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Hello, again!

It was one of that days you used to call “usual”. It was working day. I had just arrived at work and started to setup my environment, to start my IDE, to check my current tasks and something like that. My mind was clear, but I wasn’t full of energy to be productive. I had some unresolved issues in the team, few meetings and lots of development tasks. The day before I was working a lot. I started to get asleep. At moment my eyes became closed I understood one thing.

I didn’t use my time carefully.

I waste time in public transport, time in waiting meetings, time in waiting my coffee, time in looking one point without any sense (you know this thing, am I right?), time to eat, time to wait somebody’s “urgent” reply, time in call to be silent or mute at all, time to choose task with the highest priority and many-many others. I understood I need to rearrange my schedule. I understood I can do more without any extra costs. And I opened my eyes.

Let’s look at a list of things I wanted to improve:

1. Watch all news in the underground

Not only news. Not only in the underground. I mean I can stay in touch with all tech world while I’m going to work. This way allow me to avoid wasting about half an hour, the most productive 30 minutes of the day, scrolling the recent posts.

This was the easiest timesaving issue. Now I check most of the stories in tech in the underground. By the way, I’m writing from the subway carriage now😊

2. Try chatting while waiting or moving

I built my own scheme of chatting. Every new chat message I wanted to mark in mind with a priority. Why just in mind? Because no one usual messenger doesn’t allow to mark chats with priorities, just sort by unread (if you have better solution — you are welcome).I found 3 types of priorities:

• High — should be read and answered immediately, doesn’t matter where I am.
• Medium — can be read and answered ASAP, but shouldn’t interrupt current events. This messages can be handled right after the meetings or while coffee is being ground.
• Low — can be reviewed at the finish of working day.

In the real world, it’s more complicated. I have 5 priorities now: 2 more types above and below the middle one. Let’s call them medium+ and medium-.

• Medium+ — including mentions in chats, help requests from my team, info known only by me, questions which freeze somebody. This can be handled when themes on the meeting are switching or you have a minute in stuck.
• Medium- — including messages like “look at this thing at a free time and answer asap”, “we should have call/meeting today” (IMPORTANT: without any specific time limit). This can be resolved after few important meetings will be passed, going one by one or when one logical part of work will be done.

I try to follow my own instructions and it becomes succeed at 70% of tries. Another 30% I start to jump from priority to priority in a panic mode and obviously lose. So, I’m still working on it.

3. Do reviews between the meetings

I have few performance reviews or code quality reviews per month and about three pull requests per day. I don’t believe in “all can be done without you” scheme. That’s why I prefer do not just scroll down the code but review it carefully. I have the examples with the fails caused by scrolled down PRs, but it sounds like another big article.

Now I found a good solution for this tasks — I prefer to review somebody’s code between meetings and a large part of work. Usually, I have 10 minutes between them. And I found it’s the best time to spend time with my team.

4. Manage team while eating

Do you know that case, when all members of your team have time to have lunch when you have lots of work? I know. I wrote down all time I spent on lunches during last month and found, I have free time while waiting for my food if I’m outside of the office and one free hand and free enough head when I’m on board. It’s the best time to solve minor problems of my teammates and/or help them.

5. Concentrate on development and skip not urgent questions

If you allow yourself to take some urgent and very important task — try to finish it. People used to wait definitely your result as a good one and provided quickly. Do not disappoint them. Do not keep yourself in bad situation. Do not start another issues in that time. Be careful to do the task with high quality.

6. Keep the paper notebook

At first time I thought it would be uncomfortable or strange or useless thing. Nope. I was wrong. In the tech century the paper and the pen are still very useful. Do some notes, draw schemes, mark things you’ve done, prepare for meetings, write down something to keep in mind. It will be easier to remember when you have wrote it somewhere. And keep this notebook always with you. It will erase your mind from useless information.

7. Do not work after your working day

This thing is still mostly unreachable for me. But I believe you shouldn’t do some work when your working hours are done (of course if you didn’t fuck up). As more, you spend time on work over your general hours without important ( I mean really important) reason, as less concentrated and productive you will be very next day. Do not kill yourself working all nights just to do some not urgent thing better. Just understand, that you are not alone in this world, you are not the only one. If this night can’t resolve all problems with your work — do not do this.

8. Keep in mind only important, write down anything else

Do not make the garbage collector from your head. Keep it fresh to reach the information you need immediately. It’s good practice to keep in mind main flows or current issues, but not all things you’ve heard/read/seen. As I said earlier — write down. Just paint few lines to recognize what have you meant. It will save you time and money. Don’t think you will be identified as a low skilled specialist. Try to filter things to keep in mind and you will see the growth of your productivity.

This 8 improvements can be easily implemented into your general workflow. Few of them can be unusual first time. And it may cost some time to get used to do them. But it’s a good investment for your future time-saving. And you will feel your productivity inside. Good luck!

You can disagree with me and build your own strategy of time management. Anyway, I want this story to help someone.