1. Saying No
Developers must learn to say no to unrealistic time frames, unreasonable requirements, and weekend work, rather than giving in to peer pressure.
Hear it at 0:11 →Engineering video
1:00 · 13 May 2023
The #1 Productivity Hack Every Developer Needs To Know About
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Transcript
The number one hack that will make you more productive as a developer right now. It's not typing faster. It's not chat GPT. It's not waking up at 5 in the morning and starting coding right away. It is much, much simpler than that. And much, much harder. It is saying no. No, I don't think delivering on that feature is possible within this time frame. No, I don't think these requirements make sense.
No, I don't want to spend the weekend coding, and that release deadline, it's totally unrealistic. And why is it so hard for developers to learn how to say no? Well, because like most peoples, we don't like to be confrontative. It is much easier to give into the peer pressure and agree. Secondly, you might think that saying no will indicate that you are a bad developer, that you don't have the skills to deliver and say yes, false.
Actually, the more skilled you are, the more knows you say. What's more, it will get to a point in your career where if you don't learn how to say no effectively, you won't grow anymore. Because you'll get burn out by unrealistic deadlines, dragged into unnecessary meetings, and have no time to focus on the important things. This doesn't mean you should start saying no to everything and become the party pooper in your developer team.
What it means is that you should start picking your battles, setting stronger boundaries and communicating clearly.