Productivity tips for tech professionals

hugeinc.com
info@hugeinc.com
45 Main St. #220 Brooklyn, NY 11222
+1 718 625 4843
June 11, 2014
Productivity Tips for Busy Tech Professionals

Productivity Tips
for Busy Professionals
Tips that can make you work
better ….!

Idea behind this topic?
.
• Morning tech breakfast is one the good platform to get
introduced variety of technical topics.
• We deep dive to the technical topic with detailed
examples and use cases.
• Most of the sessions were made quite simple, so it
should be enjoyed by all tech stream resources.

.
Richard Seroter
Richard is a Product Manager for cloud computing provider Tier 3, a Microsoft MVP, blogger, author, trainer and frequent public
speaker.

How we gonna drive the session?
.
• Start with myth.
• Tip description
• Brainstorm through Real time examples.

.
• Tips are definitely abstract and subjective.
• Subjective tips are sometimes exciting or boring.
• Examples in discussion came up with personal
experience.
• Feel free to interrupt or yawn incase its non sense.

Lots of things to brag about?
.
• Can you accommodate new changes or roles?
• Your calendar is full. Are you open for new
opportunities?
• Do you feel productive?

1. I only care about Money ….!
.

.
• Not sure for all, but paycheck is the main criteria to
measure the success.
• Passion overrated, you may chose someone who willing
to pay more.
• I say its not best way to go forward.

Myth # I only care about Money ….!
.

TIP 1 # Chase your passion
.
“Chase your passion, not your pension.” - Denis Waitley.

.
• Motivation is the giant driver of productivity.
• Passion keeps yourself in positive situation helps a lot in
case day job is not happy or phase of job.
• In general... Techies don't get lot time to learn new
things, but passion is the only key which break the
barrier.

Example
.
Sport teams, Startups
E.g. ThoughtWorks

2. Learn little about everything
.

.
• Learn little about everything.
• You should know everything about you talk or hear from
people talk about and stuff.
Thats a very big myth !!!

Myth # Learn little about everything
.

.
• Investing in self is a core foundation principle.
• Maintaining breadth while developing depth in one or
two areas and proficiency in others.

Build expertise
.
o Expertise help to make future task easier.
o Expertise doesn't come in a day. It needs some
commitment and time investment.
o E.g. Bill Gates in his 20’s.
o It certainly term job safety.

My experience.
.
• A day with Regex problem
• Writing Tests : Spend couple of hours at the time of
development and save efforts on maintenance time
later.

Most of the employees situation in Dynamic market.
.

.
Its ok … to declare Tech bankruptcy.

.
• Become a stand alone expert, fully sufficient,
irreplaceable. Remember - “Increase your value.”
• Back in days, this was common mentoring words among
techies.
Thats another myth !!!

.
● Develop and Maintain network and not be alone
genius.
● Many professional possess ego issues which is one of
the cause to not open up and build network.
● Working in close network greatly increase efficiency
and add years even decades in experience.
Why network?
1. Things Faster.
2. Broader set of advisors.
3. Professional and personal network work as a protection
in busy schedule.

Example : Focus on relationship
.
Dont try to be low level engineer.

.
• We should always open for new ideas, new things.
• Saying no means,shutting door.
• Saying no also means, I am not open for great ideas.
Thats another myth !!!
• You may say lot of yes, in job or external activities, you
may feel great by doing this but it may result in packed
schedule.

.
“If you don't value your time, no one does of yours.”
BE OPPORTUNISTIC !!!

Example
Books, Prototype projects.

5. IF IT AIN’T BROKE … Don’t fix it
.

.
• If you have a tool, you follow process or methodology
and it works , dont think better - Just keep work with it.
• Seen this attitude many times in workplace.
I think its a Myth !!!!

Myth # IF IT AIN’T BROKE … Don’t fix it
.

TIP # Continuous Improvement
.

.
• Look for continuous improvement.
• Constantly look for efficient process to decrease
annoyance from the daily work.
• Better Look, Revise and Faster process.
• Smaller and continuous Invention in tools.
If you find any efficiency … Just go for it
!!!

How can we achieve improvement ?
.
• Continuous improvement is not spontaneous or massive
change but its a group of smaller steps.
• Its a slow process but after certain span , if you look
back you see smaller steps clubbed as a massive
change.
• Introspection and Feedback pathways for continuous
improvements.

.
Become irreplaceable
• Thats a great goal.... Infact
• I am safe, no one can fire me.
• I get more and more raises.
• I can be in-despicable.
Its again … a big MYTH !!!!

AIM TO BECOME … REPLACEABLE
.

Why become replaceable.
.
• Quality of great leaders.
• More flexibility: Good for new role.
• Build relations : Easy handover.
• Confidence : Current Role, review.
“Constantly look for replacements if you want to grow in organization”
- Steve Jobs

Being in technology best friend to achieve this goal is :
.

7. JUST GET MOVING
AND
EVALUATE LATER!

.
● Get going and evaluate later.
● Its really important to get started rather actually thinking
what you are going to get.
● Dont waste time on churning or planning.
Its abstract but for some extent its a MYTH !!!!

Scope every task
.
Common scenario.
You spend some time and money on investigation or task, and later you end up spending more to
justify previous investment and not results. That really doesn't work but This happens all the time.
We need to Scope !!!!
Its Very effective tip in Agile planning. Scope is the factor
which decide when to cut off and when to extend.
1. Ask for help.
2. Simplify the task.
3. Cancel the task.
4. Decide to plow ahead.

Scope every task
.
● Scope a task and evaluate after certain interval either to
scrap or continue. Its not productive to burn yourself into
dead blackhole.
● No overestimation !!!!
● Keeping right balance is the key of this tip.

WTF….. , are you asking to scope out all the tasks?
.
● Tasks you can’t scope.
○ Shopping in mall with Wife.
○ Family dinner on christmas
● Scope longer and never ending tasks
○ Stop piling off
○ Know when to stop
○ Asses properly before start something new.
● Good practice to timebox the things.

.
● Always capture tasks that you try or need to do.
● Might at workstation or might at home or on fridge.
● Its efficient but not productive.
Up to some extent its a MYTH !!!!

Accessible list.
.
● Rather keep burning memory, make short accessible
list that matters.
● Rather paper, use it with application which can by sync
across devices.
● A accessible at home, car or workstation. Check
regularly and try to improve it often.
Prioritization of the list is main KEY !!!!

Marissa Mayer
● Starts a day with creating a day long list.
● Very good in active prioritization through out day with
discarding the tasks which she cannot complete.
● Having a list is good but forcing the prioritization makes
very big deal.

M. Bloomberg
From -
Bloomberg by Bloomberg
● Start of new project with list of risks
● List goes to hundreds or beyond, by all imagination.
● Through out review, he starts to discard them one by
one.
● Go through risk list first before any project review.

● One day I felt a complete facebook maniac.
● Suggested : I decided to unplug from social world.
● It was easy for me to get overwhelmed.
Up to some extent its a MYTH !!!!
.

What Tim Russert thinks?
“You need to learn lot of little new things from other people to get many unique ideas as a insight”

● Living in closed group, talking to same people , we
hear same thing, hardly get new idea.
● Interaction on social level its great thing to see lot of
new things from diverse section of society.
● Key is to reduce non-value activities to reduce the
noise.
● Staying connected is good source of getting new ideas,
and for better professional relationships.
Stay connected
.

● Meetup groups
● Tech Breakfast sessions
● Stackoverflow
● Google groups
● Twitter
● Bookmarks
There are plenty of ways to be in connect, and doing
things like reading, writing comments, posting experiences
bring lot of new ideas to tap in.
.

Know when to focus
.
● Study says interruption to developer takes around avg
20 minutes to refocus.
● Doing multiple things is fine but its good to recognize
core focus time.
● Its great practice to find best working time and turnoff
external distraction.
● Core focus time can be used for mentally exhaustive
task.

.
● We see set of instructions to follow the assigned path.
● “This is the channel to find a support”
● “This is the way to convey your concern”
Controversial to some of us but I think its a myth
most of the time.

MYTH # Follow the assigned path

Skip the proxy
.
● Information may be lost if it passes through layers.
● Going right straight to the source helps wastage of
time(in waiting) and interest.
● Main point is to skip middleman to become more
productive and get rid of quality, time and concerns.
“Build good relationships.”

Skip the proxy
.
● Its good to skip the proxy, but it doesn't mean to break
the rule or discipline.
● But I think sometimes its ok to bypass the path & take
your own decision.
“Using strategically and not by abusing person or privilege
this tip really makes difference in professional life.”

12. Plow ahead until its done !!!

hugeinc.com
info@hugeinc.com
45 Main St. #220 Brooklyn, NY 11222
+1 718 625 4843

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