3 simple tips to be productive as a coder!

Introduction

We all want to complete our projects by the given deadline, or the deadlines we set for ourselves, right? but what is the best way to go about coding and managing other activities side by side?

You may have tried 10s of ways, habits, tips, or even some actionable steps to get productive and achieve the goals we set, but again, no results :(

I will try to keep this blog as practical as I can, I will not tell you to do the 'POMODORO METHOD', 'CODE IN A SILENT ROOM', or even the classic 'SET SYSTEMS NOT GOALS', these tips are somewhat good, but not explained well enough!

Best practices are often useless

Don't get me wrong, some of the practices that you will read about on the internet are good and they work too, but chances are that you already tried all of them but got no results, am I right?

You need practical tips that will not only make sure that you stay productive while coding but also stay efficient.

From my experience of coding for the past 1 year, I have discovered some things that let me stay very precise about what I want to do and complete all of my tasks. Let's get straight into it without wasting any further time.

The 3 practices:

1. Setting clear goals

2.Starting small

3. Consistent scheduling

1. Setting clear goals

One of the things that I do without fail is to plan what I am going to do with clarity. This may sound cliche but to be very honest, failing to plan is planning to fail.

I have a set list of goals before even sitting in front of the monitor to start coding, for example:

-> Solve 1 Leetcode/DSA question

-> Complete props in React and practice on scrimba (website)

-> Revise use states

-> Practice Tailwind etc.

By doing this, you are letting free your mind off the burden of thinking about what to do today, this applies to all aspects of life too. The goal setting also depends on what your goals for the next 3 months are.

For example, I want to build 3 three projects using React and some backend to strengthen my resume. Yours can be anything.

I remember sitting down for coding without even setting a clear goal for the coding session, most of the time used to be spent on random googling, reading the tutorial code or watching the tutorial itself.

Just watching tutorials and not building something is the worst case, but that is a topic for some other day, I will surely write a blog for the same next time!

2. Starting small

One day you wake up and decide to finally learn coding as a monetizable skill, you start with C++ or any other language, will you immediately start building complex projects and include them in your resume? No!

That is the key, start taking smaller steps at a time, no need to rush, and become impatient in the process.

It takes time, coding is hard, building and learning new things daily is tough! but the only thing you can do is to keep taking small steps toward the bigger goal.

I set an outline for myself for the next 3 months, as to what projects I want to build over the next 3 months and learn new skills, and then keep learning smaller concepts over time that will lead me towards my end goal.

Example: I want to learn React and build a good project for my resume and the placement season in the next 3 months, what can I do today to keep moving forward towards it? It might be:

1. Learn what are components

2. build a small react app

3. learn what are props

4. states etc

And this is how you break down complex goals into small achievable tasks that will keep you motivated for the bigger goal and also keep making progress.

3. Consistent Schedule

Many people struggle with consistently coding regularly, they code for 4 hours a day for maybe a week, a month, etc, and then?

They quit again. But why?

Most of us quit very early in any learning journey because of getting overwhelmed and trying to learn 10 concepts at a single time. I always preach 1 thing:

Consistency beats Intensity.

I struggled with making coding a regular habit in the past too, but what helped me was to create a consistent schedule of learning only for 2 hrs/per day.

A sneak peek of what my current schedule looks like:

1. Code 1 hour either learning React or revising concepts.

2. Solve 1 question daily (Leetcode) to be consistent with my DSA journey.

And by far, I am getting amazing results. Sometimes I spend a bit more doing DSA, and sometimes the other way around, but what matters is, I am coding daily!

This is the secret! I was a newbie in web development 7 months ago and didn't know anything about how to create a basic HTML website, but here I am today.

Learning React and building WebApps.

I could keep talking about how consistency will get you progressing for hours, but let's not exaggerate it! I hope you understood the point.

Takeaways

What I think the takeaways for you as a developer, coder, or programmer whatever you call yourself ;), should be:

• Start taking smaller steps

• Make a plan for the next 3 months

• Be consistent

That's all for the blog today, I will see y'all next Sunday at 9:30 am! I am trying to experiment a bit with my blogging frequency, currently with 1x/week!

I hope you got some value from this one, if you have any specific questions, don't hesitate to dm me on Twitter @atharvatwts, I am more than happy to answer your questions!

Bye!