Today I would like to share my 12 productive tips for backend developers to improve productivity and become better at their work.
The topics raised here are based on my personal experience and do not focused on any pattern.
These are general advice on how to improve your personal skills and improve your productivity as a backend developer.
Some of the things in this article are based on my personal experience, while others are from personal research.
AUTOMATION
Automate everything that you do repeatedly including command line (bash scripts), text manipulations and logs, refactoring, building, deploying, integrating, testing etc.
Automated processes need to work well because they are error prone.
If a developer forgot about one step he might get stuck, this means loss of flow and will cost you more time to get back into it.
In my case, I have a list or a library of reusable components or scripts that I found myself using often, things like authentication, registration scripts, SQL CRUD scripts, etc those are part of my automation process because I don’t have to write them over again each time.
DON’T OPTIMIZE YET
The impulse to optimize is usually premature.
Clever solutions to squeeze performance increase complexity and undermine the end goal.
Get the code working then optimize just that code that needs it at the end.
I go with this simple term a lot for my day to day job.
First, Solve the Problem. Then Write the Code before Optimizing
Solomon Eseme
WHAT TO OPTIMIZE:
You can optimize for speed but the most precious thing you should optimize for is your own time.
Optimize for readability, and clarity.
If you have to stop and ask yourself, how does this work? Or why isn’t this doing what it should do? You have just wasted your time.
Don’t use a lot of complex data structures and algorithms or advanced language features as a way of demonstrating your ability unless needed by the project.
K.Y.T (Know Your Tools):
For me, one of the best productivity tricks of all time is this.
Getting myself familiarised with the tools and environment am working with.
For example am a big fan of Atom text editor and Netbeans, so almost all the relevant shortcuts I store them in a book I can easily reference.
Getting familiar with your tools not just limited to IDE and Text Editors, any tool you used frequently will increase your productivity as a back-end developer greatly.
SIDE PROJECTS/LEARNING NEW THINGS:
This could greatly improve your productivity and confidence, having a side project you could do if you are bored with a particular project could be great, but note that it depends greatly on the duration of your main project.
Also always learning and improving your skills by reading other people’s source code, Watching YouTube videos, or reading blog articles (like this one).
Whatever works for you could be a great source of motivation for you to stay productive as a back-end developer.
COLLABORATION
Another great source of productivity is collaboration, see no one is an island of knowledge, you need to collaborate with people so you can ask for help, work on projects together and learn team building and/or management,
You might be the smartest guy, with the best time-management skills and knowledge of all the technical skills in the world and still, there are some problems that you’d find problematic or decisions that should be made by the whole team.
Therefore, always involve other people when tackling a problem or making an important decision.
Introducing collaboration techniques sure as pair programming, code reviews and/or some other collective practice to your development process could be a productive approach.
PRIORITIZE YOUR TASK AND COMMIT TO IT
This will require a little bit of discipline.
It’s not enough to schedule something to do — you want to actively perform well in those activities that are more valuable to you and/or your company.
This requires keeping your mind focused on the task at hand.
You can’t really write a good piece of code or solve a difficult problem when you are thinking a lot of things at the same time.
Therefore, always do one thing at a time.
If you need to get something done in the middle of doing something else, just schedule a break from your original task to finish this secondary task, then be disciplined enough to come back to your original task.
ELIMINATE DISTRACTION:
Stay off social media for a while at work.
Social media could be one of the main distractions for backend developers, including youtube, quora, StackOverflow.
It just requires some degree of discipline at your end to stay committed to your job and be productive.
FIND A MENTOR
This could be a great source of motivation for some developers because where your strength could not reach your mentor can carry you through.
Therefor, finding a good mentor can boost your productivity level.
UNDERSTAND THE BUSINESS:
One crucial thing that could kill your productivity is not understanding the project, the business, or even the requirements properly.
So to hack your productivity in a project or company you need to have a proper understanding of the processes, culture, project, and requirement.
TAKE BREAKS, SLEEP, AND REST:
I heard lots of programmers saying they don’t sleep or they love working at night or whenever that takes away to sleep or rest from them.
I want to say to you today that for you to be productive as a back-end developer you need time to rest and sleep, at least breaks to cool your nerves before you continue.
Working fewer hours can help you remain productive. In the meantime, you also need to get proper sleep.
Without proper sleep you can easily hamper your productivity to a great extent.
Not to mention, improper sleep can also hamper your health and cognitive capabilities….
EAT, SLEEP, CODE, REPEAT.
LEARN TO DEBUG AND CLEAN CODES:
One important skill a back end developer should know is debugging skills.
It can save you a lot of time figuring out something in your programs.
So learn debugging skills and also learn how to write clean codes by reading CLEAN CODES by Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob).
WRAPPING UP
Everything I have listed above is from my personal experience, so choose whichever work well for you and be discipline enough to commit to it.
You can also watch the video on my channel.
So these are my 12 Productivity Tips for backend developers.
This list is not complete until you add or remove from it.
So let me hear your thought in the comment section below.
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Thank you for reading my article.
Here at my blog or medium I regularly write about backend development, digital marketing, and content management system.
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