tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62280365238542452132012-02-16T20:39:50.376-08:00Sergey Didenkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08347207390981555070noreply@blogger.comBlogger11100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228036523854245213.post-74874471712476423902012-01-26T06:41:00.000-08:002012-01-26T08:55:01.671-08:00I would like to share with you my long term observations on how to improve programmer productivity as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map">mind map</a>.<br /><br />Here is the clickable picture, below there is the mind map in a form of nested lists:<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mkjSG1Qq3vk/TyGFU3aEOFI/AAAAAAAAAE8/B5oba8VXwNI/s1600/IPP-v3.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 248px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mkjSG1Qq3vk/TyGFU3aEOFI/AAAAAAAAAE8/B5oba8VXwNI/s320/IPP-v3.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5701985196744915026" /></a><br /><br /><p><span style="color: #18898b;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; ">Improving Programmer Productivity</span><ul><li><span style="color: #cc3300;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; ">Short-Term</span><ul><li><span style="color: #669900;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; ">General</span><ul><li>Caffeine<ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Adjust to your blood pressure and blood vessel elasticity</span></li><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Only green tea after 6pm if you have insomnia</span></li><li>Green tea</li><li>Black tea</li><li>Coffee</li></ul></li><li>Sugar<ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Can lead to weight gain, most effective if consumed not very often in small amounts</span></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><span style="color: #669900;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; ">Getting into the flow</span><ul><li>No short attention span activities<ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">At least in the morning</span></li><li>No news</li><li>No fun content sites</li><li>No tweets</li></ul></li><li>Enjoyable long attention span activity<ul><li>Reading a book</li><li>Playing a computer game that requires deep concentration<ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Only if you can stop after a reasonable amount of time</span></li></ul></li></ul></li><li>Doing nothing AKA Meditation<ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">At least for 10 minutes</span></li><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Really nothing, no thinking, no starring at the screen</span></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><span style="color: #669900;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; ">Solving an inobvious problem</span><ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Moving away from computer</span></li><li>A walk</li><li>Playing drums, guitar</li><li>Shower</li></ul></li></ul></li><li><span style="color: #cc3300;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; ">Long-Term</span><ul><li><span style="color: #669900;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; ">"Hardware"</span><ul><li>Regular walks/ physical exercises<ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Expecially in the morning</span></li></ul></li><li>Spine exercises<ul><li>Warm-up from yoga (Surya Namaskara)<ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Can take only 10 minutes a day</span></li></ul></li></ul></li><li>Medicines improving blood flow in the brain<ul><li><p><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">"Increases brain RAM"</span><p><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Details are hidden to avoid harm for light-headed people. Those who really care will find it and use wisely.</span></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><span style="color: #669900;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; ">"Software"</span><ul><li>Studing new programming languages and approaches.<ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Don't beleive popular opinions blindly, check them</span></li></ul></li><li>Looking for good programmer resources (books, communities)</li><li>Mastering google queires<ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Know at least "site:", "~" operators, sorting by discussion type, limiting results by past year</span></li></ul></li><li>Organizing<ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">"Improves brain swapping"</span></li><li>TODO notes<ul><li><p><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Good with a paper and a pen</span><p><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">TODO item must be possible to write down in a few seconds in order not to lose the main context in which you are.</span><p><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Rule of thumb: if a task requires more than half an hour it deserves to be written as TODO item</span></li></ul></li><li>Leaving clues, marks when switching topics/ projects<ul><li>TODO notes</li><li>Browser sessions<ul><li>"Session Buddy" Chrome plugin</li></ul></li><li>IDE sessions/ "project groups"/ "working sets"</li><li>Virtual machines<ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Con: Requires a lot of RAM</span></li><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Pro: Remembers open programs and cursor placement in the code</span></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><span style="color: #669900;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; ">"OS kernel"</span><ul><li>Switch projects/ activities if you feel an upcoming burnout</li><li>Good psychotherapy for motivation problems and "unclear" states of the mind<ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Very underestimated</span></li><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Easy to run up against inefficient or even harmful psychotherapy approaches</span></li><li>"Core Transformation" technique by Connirae Andreas<ul><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Great long tested first-hand and second-hand results</span></li><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Requires a few evenings to study or visiting a workshop</span></li><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Sharply contrasts with a lot of inefficient NLP techniques</span></li><li><span style="color: #990000;font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif; ">Universal, leads to improvements in other life parts</span></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6228036523854245213-7487447171247642390?l=sergeydidenko.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Sergey Didenkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08347207390981555070noreply@blogger.com2