Something that gets continually drilled into everyone’s head is that in order to become more efficient we need to eliminate all the noise in our personal and professional lives. Focus on what matters and keep a blind eye to everything else.

Before the birth of my first son, I will be the first to admit that I was an unfocused procrastinator with a pinch of twitteraholism. After his birth I found myself with only about 2-3 hours a day to accomplish all the extracurricular interests I had. And as a result, I found myself giving up many previous luxuries such as video games, leisure reading, and even cutting back on night caps.

Now after the birth of my second son (to put this into context, that is two under the age of 15 months of age), I have almost no time what so ever to do any of my interests let alone work on all the aspects of my business that I wish to grow. You know there is no hope of ever playing Xbox again when you can’t even find the time to mow the lawn in the last month. However, amidst all of the chaos, I have accomplished more in the last month than ever before.

I don’t know how many times I have heard people preach “Stop listening! Stop analyzing! Start doing!”…and now that I have been *forced* into practicing this I feel more focused, energized, and productive than I ever have in my entire life.

• Email – Processed once a day…maybe…
• RSS – Speed processed twice a month…maybe…
• Phone – I will answer during work hours….maybe…
• Twitter – Turn on then off 1-4 times a day (still a voyeuristic vice)

And that is just what I have done with my applications. Here is a longer list cross sectioning many aspects of my life:

• Moved from dual monitors to single monitor to increase focus and decrease screen real estate for time sucking apps
• Work in coffee shops to minimize distractions of co-workers and family
• Hire out to a neighbor kid (or neglect for long periods of time) chores like the mowing the lawn or washing the cars
• Make myself committed to time lines and promises that I can not easily break to increase prioritization of tasks

The list goes on and on….

Anywho, I am not going to keep rambling on as I need to get some other things done…and I suggest you do as well.

Quit reading this damn article and get something done today.

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Everyone is talking about Lean organizations, but what does that mean?

A lot of people think becoming more efficient means minimizing cost and time to market; however, there are other ways to look at it. In the end, the only thing that matters is the ability to measure…

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To-do list is so long! I will prioritize by first doing “What will most piss off the client if it isn’t done”. Then move on to “irritate”. – AmazonGrace

I have written about prioritization of your Most Important Tasks (MIT) before; however, I thought this to be an absolutely brilliant way to look at your priority list.

The moral of the story - success is relative, client happiness is an objective one-way street. Even if a project is an extreme failure in your eyes, concentrating on the tasks that the end clients/consumers measures success is [the majority of the time] the correct decision.

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A lot of young and talented developers are continually looking for new projects and problems to solve and gain experience with; however, there are very few single environments that provide the ability to diversify and grow. Most jobs consist of working on legacy code where there is very little architectural “wiggle room”. As a result, many developers feel the need to move to a different job or environment to get to the next level of learning.

While job hopping is one way to gain diversified experience, may I offer an alternative – contract work.

In hindsight, one of the fastest ways I matured as a software developer was through the experiences I had while working with a consulting company. Why is this? A few reasons:

Many New Projects (And A Few Old Ones)

Opportunity for a diversified workload is probably the biggest reason contract work is a great environment for learning. The opportunities for new projects and clients come fast and furious. In fact, in my experience I rarely was on a single project for more than 6 months (and even then, I was working on different client projects on the side).

The ability to start with a clean slate every 2-3 months is priceless. I always joke that the only code I am proud of I wrote less than 6 months ago. It’s for this exact reason, I got in the habit that I got to learn from every project mistake and continually get better.

Old projects exist as well (and this is OK) as it allows for developers to also learn how to maintain legacy systems. Brainstorming how to introduce unit tests into a Lotus Notes application can be a very daunting (but rewarding) task. Not every project gets a clean slate at the end, which is a great equalizer in terms of learning to write maintainable code.

Different Problem Domains

With different projects comes different problem domains. It is insanely fun to be building a restaurant’s blog, then to go to a meeting about blood pressure machines, and finish the day off with learning about retirement funds. Don’t get me wrong – it can be exhausting…but it is enlightening.

Probably one of the coolest domains I ever worked in was I had the opportunity to write an application that physically moved a HUGE dirt shovel for a coal mining facility. What an awesome domain! Physically coding with a hard hat on, in the middle of a strip mine, and my code is moving a 2000 ton machine around – can I get a hell ya?!? These opportunities do not present themselves often if you work for a company solely focused on one business domain.

Architectural Responsibilities

In most consulting shops, you are the lead developer, architect, and tester. Although being your own tester sucks, the trade off of being your architect provides unbelievable experience opportunities to implement the patterns and architectures you see fit.

Probably the hardest thing to gain is wisdom and insight of architecture. When to use them, when not to use them, when to use them but then break them. Different projects, different domains, and the responsibility to pull it all together provides the opportunity to gain this experience quicker than most job environments.

Learning To Deal With People

With consulting comes dealing with clients. Thankfully, I never had to deal with any assholes, but communicating with people is a skill that takes a lifetime to learn. If you do not learn how to talk to clients, you probably also don’t know how to talk to your boss, manager, or even spouse. Consulting forces you out of your dark corner, even if it is just in small doses.

Being a consultant is what you make of it. If you decide to be a hermit that never talks to clients and always decide to solve different problems with the same solution, you probably will not learn a lot. If you decide to sharpen your skills as a communicator while experimenting with different technologies, patterns, and architectures consulting might just be a good fit….

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Every developer has some amount of code that they feel is reusable to them, but doesn’t clear that bar to be reusable for everyone.

This is what I call Pocket Code – reusable code that does not belong in reusable libraries that is shared amongst projects and team members, but code that you keep handy somewhere to be cut-and-pasted into applicable projects (I need not bring up the now famous State enumeration).

But where do we keep this code? Do we keep just lug it around on a memory stick or do we attempt to squeeze every last ounce of worth out of it? Here are some ideas besides keeping it squirreled away:

Code Snippet Websites

There are tons of code snippet sites and directories out there. Some are generic, while others are very specific to language or need. Here are the few that I use frequently:

• Code Project – http://www.codeproject.com/
• DZone.com Snippets – http://snippets.dzone.com/
• Regular Expression Library – http://regexlib.com/
• VS.NET IDE Snippet Library – http://gotcodesnippets.com/
• Joyent CodeSnippets – http://codesnippets.joyent.com/

Got another one we should look at? Feel free to add a comment below to your favorite snippet website.

Junk Drawer Assembly/Jar/Repository

This is the least favorite of all the possible choices; however, it is the one I most practice.

The first thing I do when starting a new project is to create the SVN repository. The second thing I do is immediately create a “toolbox” repository for that project that I call – the junk drawer.

Anything code that does not contribute to the product but does indirectly support it (quick and dirty data migration apps, record matching apps, or that crummy State enum) gets saved for prosperity in this repository. There is no structure or rules in the junk drawer.

I have seen people attempt to organically grow “reusable” libraries from these snippets in the forms of assemblies and jars. I highly frown upon this practice – you wouldn’t keep your yeast and flour in the same jar, why are you keeping junk and clean code together? Trust me, the maintenance headache of this practice far out weighs the ROI of ever reusing that pocket code.

Your Blog

The majority of developers who blog create posts only around code – making their code available for the entire world.

Here are a couple of thoughts on this:

1. I love bloggers who post and explain code because it adds to community learning
2. I loathe bloggers who post uncommented code with no explanation further than – “thought this might be useful to someone else”
3. If you are blogging about something – normally you are passionate about the topic, so I will take that piece of code a little more seriously

Those are just some of my ideas, and I am sure there are a few others. Where do you keep your pocket code?

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It is true, Twitter is huge time sucking blackhole void of time; however, Twitter does have its fantastic community aspects. For example, the other day I had a quick development question. I could have went to a forum to post the question. I could have emailed a colleague. Instead I reached for Twitter.

Quicker than IM, Email, or a forum, I reached out to over 100 of my peers and immediately started a conversation. This is a support group at the speed of light.

If you are debating on joining Twitter, my I suggest giving it a try using Twhirl, and if you aren’t already, feel free to follow me.


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This post is in response to Blog Action Day. This year’s topic is one that is important to everyone – the environment.

Screensavers have been around since the beginning of computing, but the days of CRT burn-in are now far past us. So why do we still keep screensavers around? If solely for entertainment, there is a grave cost slowly piling up.

Nicholas Carr has already done the footwork and says the following:

A PC with a screensaver going can use well over 100 watts of power, compared with only about 10 watts in sleep mode. An analysis by the University of New Hampshire indicates that if an organization has 5,000 PCs that run screensavers 20 hours a week, the annual power consumed by those screensavers “accounts for emissions of 750,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, 5,858 pounds of sulfur oxide, and 1,544 pounds of nitrogen oxide.” Considering that there are something like 600 million PCs in use today – and that it’s not unusual for people to leave screensavers running all night – we’re talking some big, ugly numbers.

How much damage can one computer cause?

The Harvard Green Campus says one desktop computer left on for one year can result in more than 1500 pounds of CO2 being released into the atmosphere. It would take 100 to 500 trees to offset that amount of extra CO2.

What can you do?

• Turn off screensavers – Turn on energy reduction
• Turn off your computer when not returning soon
• Turn off any peripherals not being currently used

Spread the word! Kill your screensaver!

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Seriously effiecient developers do not go hunting for new information, they use RSS to have it delivered. Here are some videos and links for both the RSS beginner and the feed reading veterans:

Beginners

Veterans

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First off, I am a night owl by nature and very slow to start in the morning. At least 30 minutes of mindless shuffling in the kitchen must occur before my brain turns on. Consequently, my old morning ritual was:

• 7:00 AM – Wake up
• 7:15 AM – Feed the dog and then myself
• 7:30 AM – Clean up and commute
• 8:00 AM – Start Outlook
• 8:30 AM – Start Google Reader
• 10:15 AM – Break time from reading RSS
• 10:30 AM – Start working

My flawed morning ritual produced unproductive mornings followed by very sluggish moving afternoons. Promising myself a change, I laid down 3 rules: learn how to wake up earlier, blog before work, and no RSS before my Most Important Task (MIT) was completed. My morning ritual slowly evolved to:

• 5:00 AM – Wake up, grab a banana, head to my home office
• 5:05 AM – Quickly check blog stats
• 5:10 AM – Write blog posts using Dark Room
• 7:15 AM – Feed the dog and then myself
• 7:30 AM – Clean up and commute
• 8:00 AM – Start Outlook and respond to only urgent messages
• 8:05 AM – Shutdown Outlook
• 8:10 AM – Start working by tackling my MIT
• 10:15 AM – Reward myself with a 15 minute Google Reader break
• 10:30 AM – Clean out my email inbox

This schedule is very rewarding due to the increase in productivity. I have accomplished my largest personal online MIT (blogging) and my professional MIT all before lunch.

You do not have to be an early bird in order to have a morning ritual. Anyone can benefit from a ritual regardless of when your day starts. Try the 3 rules of getting some sleep, stay away from email and RSS, and tackle your MIT. Hopefully, you will find your days much more efficient.


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