Wednesday, July 10, 2019

The Master Developer's Path: Productivity

I recently did a talk at GenUI.co on how to increase your development productivity through self-awareness and incremental improvement. Below is a teaser. The full article, and presentation video, is here: genui.com/resources/developer-productivity-guide (free, no-ads, enjoy!)

Defining “Mastery”

I studied Japanese in college and one phrase that stuck with me is: “chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru” — “Even dust, if piled up, can become a mountain.” Mastery is the result of small, incremental, and directed improvements over time. I want to share some ideas on how you, throughout the normal workday, can make these incremental improvements and take steps on the path toward mastery.

Counting my teenage years, I have been a developer for almost three decades. I can offer some concrete insights, learned over those years, but most of all, I offer you a philosophy on how to be a self-improving developer. And while I’m addressing developers, I do think much of this applies to designers – in both cases, it's about creating something new that has never been seen before.

Here's just one of the many insights from my talk:

“You can ship any project on-time, under budget,
and with quality … You just have to cut features.”

Read the full article or watch the 34 minute presentation here