Ask HN: Productivity tips/sources/literature?

[_gjrn]

I am a developer and my interest is in knowing if there are any good studies or literature or common tips/techniques that can actually enhance your overall productivity or give insight on how to to it.

I am not looking for ways to trick the brain reward system but on how to measure and percieve developer productivity in the long run. The reason is that currently I am dedicating some time in trying to bootstrap a project.

[Mz]

1. Get enough sleep.

2. Exercise and eat right.

3. Set goals. People with goals vastly outperform those without.

4. Track your progress. This will involve determining the right metrics. "What gets measured gets done."

5. Look for more efficient ways to do things.

6. Read the book "The 7 habits of highly effective people."

7. Learn some time management techniques.

8. Read up on how to plan things backwards: Start with where you want to be and figure out the step before that and the step before that, etc. Otherwise, you may be "climbing a ladder leaned against the wrong wall."

[elorm]

The only resource I'd recommend is Learning How To Learn by Barbara Oakley

https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

It also has a companion book.(Book came first anyway). It's well researched and has many tricks on boosting productivity e.g Pomodoro technique.

[tucaz → elorm]

Great course. I would also add the book Deep Work by Cal Newport. They go hand in hand and overlap a bit but yet I feel they are complementary to each other.

[atsaloli]

Check out recent discussion of Max Kanat-Alexander's blog post on increasing developer productivity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14071716 (and of course the blog post itself, http://www.codesimplicity.com/post/effective-engineering-pro...)

P.S. See also Max's earlier blog post Measuring Developer Productivity: http://www.codesimplicity.com/post/measuring-developer-produ...

[undergrowth54 → atsaloli]

> many engineering productivity workers

Wait, there are people who specialize in increasing the productivity of engineers? How does one find, assess, and hire someone like this to improve your personal productivity?

[atsaloli → undergrowth54]

You can start by reading Max's excellent book, "Code Simplicity".

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007NZU848/ref=as_li_tl?ie...

[toepitt]

I'm working on a project that improves general productivity (not just developer productivity) with common methods, based on science studies. The methods aren't popular yet.

The biggest insight is that it's far more important to work on big, important problems.

[levimaes → toepitt]

Hi, I'm intrigued, and I'm left wondering what you might mean by, "...improves general productivity..."? Without trying to reduce your project's value to a single approach or paradigm, can I ask you how a software project like yours might help someone achieve improved productivity? Could I ask you, for my own academic and personal betterment, which paper(s)/author(s)/experiment(s) it was where you discovered your project's methods? Thanks a bunch, in advance!