The productivity content online is largely noise. New apps, morning routines, keyboard shortcuts that save 0.3 seconds—none of it meaningfully impacts your output. Here’s what actually matters.
The Fundamentals: Non-Negotiable
Before optimizing anything, nail these three things. Everything else is marginal gains.
1. Deep Work Blocks
Uninterrupted focus time is irreplaceable. The research is clear: context switching kills productivity. Every interruption—Slack message, email notification, tap on the shoulder—costs 15-25 minutes of recovery time.
What works:
- Block 2-4 hour chunks for focused work
- Notifications off entirely during these blocks
- Communicate availability clearly to your team
- Same time daily if possible (habits are easier than willpower)
Two hours of genuine focus beats eight hours of fragmented attention. Protect this time aggressively.
2. Sleep
No productivity system compensates for sleep debt. Your debugging skills at 2am are not what you think they are. The bug you’ve been stuck on for hours often resolves after sleep.
Caffeine doesn’t fix this. It masks tiredness while degrading quality. You feel productive while producing mediocre work.
Seven to eight hours. Non-negotiable. Everything else builds on this foundation.
3. Clear Priorities
Not a backlog of 50 items. Not a complicated task management system. Just: what are the one or two things that actually matter today?
Most of what feels urgent isn’t important. Most of what’s important doesn’t feel urgent. Knowing the difference—and acting on it—is the core skill.
Tools That Actually Help
A few things I’ve found genuinely valuable, beyond the fundamentals:
A Distraction-Free Development Environment
This means different things for different people:
- Minimal browser tabs: Close everything not related to current work
- Phone in another room: Not on silent on your desk—physically elsewhere
- Clean desktop: Visual clutter is mental clutter
- Good headphones: Not for music necessarily, for signaling unavailability
Keyboard Fluency (But Not Obsession)
Learn the shortcuts you use constantly. For VS Code:
Cmd/Ctrl + P: Quick file openCmd/Ctrl + Shift + P: Command paletteCmd/Ctrl + D: Select next occurrenceCmd/Ctrl + /: Toggle commentCmd/Ctrl + B: Toggle sidebarCmd/Ctrl + ``“: Toggle terminal
Ten shortcuts learned deeply beat fifty learned poorly. Don’t spend hours configuring your setup—spend that time shipping code.
A Simple Notes System
Somewhere to capture:
- Decisions made and why
- “I’ll remember this later” items (you won’t)
- Context you’ll need when you return to a project
- Quick thoughts that would otherwise interrupt flow
I use plain markdown files in a folder. Obsidian, Notion, Apple Notes—whatever. The system doesn’t matter. Consistently capturing information does.
Two Monitors
The research backs this up: a second monitor genuinely improves productivity for development work. Code on one screen, reference on the other. No constant tab switching.
If you can’t do two monitors, learn to use virtual desktops effectively. Same principle, slightly more friction.
What Doesn’t Help
Things that feel productive but aren’t:
Endless Tooling Optimization
Your terminal prompt doesn’t need three hours of configuration. Neither does your color scheme. This is procrastination disguised as productivity.
Ship features. Circle back to tooling only when genuine friction emerges.
New Frameworks for Everything
The switching cost of learning a new framework is 20-40 hours minimum. Most “productivity gains” don’t recoup that investment.
Boring technology is usually the right choice. The Rails app you know beats the Go service you’re learning on a deadline.
Complex Task Management
If your task management system requires training to use, it’s too complex. The best system is one you’ll actually maintain.
A text file beats a complicated app you abandon. Simplicity wins.
Inbox Zero Obsession
Processing email perfectly is not high-value work. Checking less frequently matters more than organizing perfectly.
Two or three times daily is enough. Batch it. Move on.
The Meta-Skill: Noticing When You’re Stuck
The most valuable productivity skill isn’t a technique. It’s awareness.
When you’ve been spinning on a problem for 30 minutes without progress, stop. You’re not going to stare your way to a solution.
What to do instead:
- Take a walk (seriously, this works)
- Explain the problem out loud (rubber duck debugging)
- Work on something else and return with fresh eyes
- Sleep on it if it’s late
The answer rarely comes from staring harder at the screen. It comes from giving your subconscious time to process.
Sustainable Pace
High productivity isn’t working more hours. It’s getting more done in reasonable hours and having energy left for life.
The best developers I know:
- Work roughly normal hours
- Take vacations
- Have hobbies outside of coding
- Exercise regularly
They’re productive because they’re not burned out. Sprint culture produces short-term output and long-term turnover.
The Compound Effect
Small improvements compound. Saving 15 minutes daily is 60+ hours annually. But only if you actually redirect that time to high-value work.
The risk: optimizing trivialities while ignoring fundamentals. Don’t spend an hour setting up a script that saves 5 minutes monthly.
Focus on:
- Fundamentals first (sleep, focus, priorities)
- Eliminating major friction points
- Building sustainable habits
Skip:
- Minor optimizations with high setup cost
- Tools that solve problems you don’t have
- Productivity content consumption (including, yes, articles like this one)
At some point, you have to stop reading about productivity and actually do the work. The best productivity hack is starting.