We all know being productive is the key to success. Productivity is the amount of output you create based on your effort. There is a huge demand for productive software developers all over the world. Although the best way for measuring the productivity of developers is highly debatable, still it is usually measured by lines of code and quality of code. Some developers know how to maximize their time at work, and they always stay ahead of other developers but there are also many skilled developers who are unable to reach their full potential simply because they are not good at time management.
Developers often tend to get obsessed with coding and spend a lot of time writing codes but spending endless hours in coding doesn’t ensure productivity unless one knows how to finish their task on time for their company or recruiter. The majority of developers work from home, so it is very important that they are self-disciplined in order to be productive while maintaining unparalleled high-quality work.
If you’ve ever wondered how to become a more productive developer or as an employer you want to increase the productivity of the development team, read on for our top 5 tips. They will surely help you to increase productivity to get more work done with the same resources in less time.
Tip 1: Create a plan before coding
As a developer,it is important to do pre-planning and brainstorming on how to do work for individual projects. This preparation will help you to know what to do and let you do it timely. This prevents you from adding unnecessary features you think can be useful in the future.
Prior to starting to code, make sure you understand all the requirements clearly – you need to understand exactly what you need to build as the smallest details can have a huge impact on the solution you’re trying to implement.
Once you understand the requirements, start making a plan by breaking your problem or feature down into smaller pieces. Take into account the potential problems you’re going to face and do some basic research to be on a safe side.
Tip 2: Don’t multitask
Developers need to stop multitasking in order to increase their productivity. They should always focus on one thing at a time instead of trying to multitask. Do not review someone else’s code while you are in the middle of writing your piece of code for the application. If you think this will make you more productive, you’re wrong. It has been revealed by some research studies that multitasking is actually not good for your brain and impacts your performance negatively. When you try to do multiple things at the same time your brain needs to switch between tasks, and it becomes a distraction. Rather than being productive, you will lose control over your task and perform poorly on everything.
Tip 3: Divide your work equally
Developers often work on multiple projects at the same time, and if you also fall under this category, then it will always be a difficult task to manage your time.
To finish any project before the given deadline, you have to plan on how to do it so that you don’t miss the specific time frame. Clients really don’t care how much effort you have to put in to make it happen, what matters most to them is whether their assigned project is finished on timely or not.
In such cases, it is extremely important that you know how to prioritize tasks and focus on the one which is most important. Accordingly, you can divide your time and give proper attention to every project equally if there is no deadline or if you know you can finish all the tasks by the deadline.
Tip 4: Minimize distractions
Most software developers work on so many complex problems and in their day-to-day job they use a bunch of tools, coding platforms and apps which require understanding at both the core and deeper level. They need to stay focused and pay attention to solve complex problems and coding issues. If they are interrupted, it will be hard to get back in the groove and it can take around 15-20 minutes to regain their focus.
When you are working, do not pay any attention to anything that is non-work activities. Stop wasting time on social media, news, for better concentration turn off all the notifications from your desktop, mobile phones, or other gadgets. Checking the phone randomly decreases your overall productivity. You can get help from some apps or extensions to limit your time on certain sites or you can also block the websites. Also, try to keep limited tabs or windows open in your browser to reduce time wastage. The truth is the more windows and tabs you have open, the more distractions you’ll have, leading to more chances of errors in your code.
Tip 5: Use the right productivity tracker to improve performance
Using productivity tracking software always plays a vital role in making remote developers more conscious about their work. It creates a sense of alertness of being watched which prevents them from being distracted and lets them focus more on their work. Remote developers can use the software to review their own work to understand their work process better. For example, if they are spending more time for any task, they can understand how much it requires to do that specific task and let clients know beforehand about it. They can also reorganize their tasks as per their work schedule and focus on more important things.
The time tracking feature of the monitoring tool lets developer understand a lot about their work, improves productivity and promotes transparency. The hiring manager can see how long an employee works, their total working hours and their overall productivity, which strengthen relationships between workers and managers. Time tracking feature helps remote developers to stay focused when they are working on their own.
Time monitoring solutions like CloudDesk have amazing features through which the managers and even clients can log in to check how their employees are working, how long they work, when they log in and log out and most importantly how long they work productively and their idle hours. If an employee doesn’t work for certain minutes the software tracks those times as idle minutes and keeps a record of it.
Wrap Up
As a software developer, measuring productivity and tracking time will help you to understand how long it will take you to finish your projects and you can make your performance seamless simply by letting your clients know about the required time.
CloudDesk employee monitoring software is a one-of-a-kind tool that generates reports on a daily/weekly/monthly basis that you or your hiring client can watch later to understand your productivity level.
With CloudDesk, you can check all your activities and manage all the information through a single dashboard. The simple easy to understand dashboard allows you to get the insights of your login/logout time, idle time, total hours you worked and productivity metrics.
Apart from increasing productivity through time tracking abd overall monitoring, CloudDesk has other amazing features that helps to know about remote work activities with more accuracy. It offers amazing features like screenshots, web and app usage history, and many others, which ultimately helps in boosting productivity. The best part is, CloudDesk employee monitoring software for developers can be used by both individuals for their personal growth, and for companies as well.
More Read On: Spero Magazine
