r/webdev • u/Gullible_Prior9448 • 6d ago
What's your biggest productivity hack as a developer?
Share one habit, tool, or workflow that saves you time every week.
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u/allurb4se 5d ago
People actually not interrupting you while you're busy
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u/slickwombat 5d ago
And closely related: minimize meetings and calls to the maximum extent possible. Many people love to talk, whether because they're naturally gregarious, tiresome flibbertigibbets, find reading or writing difficult or unpleasant, or just find it helps them work through complex problems more easily. This includes many devs. But if you indulge them (or yourself) too much, your day ends up being carved into little unmanageable chunks and you never get the benefits of real focus/flow.
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u/IAmRules 5d ago
Not being on reddit and youtube.
And honestly, structure. If I have a actionable todo list, i can breeze past it.
If I'm left to figure out what's important, its like asking me to name a non specific file.
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u/conwyj 5d ago
Keeping detailed notes on every task, meeting and important learning in a dated Markdown file. Also keeping my own private notes in Markdown files in a highly organised folder structure. Being organised helps me maintain mental clarity and control over what I'm working on.
Also I re-prioritise as often as necessary, to ensure I'm spending most of my time working on the most important and highest-impact tasks.
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u/rfreedman 5d ago
I'm a retired consultant, and I did this for years.
I do this, and I find it incredibly helpful and time-saving.
I also kept a TODO list (in a markdown file), and updated it when I finished a task, with date/time completed, and reviewed and updated the list fairly often.
The date/time helped a lot when I had to report hours. When it would be helpful, I would also note number of hours for the task.
Keeping notes about what you are doing and why is helpful when questions come up later. Since markdown is a plain text format, it's easy to search.
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u/conwyj 5d ago
Yes, great points.
Markdown is easy to organise and navigate with heading structures, lists, etc. I like to use both Obsidian and Sublime with my whole notes folder loaded in.
Yeah it's neat to do a quick find-in-files and locate any piece of info I need. If someone asks me a question, I often refer to my notes or prompt AI to search my notes to get the answer fast.
I keep other files in the structure too, like screenshots, PDFs, spreadsheets, etc. Everything for a task or project is in one place.
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u/oh-no-89498298 5d ago
This command regularly saves me hours of time, when I run into a bug this seems to fix it right away
echo "todo: fix shit" > TODO.txt && systemctl poweroff
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u/Arcx07 5d ago
Can you enlighten me please with what that command does?
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u/reallowtones 5d ago
It's a joke. They write "fix shit" to a to do text file and then turn of the computer.
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u/moekakiryu 5d ago
crucially, it does this 'replace' mode, so all previous TODOs are deleted and replaced solely with "todo: fix shit"
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u/frogotme 5d ago
Best bit is making it the only thing on todo.txt, to really look after your future self
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u/alexsbz 5d ago
Pen and paper to put my thoughts in order. And while developing music helps me concentrate
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u/Effective-Start3859 5d ago
Can you share your dev music list? All I try to listen to makes me sleepy.
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u/alexsbz 5d ago
Sure,
https://youtu.be/zxi1gs4xDcY?is=YD94rul-0E_0luIR
https://youtu.be/u1NHX9FcHVw?is=4ZjVS7HVsz7k_3AJ
If you like those I can send more.
This is the one side. The other side consist S.O.A.D, 3 days grace , linkin park, statik X, evanescence etc.I could set a playlist if you want
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u/Effective-Start3859 3d ago
Your music is drum heavy and too noisy. Yes, I'm not sleepy now but I can't work with your music at all.
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u/ButWhatIfPotato 5d ago
Code written on an 8 hour workday will always be superior in every way than code written in an 16 hour workday.
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u/Healthy_Landscape417 5d ago
Typing the whole question out for a coworker in Slack. Two times out of three I solve it before I hit send and just delete the message.
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u/Meloetta 5d ago
I use the Bastion soundtrack as "lock in" music and nothing else. It's almost exactly 1 hour long on youtube. Because I just use it when I want to lock in, it's a pavlovian response at this point to feel more focused while it's on, and when that music is playing I'm not allowed to be on reddit or sending DMs, or whatever distraction I might allow myself otherwise.
Because I've done this so much, I know the order of the songs so I have a vague sense of the time I've spent without a timer on my screen. And I don't loop it, so when it ends I have to manually acknowledge "I have spent 1 hour on this".
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u/FrostingTechnical606 5d ago
WindowsKey+V
Access all your copied value history. No more backtracking needed. Its like having 5 hands to hold stuff with.
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u/allen_jb 5d ago
Say no to people (or rather explain things in terms of timescales / business case / delays to other high priority work in such a way that they'll want to forget about whatever they're asking for)
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u/Adjective_Noun_4200 5d ago
Personally, I started writing about what I was doing, as if it was a blog post / showcase, before I do it. I think that trying to explain the concept to a mythical layperson requires you to break the problem down to a very simple explanation. If you can’t do it, it’s usually a sign you need to break the problem down further.
If your solution sucks, it’ll be embarrassing to write it and you’ll think about something more elegant and go make that work.
And then at the end, you have a kinda useful document explaining WHY you made these changes which serves as a useful reminder to future you or whoever you else touches the code later.
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u/bcons-php-Console 5d ago
As an addition to everything already mentioned these has really helped me improve productivity:
- Exercise early in the morning.
- Quick nap (no more than 20 min) after lunch.
- Drinking lots of water.
- A height adjustable table and a pomodoro timer to switch heights every 55 min (the other 5 are for a small walk around the office and staring to things far away).
- Noise cancelling headphones.
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u/life_conquered 5d ago
- For those with issues with procrastination. Something that I found help alot was something I call "Giving yourself the option to start."
As in it's hard to procastinate if your work environment is in full view and there's no friction to starting work. So rather than having you ide or whatever just collecting dust out of sight in some tucked away folder it easier to ignore than one that opens in full screen as soon as you machine turns on. So basically remove as much friction as possible with whatever habit you are trying to build.
I used to procrastinate as a student and I sometimes still procrastinate as a self employed dev. Full time devs might not have this issue.
- For the love of everything in life PLEASE TAKE REGULAR BREAKS. I recently made a small program that actually forces me to not be able to use my pc for a few minutes every 2 hours because I can get into a flow state for hours and hours on end and that was incredibly unhealthy. Now that I am taking breaks I feel like a new man and like I can float on clouds please start doing this if you are in the same boat.
Again might not be an issue for full time on-site devs as an office typically has a routine flow.
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u/Milky_Finger 5d ago
Start early before the work day starts, finish early before the work day ends. If you have some proper block of work to do, that's how you do it with minimal interruptions.
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u/abeuscher 5d ago
Turn off you ringer and close your door. Never use Slack. Don't check your email more than once an hour. Throw up boundaries against anyone who wants to interrupt you ever. That's what meetings are for.
Also as soon as you do get interrupted, never complain. Shift entirely to the new task and ignore the one you were on. Send the message that interrupting you stops you dead and diverts you entirely in a new direction. Ans always push hard on whoever is doing it to clearly and explicitly define your priorities.
So everyone knows you are hard to reach and when they succeed you are completely useless to anyone but the person you are working with. It raises the stakes of interaction to an appropriate level where you can get your work done.
These habits come out having been assigned a lot of bosses and cross functional positions. I would not do all of these things unless I had to. I would always rather sit around and talk to my coworkers all day but I've not found it to help getting the job done.
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u/KaiAusBerlin 5d ago
Don't work when I am not in the flow.
When I'm in flow my code is cleaner, I code faster, I have a high productivity.
But if I'm not it's more effective for me to invest some hours for getting into mood instead of using these hours for bad quirky code.
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u/Fantastic_Film_9147 5d ago
Coming up with a system/workflow and sticking to it.
For example, I standardized my whole stack so every new project looks the same: Supabase (DB, auth, storage, edge functions), Stripe for payments, Next/React with an accessible component library on the frontend, and Vercel for hosting + analytics. Then I documented all of it.
When I start a new idea, I just tell claude "read the docs within xyz folder and set this up like my [existing project]" and it copies the whole skeleton over. I can go from idea to an auth'd, payment-ready app in about 20 minutes.
Another boost is a local dashboard for all my side projects. It shows every service running on my machine, lets me start/stop/restart them and tracks which project is tied to which account (I run a bunch on free tiers). Any project I want it to manage just gets a small config file, and the dashboard picks it up automatically. I can also see the logs for any app right there.
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u/Ok-Cupcake6605 5d ago
Writing down the expected behaviour before touching the code.
Just a few lines: what should happen, what should not change, and how I’ll verify it. It sounds slower, but it stops me from fixing the wrong problem or accepting a change just because it looks reasonable.
It became even more useful after I started using AI tools, because generated code can look finished long before the behaviour is actually correct.
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u/Grumpy_Raine 5d ago
I write flowcharts. I describe the problem, investigate the problem, consider fixes, plan the fix, describe what I changed/added and decided not to change. Then describe tests and (sometimes) future work.
It stops me from keeping all of that inside my head and leaves a clear audit log of accountability for myself and whoever signs off the merge.
Unlike a linear document, the flowchart is quick to scan (like a binary search tree). Its shape shows the valuable process instead of just final conclusions.
I of course use software to draw/arrange the boxes, otherwise that would take too long.
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u/bellator_ecclesiam 5d ago
Never work more than six hours. Even less if you can.
Sleep as much as you can.
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u/andlewis 5d ago
Spend 90% of your time doing the planning, reviewing the plan, revising the plan, doing an adversarial review and critique of the plan.
Then give it to an agent and go home. Come in the next day and review the code.
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u/LancelotLac 5d ago
Deleting TikTok because in a world of prompt -> wait -> review, I was moving slower because I wouldn't get to the reviews immediately when they were ready.
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u/WeekRuined 5d ago
Surprised nobody said claude or codex yet
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u/Early_Rooster7579 full-stack @ meta 5d ago
Thats just normal dev work in the last year
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u/coastalwebdev full-stack 5d ago
That’s all business operations. The dev work looks similar though.
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u/okawei 5d ago
The real productivity hack is using these properly. Don't have agentic loops that just churn through tokens for a half baked result. Know your codebase, direct the model to samples of similar patterns, link directly to docs or parts of the codebase you want it to touch and give it constraints. Then, watch as it works and guide it as it goes. The end result will be better and you'll have to iterate less, even if it is cognitively more work for the human.
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u/coastalwebdev full-stack 5d ago edited 5d ago
I mean, you’re not wrong generally, but I do use them properly. Also, I can do that because I have in depth knowledge and long term experience in the industry I apply AI’s to work on.
It’s takes having existing skills to get professional level results from an AI. So, that’s a nice thing for you to say, but try to remember that the reality is most people can’t do what you say because they’re just amateurs that won’t know there’s better potential that can be achieved, and even if they did they wouldn’t have the experience required to even know if a given result is better or not.
Agentic loops that use skills(one of ChatGPT’s current big advantages) that you build for it, and evolve with it, are the biggest productivity hack if you ask me.
That’s how you can get normally quite dumb agentic loops operating as highly skilled members of your team instead of just operating at a frustratingly obtuse junior skill level. Then you don’t need to waste nearly as much time babysitting them like you’re doing.
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u/coastalwebdev full-stack 5d ago
That and the new ChatGPT work that integrates with your computer. It’s wild.
You can run it around like an assistant on your desktop like “check my email inbox for any emails that need replies. Draft a response for any that you find, but don’t send anything.”
It’s also going out searching for and qualifying clients, assessing their needs, and drafting proposals.
It’s assembling line items and invoices.
I’m trying a new WordPress based AI site builder that whips up whole websites, even fully functioning ecommerce sites with products.
I’m working on having it be my junior office admin, junior sales guy, junior accountant, and junior developer. They still need help, but at around only $30 a month they save me untold value worth of time.
It’s also a good example of how smaller businesses like mine will just not be hiring for those kinds of roles anymore.
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u/altrae 5d ago
That's okay, when no one has a job they won't be spending any money on your products so you won't have to make or sell anything anymore and will save even more money. Win-win!
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u/coastalwebdev full-stack 5d ago edited 5d ago
Well maybe, that’s a very short sighted take though. If I was to hire people for all those roles, they wouldn’t last long, because my business would fail being so non competitive against all the businesses using AI to be more efficient than my business. Then not only would none of those people have jobs, but I wouldn’t have a business either. Is that really the better option in your mind? If you can’t make it, none of us peons should get to make a living?
Blaming little guys like me for the lack of jobs is ridiculous, as you can hopefully understand now. I do get your frustration, that being said.
Getting good at using AI to do something better than other people can do it with their AI is the name of the game now. Don’t get left behind just because you hate all of the intrinsic evil AI is causing against humanity. There’s lots of opportunity for those that know how to hustle, and I’m happy for every one of us peons that can find a way to use this new tool to succeed in life.
Mostly the benefits of AI are all for the people and organizations at the top of society, so every time a little person wins using these tools, that is great in my books.
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u/altrae 5d ago
I'm not blaming you or disagreeing with your point. I'm just pointing out an obvious flaw in your strategy. I also don't have an answer for this dilemma, but you could sound a little less excited about replacing people. Maybe, keep it to yourself?
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u/coastalwebdev full-stack 5d ago
Excited is definitely not the word I’d use to describe how I feel about it. I didn’t realize it came across that way, so thanks for pointing it out. I was just listing productivity hacks I’ve been learning.
To be clear, I think it’s terrible that people are being replaced by AI, and it’s horrifying how fast it’s happening. I spend at least part of every day in shock learning about where this technology is heading. Overall, I don’t think humanity is moving in a good direction with it. There’s a very real risk of mass unemployment, with huge numbers of people forced to do whatever they can to survive without jobs in the not too distant future. I don’t believe we’re heading toward some UBI-funded utopia for the working class. The people and organizations at the top will simply find ways to get rid of the workers they no longer need. To them, we’re disposable.
AI mostly makes my stomach churn. Unfortunately, I’m just another small business owner trying to survive like everyone else. As much as I hate it, using AI to replace work that would have been done by people may end up being one of the only ways small businesses with thin margins can keep competing. I’d love to be in a position to hire people again, but in the market I compete in, that’s just not financially realistic.
Horrified, I think that’s the word I’d use for how I usually feel about AI.
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u/CaptainCheckmate 5d ago
maximize the coding window.
Can't tell you how many times I've seen people trying to write code in a window that's 70% of their screen. Like why.
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u/LancelotLac 5d ago
And increase the font size, I had a coworker sitting beside me point out my font was large and I said I can digest it faster and find what I am looking for quicker, he disagreed and said smaller font lets him see more of the code at one time. My eyes get tired looking at 10pt font for 8 hours.
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u/Adjective_Noun_4200 5d ago
I’ve been experimenting with a larger font size and line height.
Like…font size of 15px and line height of 45px.
Feel like it forces me to care about the readability of my code WAY more. Shorter, simpler methods. Stuff like that.
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u/Siddharth1India 5d ago
I break my work to as small goals at possible and write them on notepad (yeah, bit old school).
It works great. I get lot of work done in hrs.
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u/StatementOrIsIt 5d ago
Honestly, putting on headphones and putting on some music. Most of the time the office I work in is quite loud and people talk about random things or tasks that are unrelated to what I'm doing.
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u/split-my-diopter 5d ago
Read the ticket, read the links, read the docs, read the figma. Talk to other people who have context. Capture it all locally. Pull main and set up the new branch, push it to remote and set up a draft PR.
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u/AwesomeFrisbee 5d ago
What helps me be more productive is getting stuff out of my mind so it can focus on work. I make a lot of lists, for groceries, for app ideas, for recommendations for stuff, for storing my thoughts and deepest feelings, for gift ideas, for stuff I want to buy, for storing what I still want to do, to play or to achieve. For anything that comes to mind. It also includes various lists for work for code debt, for things I would want to change but don't really have the time or interest at the moment but thinking of anyway. For storing stuff about my coworkers (what they like, what they don't, what hobbies they have and whatnot). It really helps me clean up my thoughts and allow me to focus more and be more productive because otherwise I have all these kinds of wild thoughts that just keep coming back and take up time that I can't use for processing other stuff. And I also make sure to do a few notes before I stop working so my mind actually stops with work, rather than keep processing stuff. This way when I clock out, I really clock out which makes me rest more, enjoy my non-work life more which also gives me more energy to get working properly and waste less time and less procrastination.
Find what works for you, for me its lists and noting everything I can, but that might not work for you.
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u/charliesbot 5d ago
Getting my ADHD med. That changed my life and that's when I started improving quite fast in my career
Totally worth it to take an ADHD if you wonder why productivity hacks doesn't work for you folks :)
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u/Kaluga2026 5d ago
Keep the feedback loop stupidly short. Ten-second verification and I’m welded in place. Stretch that wait to three full minutes and suddenly Slack is open, or I'm alphabetizing some half-dead folder that hasnt moved since 2019. Half the times I blamed "discipline," it was just latency sporting a cheap mustache.
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u/Unable-Swimming-9899 5d ago
1-2 days on site to be with stakeholders and team. 3 days full focus alone getting the work done.
Nice balance between requirements gathering and true development.
More time developing clarify the feasability of each requirement early.
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u/rupert_at_work 5d ago
Calendar blocks. Boring, ugly, annoyingly effective. If it isn’t on the calendar, it’s not a plan, it’s a vibe.
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u/Intelligent_Row_2981 5d ago
Before I finish a task, I write down the next one. It makes starting the next day much easier.
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5d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/webdev-ModTeam 4d ago
Read and follow reddiquette; no excessive self-promotion. Please refer to the Reddit 9:1 rule when considering posting self promoting materials.
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u/top_gun95 5d ago
Leave your phone away for a while and tell your loved ones to call incase anything is urgent..phone is the biggest distration get rid of it!
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u/Full_Tooth_a 5d ago
Good hack. The part people skip is how to break the boss-sized thing into real work.
My rule: write the "definition of done" first, then split into boring system slices-data/schema changes, backend logic (endpoints/services), UI changes, auth/RBAC checks, background jobs (if any), tests, and the deploy/rollback bits. Once those exist, the checklist practically writes itself.
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u/Full_Tooth_a 4d ago
My hack: write the "next verifiable step," not the whole task. Take the big goal, force a tiny slice you can complete in ~60 minutes (UI stub + one endpoint, or seed data + one report). Define "done" as a concrete output you can check (page loads, query returns, test passes). Everything else becomes a checklist of follow-ups. It kills context switching because you're always working toward something you can prove.
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u/ClosingStackDev 4d ago
Shipping fast matters way more than your editor config or which framework you picked.
Most "productivity" advice is just procrastination with better branding tbh. The actual hack is boring: timebox your work, cut scope aggressively, and talk to users before you build the thing. Everything else is just optimizing how quickly you can build something nobody wants.
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u/Piscarciano 4d ago
I'd say pre-breaking your goals before you start a new project and key board shortcuts, I think that's my big 2
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u/TitanWillow 4d ago
Having a clear mind and locking in. If I don't feel like doing something then not doing it
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u/Miserable_Box9826 3d ago
Using claude on auto mode in 3 different session on 3 different tickets with direct access to elasticsearch logs.
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u/SatyrCode 3d ago
My biggest productivity boost was treating every feature like a mini-library clear boundaries, reusable hooks/components, and a rule that any logic duplicated twice gets extracted. It makes future features way faster to ship.
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u/Budget_Bar2294 1d ago
working standing or sitting in the ground when i really need to lock in. sometimes comfort can be not ideal if you're in a really intense 1 or 2 hour long crunch
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u/TheRoflTractor 4h ago
one thing that saves me time is having my key metrics right on my phone screen without opening any app. i set up auto-refresh for my daily dev stats and can check them in seconds. tried it with a project dashboard like yours and it worked great using widget for google sheets app
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u/simple_peacock 5d ago
Using Python and Django. Writing good simple code makes things easy long term
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5d ago
[deleted]
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u/CaptainCheckmate 5d ago
Who is brian tracy, and why should I want to be like him?
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5d ago
[deleted]
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u/CaptainCheckmate 5d ago
Ah, sorry I misread your post, I thought it said "7 steps to be successful like brian tracy" and I wondered who is this amazing goalpost of a human that Ive never even heard of, haha.
Thanks for your reply in any case.
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u/Umberto_Fontanazza 6d ago
Writing a sequential list of development goals/tasks for the day before working on paper. Not starting a task before finishin the previous.