Getting Things Done for Developers(ahmetalpbalkan.com)

7 pointsby alpb14 anni fa6 comments

http://ahmetalpbalkan.com/blog/getting-things-done-for-developers/

6 comments

I strongly disagree that developers should stop whatever they're doing just to do any 2-minute task that comes up. This would be a huge distraction. When you're a developer, you need long chunks of quiet time to focus on your project. Constantly interrupting that focus to do 2-minute tasks is a sure way to make sure you can never get "in the zone" and concentrate on anything.

Personally, unless a 2-minute task is time-sensitive, I let a bunch of them pile up, then take 30 minutes or so to do them all at once.

gnok14 anni fa

Agreed. One of my worst productivity killers at work is the "hey, could you do this little thing? I know it'll only take you two minutes" type of request.

It might only take two minutes to do, but it's also just botched a nice hour long flow with the context switch.

rollypolly14 anni fa

That's a much better approach.

Another one I like is to save my small tasks for the next morning. It helps get my day going by achieving lots of small goals.

arupchak14 anni fa

Another item to add: Be good at filtering tasks when they come in.

A lot of people are not good at simply discarding work when it comes in, which is the best time to say 'No' or do the quick analysis to see whether it will actually add value.

Unfortunately, this takes some time and intuition to build up. You have to trust yourself that you can make decisions that are fast and accurate.

Aga14 anni fa

Does it really work to (try to) split your tasks in to 15 minutes chunks?

I often feel this kind of approach just ends up consuming more of my time as I'm constantly organising and splitting my tasks instead of just doing them.

vseorlov14 anni fa

This is similar to what I'm doing. I want to add, that there is always a rule - there are no strict rules.