Productivity Tricks

Various tricks to become more productive.

I.T.A.K.E. Unconf, Bucharest 2013

Transcript

1. Productivity Tricks Stefan Kanev http://skanev.com/ @skanev I.T.A.K.E. Unconf 30 May 2013 Bucharest
2. Hi, I’m Stefan!
3. Every time
4. PAIN
5. 3. 14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510 58209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679 82148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128 48111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196 44288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091 45648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273 72458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436 78925903600113305305488204665213841469519415116094 33057270365759591953092186117381932611793105118548 07446237996274956735188575272489122793818301194912 98336733624406566430860213949463952247371907021798 60943702770539217176293176752384674818467669405132 00056812714526356082778577134275778960917363717872 14684409012249534301465495853710507922796892589235 42019956112129021960864034418159813629774771309960 51870721134999999837297804995105973173281609631859 50244594553469083026425223082533446850352619311881 71010003137838752886587533208381420617177669147303 59825349042875546873115956286388235378759375195778 18577805321712268066130019278766111959092164201989 38095257201065485863278865936153381827968230301952 03530185296899577362259941389124972177528347913151 55748572424541506959508295331168617278558890750983 81754637464939319255060400927701671139009848824012 85836160356370766010471018194295559619894676783744 94482553797747268471040475346462080466842590694912 93313677028989152104752162056966024058038150193511 25338243003558764024749647326391419927260426992279 67823547816360093417216412199245863150302861829745 55706749838505494588586926995690927210797509302955
6. instance Show Board where show (Board ps) = let ordered = (sort . swap) ps ranks = map (showRank ordered) [8,7..1] board = intersperse "--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--" ranks rlabels = intersperse " " (map (\n->(show n)++" ") [8,7..1]) flabels = " a b c d e f g h" in unlines $ zipWith (++) rlabels board ++ [flabels] where swap = map (\(a,b)->(b,a)) showRank ps r = let rnk = filter (\(p,_)->(rank p)==r) ps cs = map (showPiece rnk) [A .. H] in concat (intersperse "|" cs) showPiece ps f = maybe " " (show . snd) (find (\(p,_)->(file p)==f) ps)
12. Follow me on: skanev skanev
14. Programmer
17. ❤Programming Languages
19. About of this talk
20. productivity |prɒdʌkˈtɪvɪti| noun the ability to maximize the work done while minimizing the effort spent
21. Ruby Programmer Bias DISCLAIMER
23. YMMV DISCLAIMER
24. I. General II. Work III. Code IV. Tools
25. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
26. slightly unusual format
27. everything is timeboxed
28. I should involve you
29. Intro 4min Q&A 4min Q&A 4min Q&A 4min Q&A 4min I. General 10min II. Work 10min III. Code 10min IV. Tools 10min
30. I General
31. 1 Maintain three lists
32. 1. ToDo: things you must do obligations, commitments 2. Watch: things you have to remember follow up, wait for somebody, remind yourself 3. Later: things you want to do when you have the time
33. pick 3-5 items before bed write them down (index card) do them on the next day
34. Once you start, you’ll be surprised how often you didn’t get 3-5 significant things done during a day
35. Timers & alarms 2
36. flow |fləʊ| noun the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity
37. use alarms to divorce yourself form the clock
38. Periodically checking the time breaks your flow and stresses you
39. timers can put pressure* on you * the good kind of pressure
40. Seinfeld calendars 3
41. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle
43. put a calendar on a wall choose an action to reinforce a habit put an X on each day you perform the action don’t break the chain
44. Seinfeld calendars gamify habit acquisition. They can serve as a good motivator.
45. Keep notes 24x7 4
46. capture insight summarize information enhance the thinking process
47. Always have ready means of taking notes around you.
48. a small moleskine a large moleskine a Dropbox folder a large notebook
49. voice memos index cards wiki Evernote, etc.
50. Skim over your notes regularly. Do it on the bus, during breakfast or even set up a reminder.
51. Control decision fatigue 5
52. decision fatigue |dɪˈsɪʒ(ə)n fəˈtiːg| noun phrase [In decision making and psychology, decision fatigue refers to] the deteriorating quality of decisions made by an individual, after a long session of decision making.
53. Making decisions wears you down. It is paramount to separate the important from the unimportant.
54. http://lifehacker.com/5944198/president-obamas-productivity-tactics
55. Avoid making decisions by establishing strict routines.
56. where to go for lunch? what to listen to? when to check my mail? when to leave work? what to do next?
57. Learn how to learn 6
58. Our ability to learn is our most important asset as knowledge workers
60. II Work
61. No instant messengers 7
62. Eliminating distractions is the key to flow and instant messaging is the mother of all distraction
63. Turn Instant Messengers Off
64. Not replying doesn’t work, since messages can still distract you
65. the price of distractions is twofold time to deal with the distraction time to recover previous context
66. Create a second account for work if you have to. Don’t give it to anyone, except your colleagues (and your spouse).
67. carry this further: remove all notifications email, twitter, facebook, etc.
68. Use two browsers 8
69. Work Personal stuff
70. Even the small effort to open Firefox in order check Twitter is enough to discourage me
71. Choose any two browsers you want. You can even configure one with different profiles.
72. Each browser can be customized to the job at hand
73. The ToDo list 9
74. a specific way of using a ToDo list
75. start with an empty list write down what you have to do pick an item and start it don’t interrupt - use the list pick another one when finished carry unfinished items to tomorrow
76. It is important not to interrupt your current task. It is also important not to tax your brain with keeping track.
77. refactorings phone calls emails writing documentation taking notes
78. start of the day
79. end of the day
80. Schedule email checks 10
81. Designate specific time slots for dealing with email and process it only during those slots
82. Dealing with unexpected email can distract you
83. Once you open your inbox, you don’t know how long you are going to be there
84. Control your email - don’t let it control you
85. Always leave your inbox empty afterwards
86. The perfect schedule would be twice a day - in the beginning and in the end. It is probably not realistic.
87. The Pomodoro Technique 11
88. my secret weapon
90. Touch typing 12
91. we are professional typists
92. Typing can be the bottleneck if your typing speed is low
93. Micro-interruptions: slowing down to type something can break your train of thought
94. OK speed: 80 wpm Good speed: 100 wpm * for programmers
95. For results, just pick a typing tutor and spend 10 minutes a day practicing touch typing* * ten fingers, no peeking
96. do NOT stress your hands
97. There is little point in picking up an alternative layout, especially if you are not a native English speaker * it gives you street cred, though
98. III Code
99. Utilize shortcuts 13
100. Using keyboard shortcuts lets you do more things in less time and
101. all shapes and sizes
103. Introduce shortcuts gradually: 1-2/day
104. Create a cheat sheet and put it next to your monitor
105. Reread the cheat sheet occasionally
106. some examples
107. ^⇧↑ Select enclosing element ⌥⌘L Extract local variable Eclipse
109. ^⇧↑ ⌥⌘L
111. ⎋Q Pause current command ⎋H Open man page for current command ⎋E Open current command in editor zsh
112. Selenium IDE to walk pages 14
113. Selenium ≠ Selenium IDE
114. When you cannot write a full-blown test, you can record a macro to walk the functionality you are developing
115. Shell aliases 15
116. Create shell aliases for all the commands you run often
117. faster execution command customization making long commands useful
118. ! rsc rake spec cucumber ! rdm rake db:migrate ! rmig add_users rails generate migration add_users ! be spork bundle exec spork
119. ! tmux attach tmux -2 attach ! clj rlwrap --quote-characters=\”’\” --command clojure clj
120. git log --graph --decorate --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit --all
121. ! git lola git log --graph --decorate --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit --all ! spj bundle exec xvfb-run specjour --rsync-port=8081
122. OH MY ZSH https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh
123. Guard and watchr 16 * or their non-Ruby equivalents
124. Both monitor the filesystem of your project for changes and react on certain triggers
125. Top usage: run the corresponding test when you save a file
126. continuous testing
127. immediate feedback
128. There are other uses for Guard: compilation, static checking, linting, uploading, checking out and so on...
130. Cache stuff locally 17
131. Cache oft-referenced materials (documentations, guides) locally
132. You still pay a penalty for accessing the Internet. As a bonus, you can use it on an airplane.
133. Putting things within an arm’s reach makes you more likely to use them
134. wget rake
135. Spike when uncertain 18
136. It is very hard to test-drive with unfamiliar technology, especially frameworks
137. Shave?
138. spike |spʌɪk| noun a small test-free time-boxed throw-away exploratory solution used primarily for learning
139. Get the speed hit by going cowboy on the code
140. Throw it away and TDD it up from scratch. Resist the urge to keep it.
141. IV Tools
142. Automate the environment 19
143. Automate everything you can possibly automate
144. Automation can store knowledge: you reduce the things you need to remember
145. shells scripts: zsh, bash, ... build tools: rake, make, ant, ... scripts: ruby, perl, python, ...
146. some examples
147. installing my configuration (dotfiles)
148. ! git clone http://github.com/skanev/dotfiles ! rake install vim, zsh, tmux, git, xmodmap, etc... ! rake vim:bundles:update updates my vim bundles
149. SICP study group
150. 03/14.scm 03/tests/14-tests.scm
151. ! rake generate[3, 14] create 03/14.scm - add a header: ; SICP exercise 3.14 generate 03/tests/14-tests.scm - add a test scaffold start continuous testing open both files in vim ! rake next
152. SSH key on a new machine
153. ! install-key new-machine.example.org
154. Try carrying it to the extreme: you will waste time in unnecessary automation, but get a lot better at it
155. Build your own 20
156. Build your own tools when the need for them arises
157. recurring usage one-offs
158. iPhone version of the Bulgarian railroad network screen scraping & web.py
159. sites to check each day Ruby on Rails
160. everybody reads all commits every day comment on GitHub best for me: start of day
161. github.com was slow and clumsy git log -p was hard to comment on
162. $ git catchup
165. git shell less lesskey
166. recurring usage duct tape 㲗 small apps
167. tools for small apps sinatra.rb, Flask, PerlDancer redis, MongoDB Twitter Bootstrap
168. one-off
169. 6 cap colors 6 bowtie colors 4 ears patterns 96 versions 4 sizes of each
171. zsh imagemagick
172. Keep your one-offs somewhere - they make great references in the future
173. Personalize your editor 21
174. step 0: pick a generic editor
175. Vim Emacs SublimeText/TextMate
176. IDEs are fine - your Java productivity in (say) Vim will probably never be as good as it is in (say) Eclipse DISCLAIMER
177. Editors are great in environments where you don’t have a good IDE - all the “cool” new languages, for example
178. As programmers, we live in our editors - all improvement we can squeeze out of them are worth it
179. Popular editors have lots of plugins - this is a good way to easily improve your workflow
180. Learn the existing tools 22
181. Play with as many tools as you can - if you know what one does, you will understand the what is possible to build
182. Dive deep. Trying doing it the hard way. That way you’ll learn best.
183. your editor git zsh awk & sed / perl curl & wget tmux ImageMagick GraphViz
184. Learn from others 23
185. talk with your coworkers pair with them try their (crazier) ideas
186. https://github.com/search?q=dotfiles dotfiles in GitHub
187. Play by Play https://peepcode.com/screencasts/play-by-play ScreenCasts Destroy All Software https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts
188. Share 24
189. Publish it in GitHub, blog about it, or give a talk. Put it out there - it will be useful for someone.
190. Books!