetracked all the time. They chase new ideas all the time or they work on different things all the time. So, something really important is that when you set up yourself to do something, only work on that thing in that thing only. A common mistake I see is that people start things and they never finish it because they want to chase other stuff. So, how does this work in your daily life exactly? Every single time you start something, do not actually start anything else while you are working on it. And if you were to stop it, actually write it down like why I am stopping this particular task. It is worth to keep chasing. It is worth to continue. So, just write it down. Sometimes it's just okay to say stop, but if you do, just write it down. Why are you stopping to work on that particular thing? Just this process of actually writing down it's enough to actually continue to work on it and actually finish it. Now, these three tips combined, I promise you if you don't follow any of them, they are going to change your life completely. In terms of productivity, they are honestly change your life. Now, just a quick 5 seconds pause to literally say thanks to all my sponsors. They are absolutely awesome, so check them out. So, another question that I get a lot is how exactly my schedule looks like. So, I'm going to answer to that right now. I always wake up at 9:00 a.m. every single day and from 9:00 to 11:00 12:00, I actually get 2 to 3 hours of solid work at Laravel where I get honestly a lot of things done just because I'm super productive in the morning. At 11:00 or 12:00, I always go to the gym about 1 hour gym with my coach. I don't get my phone during my gym session. [music] Just literally just focus on the gym. Also, after the gym, I get a 30 minutes meal which typically is a very healthy meal. After lunch, I go back home. I work again for 6 7 hours at Laravel and I typically try to apply some of the tips we just talked about. Again, phone away off my laptop. I try to literally [music] do not get sidetracked. So, I work only on a task that I have set ahead myself to. After Laravel, which typically ends about like 7:00 p.m., I go have dinner with my wife. This is like the quality time that I have with my family. We just have food together and we talk about how the day is doing and everything. After being with my wife, I go back to my laptop and I work on my YouTube channel, which typically represents either editing a video or just working on my YouTube live streams as well. And this typically ends about 9:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m. And after that is literally gaming all the time. You know, I just do gaming from 10:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. literally with my buddies online. You know, and I look like a kid. When I'm gaming, I'm honestly like trash talking my buddies and everything. So, I'm literally just relaxing time for 3 hours basically. I go to bed and then the same thing happen [music] on the next day. Now, something I do on weekends though is that besides spending time with family, I also work on side things. Typically things that I don't do during the week like accounting or potentially working on a new idea for my YouTube channel or potentially working on new things for open source or rehearsing a talk or whatever. Like all those things that I cannot do during the week because I have my consistency at work, I typically do them at the weekends cuz I feel like it just works better for me. And that's it. This is obviously a new style of video. You guys are used to seeing me literally coding all the time. This is like an honest, raw, unfiltered video literally recorded on the first try. So, if you guys like this behind the scenes stuff, if you want to see more about this, like, you know, potentially talk a little bit about my gym or potentially talk a little bit more about things like this, just let me know on the comments below. I also want to know what do you struggle with in terms of productivity. Just write in the comments below. I'm going to answer to every single one of the comments. I honestly want you to become a 10X engineer. So, if I can do anything to help you out, just let me know. Thanks for watching. See you guys next time.