Eight Time Management Tips For

Software Developers
Scott Stiner
Forbes Councils Member
Forbes Technology Council
COUNCIL POST| Membership (fee-based)

Scott Stiner is the CEO & President of UM Technologies and its partner companies.

The software developer talent pool is endless. But the developers who truly
garner traction, not to mention attention from employers, are those who have
mastered time management.

Time management mastery isn't easy, and it takes self-discipline to use time in

the most valuable, reliable and efficient way possible. This is true across roles
in any industry, and the higher your position and more daunting your tasks,
the more you must have optimal time management.

At my company, there are always 100 things going on at once. Without a study
-- and continued practice -- of time management, I would honestly suffer as
our leader. Executives in the software development world must keep their
heads high above water to succeed, and the same goes for any developer or
member of the team.

The following are eight tips that help me with time management, and I can
directly attribute them to helping my company succeed.

Have A Plan

Planning is everything. We talk about this when creating software; research

takes up 80% of your energy, while 20% is spent completing the actual work.
Though planning won’t devour that much time, it’s as important as research
when developing software.

I wake up early and spend an hour planning my day, sorting through all the
important tasks I need to complete. Set up your day with a list; I have an
ongoing Excel sheet. Interruptions are inevitable -- everything from an
emergency meeting with a customer to something personal you have to take
care of. Deviate from the task at hand if necessary, but always return to the list
as soon as possible.
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Prioritize Tasks

Now that you have your list from the morning planning session, it’s time to
prioritize your items. I always attempt to stick with 5-7 major tasks and
prioritize them from hardest to easiest. Many people seem to put off the
tougher tasks until the end of the day, but from my experience, those tasks
never get completed if you push them off.

Mornings are when most of us are freshest, and that’s why it's a good time to
drill through the tough tasks. Leave the easier ones for later in the day. This
strategy alone has helped me double my workflow within a week.

Divide Larger Tasks

Have something time-consuming, such as a projected 20-hour algorithm

building process? Divide the tasks into chunks and allocate an hour or two per
day towards that project. This is not as exhausting on your mind and will
prevent feelings of failure if the larger task is not completed in a shorter
timeframe.

Delegate If Needed

Don’t fool yourself -- if someone can finish a task quicker and better, ask them
to do it. We all have special skill sets, and when everyone is working in unison,
things run much smoother. Make sure others also rely on using you for your
top talent. This tip will not only help you manage your personal time but also
the company’s.

Plan Disruptive Periods

This one is important. Plan disruptive periods to check things like emails or
voicemails. (If you're in a leadership role, also use this time to allow others to
ask for a quick chat.) Unless something is extremely important, it can wait
until a period that you have open for such disruptions. At other times, have all
notifications shut off for things like emails, texts and instant messages so
there’s no temptation to check.
Personally, I have two half-hour disruptive periods during the day, one mid-
morning and one mid-afternoon, where I answer emails and any questions
from team members. It typically takes about 15 minutes to get back in the flow
of things, so think of how much time you're wasting if you're disrupted
throughout the day.

Plan Daily Downtime

I also recommend taking some time to yourself throughout the day, whether
that’s a 10-minute walk outside or turning your focus off your screen and onto
a book. I try to have a few downtime periods throughout my own day, and I
never skip lunch unless the task at hand is unbelievably timely or I have a
meeting with an important client. If it’s the latter, I have the meeting at a
lunch spot to ensure I get out of the office.

Be Wary Of Multitasking

People pride themselves on their ability to multitask, but when the mind
jumps from one project to another -- for instance, from designing machine
learning algorithms to helping someone with a client research project -- it
takes about 15 minutes to get fully focused on the task at hand.

Multitasking clouds focus, and all of those 15 minutes refocusing back and
forth throughout a day add up. Remain focused on a single task for the
amount of time you've allocated for it, then move on.

Cultivate Discipline

Work on your discipline daily. This includes non-work-related items that will

make you healthier and more productive. For instance, I try to get enough
sleep and eat healthy, both of which help control stress.

And remember to keep distractions at bay -- social media and consumer

websites can quickly take hours away from your day, destroying
your productivity.

Success can be measured by many things, from creating top-selling software to

running a multibillion-dollar business, but many of these success stories are
rooted in great time management. If you want to see your stress subside and
your progress improve, utilize these tips and stick with them.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2016/10/17/eight-time-management-tips-for-
software-developers/?sh=5de1757465ab
How To: Time
Management in
Software
Development and
Project
Management
Initially, time management referred to just business or work
activities.  However, the term has broadened to include
personal activities as well. The definition of time
management is “the process of planning and exercising
conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific
activities, especially to increase, effectiveness, efficiency, or
productivity.” -Stephen Covey

During my experience in software development, I have come across

some issues that can be considered like the red light of software
project management.

o Unrealistic project goals

o Badly defined system requirements

o Poor reporting of the project's status

o Poor communication between customers, software developers and

project managers and stakeholders.
o Inability to handle the project's complexity

o Sloppy development practices

o Poor software project management

o Commercial pressures

o Inaccurate time estimation

o Management time and activities 

I would like to focus this post on time management, activities, and

what are the best practices to take advantage of our time. Recently, I
started thinking about how many things we do every day that have
the same results, both at work and in our personal lives. Here, I
would like to share my understandings and what my choices are
while making the best use of my time.

1. Planning & prioritizing

2. Protect your time and avoid needless distractions

3. Discipline yourself.
 

1. Plan activities
According to the old saying, “A stitch in time saves nine”, time
management strategies are often associated with the
recommendation to set personal or team goals. A timely effort
focused on planning tasks will prevent more work later.

For individual tasks or goals, an importance rating must be

established as well as for deadlines and priorities assigned. This
process results in a plan with a task list or a schedule or calendar of
daily, weekly, and monthly activities or even customized periods.

Planning and prioritizing helps us to prevent losing any task we have

to do.  Additionally, this also makes sure that we do the most
important ones first. I want to share the Stephen Covey Matrix
which can help you think about your priorities, and determine which
of your activities are important, and which distractions are essential.

Use your time effectively, not just efficiently.

 

2. Avoid needless
distractions
Distraction is the major time killer that makes us ineffective.

With innumerable distractions these days, it is very easy to be taken

hold by any one of them and lose sight of all that should have stayed
as a priority. Many developers will not code for 8 hours straight.
Some developers say that distractions are often caused by a lack of
motivation. Obviously, developers must be motivated enough
(usually in some form of profit sharing) in order to do their best
work, but it is wrong to assume that distractions are unethical to do
good work.

In fact, some developers said that their best work comes

from not thinking about a problem for a while and returning to it
after being appropriately distracted. In other words, it means to get
away from a problem and think about something else.

Developers frequently distract themselves when they are

investigating a problem, because they finish everything on a web
page that is not related to the main problem. So, get focused!

3. Discipline Yourself
Here are some helpful hints to become more focused for everyday
tasks.

- Discipline yourself to know when it is time to work and when it is

time to play.

- Get the proper amount of sleep and try to avoid stress.

 - Inform friends and family who may try to contact you that you
need some peace and quiet to complete some work and shouldn't be
disturbed.

- Think ahead as to what could be a distraction and try to distance

yourself from it. For example, Social media, chats, a lot of noise, and
web browsing that is not related.

Planning is the starting point of time management, while identifying

risks that are retrospective. Sometimes it is even more important
than the planning. That is because planning is working on something
uncertain, while retrospect is based on reality and intended to make
improvement.  So, how do we identify distractions? Track the time
and see where your time is being spent the most. Our memory is
unreliable to keep track of how long we spend time on the things to
be done. We need to actually write it down and write it down when it
happens (at the beginning or the end of the task).

 
About the Author

Jessica Ayala has a Bachelor in Psychology specialized in

Corporate Psychology with professional experience in recruiting. 

https://www.itexico.com/blog/how-to-time-management-in-software-development-and-project-
management
The Importance of Project Time
Management (And 5 Great Ways
To Do It)
Vartika Kashyap
You know the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland appears to be late for his
job with the duchess. If he has exercised effective time management he would
have never been late all the time. This is just an instance of the importance of
managing time. 
For managers, teams, and everyone, project time management is one of the
important factors of project management commitment. 
“Time is money”, “Time is of the essence”, and many more such phrases clearly
shows the importance of controlling the time aspect of a project. Keeping all
this in mind, let’s first know what is project time management? 
What Is Time Management in Project
Management?
Project time management refers to a component of overall project
management in which a timeline is examined and developed for the
completion of a project or deliverable. Time management is a key aspect of
managing a project. When a team is working on a project, it needs to be
organized to meet deadlines and streamlined to have quick collaboration. 
What Are the Main Processes in Project Time
Management?
There are six steps that are involved in project time management:
1. Activity Definition: The project team should identify and schedule
different activities and tasks to be done during the project life cycle.
These are the things that are required for timely project deliverables. 
2. Activity Sequencing: In this step, project managers need to introduce
documents and map task dependencies. It defines the order in which
deliverables must be completed.
 3. Estimating Resources: Identifying and defining the resources including
people, materials, and machines required to complete a deliverable.
4. Activity Duration Estimating: Estimating the timeline using formulas such
as PERT(Program Evaluation Review Technique) to develop an exact
schedule for completion of durables. 
5. Project Schedule Development: Plotting the start and end dates for each
activity as well as the analysis of the order of activities, timelines,
resources, and schedule barriers to having an accurate schedule.
6. Schedule Control: Project management intervention so that it is
manageable when there is a need to change the product schedule.  
Why is Time Management Important in Project
Management?
How many times have you felt like you’ve lost hours of your life and will never
get it back? There are a lot of ‘time wasters’ in our daily lives. That’s why time
management is important in project management. Any project you are
working on or you are about to start, has an official end date. 
Every project needs a schedule to meet its end date. A team and the project
manager has to manage their own time to ensure that the schedule is met. If
you don’t create a project schedule or do not plan the end date, there are
chances that years will go by and your project will never get finished. 
For project managers, it is important to possess time management skills to be
successful. A lack of effective time management will affect the project in the
long run. In most cases, time really is money. If you don’t know the effective
time management techniques, this article has a list of strategies for project
managers to have the best project time management. 
Project Time Management Strategies for
Project Managers
1. Use the Right Tools and Equipment
What is the first step in project time management? If you are not aware of it, it
is using the right tools and equipment. There are many project management
tools for vast, varied needs and it serves many different functions. In project
management, a project manager will have to use tools to manage time
effectively on projects. 
If the right tools and equipment are not available, even the most talented
project manager will not be able to meet deadlines. Some areas to look after
are communication, project planning software, time tracking software, time
management tool, and collaboration software.


o Add Timesheets – ProofHub timesheets help team managers to

track their team’s performance by maintaining a record of all the
time entries they have devoted to performing their tasks.
You can use these timesheets for payroll, client billing, estimation,
tracking, and time management. Users can also export these
timesheets for invoicing and billing purposes. 
o Time Reports – Team managers can create custom time reports
of people and projects to get a clear idea of where time goes. They
allow owners and managers to identify weak points, optimize work
procedures, and optimize better. 
o Set Time Estimates – Managers can set time estimates for tasks
to define the “expected” time it should take to get them done. Get
notified immediately if the time taken exceeds the actual time set,
making the most of ProofHub’s time management tool. 
o Comprehensive View Of All Time Data – You can have a bird’s
eye view of all time data of all team members stored in one place,
across all projects, billable or non-billable, without the need to jump
through projects. 
o Track Time Manually or Using Timers – You can track time
either manually or using timers. Manual time entries can be used to
record the number of hours it took to get work done and track time
spent for billable or non-billable hours. 
o Automatic timers can also be used to record time spent on doing
work. Users can start a timer when they start working on a task and
pause it the moment they stop working on it. This method is
considered as more accurate than the traditional method of time
keeping. 
o Archive Timesheets – Archive timesheets from the time section
and use them later for future reference.
ProofHub’s greatest strength is that it offers an “all-in-one” solution
for project time management and collaboration. Apart from time tracking
software, it also has a range of other useful features – Proofing, White-
Labeling, Tasks, Kanban Boards, Gantt Charts, Reports, Chat, and Calendar to
help teams achieve more in less time.
 Toggl
Toggl is a no-hassle time tracking software that is the perfect add-on to your
existing tools to help you be more productive throughout the day. Yet, it’s
features are quite limited. Toggl may not be able to reach your and your
team’s expectations, especially if you want detailed project time tracking. The
tool is usually praised for its simplicity. 
 Hubstaff
Hubstaff is another popular time management app that offers the feature of
project time management. The software tracks the time spent on work as well
as your team’s leisure time in the form of activity reports. It has a flexible
calendar view to see different time entries – daily, weekly or monthly. That’s a
great feature to analyze your team’s performance and in managing projects all
the time. 
 ClickTime
ClickTime is a time tracking app for managing project budgets with real-time
updates on employee hours, availability and costs. It helps you predict project
needs by tracking the amount of time the team is spending on any project.
But the software requires a bit of a learning curve and reporting is tricky and
inconsistent. 
 Teamwork
With Teamwork, you can estimate the time you think you’ll need to complete
tasks and then log your actual time against it. It lets you track how long
activities are taking so you can plan work for your team. 
If you’re constantly juggling with deadlines and deliverables, then it is sure
that you would benefit from a dedicated time management software.
Boost your productivity day by day.  Start using ProofHub. 
2. Know-How You Spend Your Time
Keep a log of time so you are able to find how you are using your time. Time
is the most valuable asset. If you’re overlooking your routine, it can lead to a
loss in productivity. Record what you are doing for 15-minute intervals for
some time. When you are mindful of what task is taking your time and what
you are spending your time one, you can better manage it.  
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” ~Annie Dillard
Find your most time-consuming tasks and see if you are investing your time in
the most important activities. When everyone has the same number of hours
in the day, why do some seem to get so much more done? Because they have
a good sense of where they spend their time on routine tasks and estimate
how much time is available for the rest of the activities. 
3. Set Priorities
Setting priorities to manage your time effectively requires a difference
between what is important and what is urgent. When the goals are set and
you’ve determined the individual tasks that you need to do, it’s time to
prioritize. Prioritizing is a way to get things done if it is done in the right way. 
For example, look at your daily tasks and prioritize according to: 
 Important and urgent: Do these tasks right away.
 Important but not urgent: Decide when to do these tasks.
 Urgent but not important: Delegate these tasks if possible.
 Not urgent and not important: Set these aside to do later.
Focusing on your tasks according to the above format you can have greater
control over your time and time management will always be by your side. Also,
one of the easiest ways to prioritize is to make a “to-do” list on a project
management tool. When you’re making the list, be careful it doesn’t get out of
control. Rank the items in order of priority to have a sense of accomplishment
as you move down the list. 
4. Organize Your Task List
Task Lists is a compound of all the project responsibilities for teams and the
project manager. A powerful thing that we can do to better manage time is to
organize it. Sure, organizing your task list is a great thing and there are several
different ways you can do it.
 Organize Tasks By Due Date
This is one important thing that managers and employees choose to do when
organizing tasks over task management software. Some due dates need to be
hit and it should be done for time management. When you’ve got a due date,
you’ll be motivated to accomplish the task.
Simply add start and due dates to each task or sub-tasks in your task list and
sort them out by due date. This will give you an idea of what needs to be done
today and what is to be done in the next coming days. 
Pro Tip: Using  ProofHub  you can set the due date to make a task
recurring, set recurrence, see overdue tasks on your list, and change the
dates in case of unforeseen requirements.
 Organize Tasks by Progress (with Kanban)
Every task includes sub-tasks that help you move through your goals
smoothly. Having to manage these tasks and sub-tasks on Kanban is a great
method to manage your time as you organize your work by progress. Simply
make a to-do list on the Kanban board.
Kanban board lets you organize and manage your process by visualizing every
step of your workflow. When you move your tasks through stages as it
progresses, you can complete projects efficiently. 
5. Avoid Over Commitment 
This one can be tricky because most of the time project managers and teams
doubt if they are working on the right initiative that requires minimizing
interruptions. Over-commitment or commitment fallacy is a fear in the
modern workplace as it can lead to failing projects. And sometimes we refuse
to move away from a project because we’ve already given a lot of work into it. 
Even when it is a better option to work on something else. But if you have to
improve your time management skills, it becomes important to know what
should you be working on that will bring an utmost impact. This way you can
quickly move from project to project without wasting time and avoid wasteful
work. 
 Use the 80/20 rule
Also known as the Pareto principle, the 80/20 rule is one of the helpful
concepts of time management. It states that approximately 80% of your
results will come from 20% of the work that you do. This principle is important
to learn and understand to optimize your workday and to learn how to
prioritize your tasks, days, weeks, and months.
Conclusion
Much like money, time is both valuable and limited. People who practice good
time management techniques;
 Are more productive
  Have more energy 
 Feel less stressed
 Get more things done
 Feel great about themselves 
Therefore, it is a good idea to find a time management strategy that works
best for you. There you go. Good luck! 
What exactly is project time mana
Vartika Kashyap is the Chief Marketing Officer at ProofHub and has been one of
the LinkedIn Top Voices in 2018. Her articles are inspired by office situations and
work-related events. She likes to write about productivity, team building, work
culture, leadership, entrepreneurship among others and contributing to a better
workplace is what makes her click.
https://www.proofhub.com/articles/project-time-management
Time Management Strategies for
Software Engineers

Time management is a subject near and dear to my heart. I got my

start as a developer in a support role where we had to be reactive and
give into whatever was demanding our attention at the time (I literally
had to monitor an error queue and manually intervene whenever
something didn't process correctly). It was a nightmare.

After moving from that role into a more development focused one,
distractions still persisted. Emails needing to be answered, back and
forth design meetings with other teams because the system we were
building off of was older than any of the devs in the meeting, people
popping by my desk to ask questions. Over time I realized that if I
were to get any work done that was deep and meaningful I would
have to manage my time better.

Here are four strategies I've tried and had success with for managing
my time.

Block Out Your Time

A good start to managing time is to assert more control over where

your time is being spent.

An exercise I like to do is plan out my day via time blocks, Cal

Newport, the Author of Deep Work, and my inspiration for this
strategy, wrote an excellent post about time blocking.

What I do is divide my time into blocks based on how long I think a

task is going to take. If I complete the task faster than my estimated
completion time, I update that block with the time I finished the task,
then proceed to the next task.

If something demands my attention that I can't ignore, then I pencil in

the start time, focusing in on that task until it's completed, then move
back to the task I was previously working on. Even if the work is
reactive, it's important to take charge of the time spent on it. Don't let
reactivity spend your time for you.

This might sound tedious, but at the end of it you have a detailed
picture of where your time is being spent, and armed with that
knowledge you can start to strategize ways of eliminating certain
activities that don't contribute to your overall goals.

Become Harder to Reach

I'm not saying become a productivity hermit where you find a hole to
hide in and stay there until you've completed your work.

But consider the amount of time you've passively allowed yourself to

be contacted. Email, Slack/Teams/Discord/etc., phone, all of these can
become time sucks.

When I have to zone in a focus on something for an extended period

of time. I close my IM client, email, and anything else that could sap
my attention. Sometimes I find another desk in the office to sit at,
believe it or not the change of scenery can help a lot!
Getting interrupted after you found a place to not be bothered at

And it's not this way all the time. As someone who leads a
development team, it's a job duty of mine to be available to assist
other members of the team. I try to set aside time for myself to be
available to help, but when I don't need to, my email and IM clients
are muted and I'm focused in on the task at hand.
Know When to Stop Working

Nothing good comes out of being at work for 12 hours trying to

understand some esoteric log message that you had to obtain by
debugging COBOL that could have graduated high school before you
were born.

Go home. People tend to have times of the day where they work most
optimally. If it's at 9pm then more power to you, but don't burn
yourself out trying to push through to a successful conclusion, most
things can wait until tomorrow.

Focus on What Matters

Most of us work in an environment full of distractions, people coming

to your desk to ask questions, apps ding-donging at you, meeting
invites from people who sometimes-maybe-might think you need to
be there to listen or correct someone or ask questions, or even worse,
a meeting to schedule more meetings.

Knowing what to cut out / prioritize goals is an invaluable skill. Besides

time blocking, I use Todoist to prioritize and schedule certain goals
and reminders. You can create projects to assign tasks under as well as
nest tasks together if you need to group them. I find it incredibly
helpful for keeping things organized.

In the end. Time management isn't a easy thing to get perfect the first
time you try it. It takes a lot of discipline and assertiveness in order to
get a good groove going. Just being cognizant of where your time is
being spent is the first major step to managing your time better!
 How time management in software
development should actually work
Software developers whose expertise requires creative application of computer science strive for
balance of technical, business and envisaging capabilities, and perfecting time management skills
seems the linchpin in achieving it.
Software developers whose expertise requires creative application of
computer science strive for striking balance between technical and  creative
envisaging capabilities, and perfecting time management skills seems the
linchpin in achieving it.

The challenge that every software developer faces pertains to the necessity to:

...constantly keep themselves updated with an enormous amount of ever
changing information.

In addition to the ongoing task of enhancing research capability to develop

'soft skills' to the level of perfection, software developers cannot do without
close attention to detail and critical thinking, which are crucial for:

 completing the complex projects in time

 boosting their income  
 expanding professional network
 strategizing the growth of their business.  
To realize these ambitious goals, out of hundreds known time management
skills, software developers need to opt for the ones that demonstrated their
fail-proof effectiveness and proved to be of tailored fit to specific needs of
software development. After all, as it was famously stated, we must use time
as a tool, not as a couch.
Below, there is a list of 10 time management methods that work best for
software developers and guarantee multi-fold improvement in their business
productivity.
Pace yourself: Hurry slowly
Though it seems strange to encourage people not to be in hurry, especially in
a software development business that demonstrates the high dependency on
time allocation, we actually want to start with this very tip.

Why it works: The point is, software development is a multi-stage process

combining creative and technical aspects, which makes resilience the key
factor in meeting deadlines and being agile when working in sprints. And
resilience means distributing your time and energy investments equally at all
the stages. So making high speed a number one priority would be a mistake
as it actually can decrease effectiveness of work.    
Give your work meaning: Set goals
According to scientific studies of motivation,we as humans keep motivated
much longer if we set goals before diving into work. Prioritizing not only
facilitates task management but makes us allocate time and resources more
efficiently because visualizing the expected outcomes enhance our
adaptability skills. This is utmost important for software development
executives whose work implies close attention to small detail and
management of a fast-paced team within timed workflow.

Why it works:  The productivity platforms and task management systems

greatly facilitate software development team jobs as they help handle team
members performance, keep track of burndown charts, forecast budgets,
organize  remote team communication across time zones and track projects
effectively.    
Arm yourself: Get a tracker
With the digital market on the boom, software developers are still in need of
finding the instruments that would work for their specific needs. Let alone
the tools and libraries that software developers cannot do without in their
daily work, one of the most important tools to ensure productive outcomes of
developers' job is a time tracker that would help you optimize the time
allocation by recording all time entries and keeping data secure in the cloud.

Why it works:  Using timesheets requiring manual time log is ineffective as

it is hard to document by memory. Moreover, it is often met with resistance
by programmers' teams. So we would certainly recommend time tracking
systems as a must developers' tool due to their wide functionality on
recording work time.
In addition, they supply you with the rich opportunities of extensive
integrations in top project management systems favored by developers.
Be proactive: Focus on one thing at a time
We often fall into trap of believing that the more time we spend on
something, the better we get. It is true to certain extent; practice and drilling
make our skills automated but in case of software development this approach
is unsustainable. Moreover, it might lead to time losses and burnout. The best
way to allocate time wisely, software developers may apply timeboxing.

Why it works:  Timeboxing is an unbeatable technique that helps limit time

on tasks and directs the professionals to address one issue at a time. It will
also prevent going off topic in Agile teams meetings.
Automate: Write scripts for tasks
Roughly speaking, software developers operate on unexplored terrain and it
means that they need to fit together several processes (for example, coding
and identifying the flaws on the spot). To make things easier, programmers
can save tons of time on performing common tasks by preparing short scripts
for the repetitive tasks.

Why it works: Tasks performed as a part of everyday routine (for example,

sending emails that differ only in greetings) can be saved as templates. The
same pertains to similar tasks that can be successfully scripted. It will release
time on repeating laborious tasks and let focus on challenging tasks instead.
Search stress-free: Structure file folders  
Organizing files and folders is of great importance to software developers
either they work individually or in a team. It is a good practice to keep files
organized to enable quick search, especially within team collaboration. So it
is preferable to work with easy to navigate filing system and make sure that
folders and sub-folders had brief info in the names.
Why it works: To be able to store, retrieve and archive information is an
integral part of software development so investing some time and efforts into
discovering the reliable stored solutions as well as labeling folders efficiently
would pay off in the actual workflow.
Fight nomophobia: Disable notifications
Nowadays, about 66% of adults suffer from nomophobia (when staying out
of reach of the smartphone causes the person signs of emotional and physical
anxiety).
Overall, Americans check notifications about 80 times a day.
Studies showed that any kind of interruption might result in considerable time
loss for a programmer as it usually takes them up to 15 minutes to resume
code editing. But there is a way of breaking a habit of self-interruption: it
simply requires disabling notifications.

Why it works: Keeping notifications switched on means endless checks on

the phones, which causes self-sabotaging behavior while one of the
cornerstones of programming productivity is uninterrupted work. A simple
but effective trick of disabling notifications helps get focused on the task at
hand to enable developer's flow state.    
Sync planning and doing: Use Scrum
Software development usually implies large-scale planning. Missing on detail
can cause the disruption of the process. To avoid overlapping the tasks and
deliver the desired results, it is important to create fully-synced workflow.
One of the effective ways to do it is to apply the scrum methodologies that
prevent any breakage within communication transfer.

Why it works: It proved to work ideally for teams of 3 to 9 people, and it

allows to react quickly to any running changes because the team members
'break' project time into chunks, which lets them keep updated without extra
effort.
Listen: Rely on Audiobooks and podcasts
Why choosing listening over reading will leverage software developers'
productivity is a rhetorical question. It takes the minimum of time and
enables pain-free multitasking. There are special podcasts platforms for
software developers that will surely enrich the experience of software
developers.

Why it works: Keeping updated on evolving technological trends is a must

in a software developer's job. Audiobooks are a good alternative to browsing
the forums as they will deliver the information on a complex subject in a
structured way. And podcasts (in particular, on technical content) can help
deepen the expertise without being time or energy consuming.
Unplug: Take breaks
The pressure of a deadline may cause procrastination, and its snowballing
nature is what makes postponements really dangerous for software
developers' work. To avoid this productivity pitfall, it is necessary not to be
completely absorbed by the routine and take regular breaks to balance work
and life.

Why it works: Changing gears during the long work sessions that usually
demand extreme concentration makes a positive impact on brain activity and
boosts productivity.
Ignoring the break time might be detrimental both to health and work so it is
essential to unplug, and there are special tips for software developers who
want to master the art of taking a break effectively.