Tag: productivity

Your Programming New Year’s Resolution

In ProductivityTags productivity, study planLeave a comment

So it's that time of the year when you make your new year's resolution. As developers, that might revolve around filling some gaps in our understanding of systems we use or perhaps learning a new programming language.

Whatever your goals might be, one thing is certain about new year's resolutions - you can hardly achieve it without laying out some plan. Without a plan or a schedule, it is perfectly normal to stray away from your goals and go back to your normal routine of spending time with some addictive, but needless pastimes such as checking your facebook news feed.

And I'm not sharing anything new. Most people understand this. However, planning and organising one's life is not an easy undertaking. That's why I've prepared this article - to help you establish an effective and sustainable routine to steadily achieve your goals.

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How to study effectively as a full-time developer

In ProductivityTags learn, productivity, studyLeave a comment

Preslav Mihaylov

So you've graduated from university/bootcamp and you've landed your first job as a professional programmer. Congratulations, this is a huge milestone as it cost you years of perseverance to thoroughly study the courses in your curriculum.

However, studying like this is easy to do when you can dedicate your entire day for it. Once you start your 40 hours/week job, suddenly, you are deprived from all the free time you had to spend studying.

You have to be much more mindful about how you spend your free time, as it is no longer unlimited.

So what options have you got?

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How can vim make you a better developer

In Computer scienceTags editor, linux, productivity, vimLeave a comment

Preslav Mihaylov

The first time I encountered vim was during a Linux System Administrator course I attended a while ago. Didn't really know much about Linux back then. It just sounded quite fancy. During the course, the lecturer often typed in that 3 word command vim and edited some stuff. "Gee, that looks cool", I thought! So, determined to look cool myself, I got back home, opened a terminal, typed in the magic words and voila! - I was inside vim. So, with a great wish to write my first Hello World txt file in vim, I started hitting keys on my keyboard. And nothing was happening. Some strange beeps started coming out of nowhere and I felt utterly frustrated! So, my goal quickly shifted from typing anything, to exiting vim. Yeah, you probably know what follows. A key-hitting berserk got me while doing everything I can to exit vim. Finally, after failing my first clash with the editor, I was so thankful to have the X key at the top right of my terminal emulator. Now, this story should sound pretty familiar if you ever tried using vim. Well, eventually you learn how to exit it, and you learn how to type in symbols. But there is so much more to it. The endless sets of key-combos can leave you wondering what the heck you did after accidentally hitting a key. Nowadays, vim is the most popular text editor out there. Even some Windows users tend to use it although being an indigenous Unix utility. But what's the point? There are so many IDEs out there. Why would anyone bother poisoning his life with an endless vim frustration, when he can just install the first Javascript IDE google suggests. Well, although it is probably not suitable for any project, there are some great benefits in sticking with vim at least for a while. The greatest one being the user interface. However, the focus of this article is not that. Many articles can be found on the subject and perhaps I will make one in the future. Today, we will explore the much less highlighted merits of the vim editor. …

You can’t succeed by slacking off

In ProductivityTags hard work, productivity, successLeave a comment

Preslav Mihaylov

Many times in our lives, we are presented with a choice of what route to take. One is the easy route, and the other is the hard one. For example, I constantly get messages from people in Facebook, trying to convince me to join them in their quest for easy money through multi-level marketing. They go on saying that they don't want to be like those poor people destined to work hard all their lives and get nothing in the end. It's better to work smart and get to the final destination of being wealthy with a shortcut. That will take you several months, they say. And then you have the option to grow in your career, advance your skills and become a master in your craft. And that will take great amount of effort, years of consistency and discipline and great endurance. The first one sounds more preferable, right? But I recently watched a movie, called "Big Fish", which had a scene where the main character could choose to get to his destination via two routes - the easy one, which most people prefer, and the hard one, which no one dares to take.

What the character said was "The more difficult something became, the more rewarding it is in the end". But isn't that just some empty talk which is not applicable to life? In this article, I am going to share with you the lessons I have learnt concerning this issue and my experience with it. …

The Productive Developer @ WordCamp Sofia 2017

In Presentation, ProductivityTags presenting, productivity, talkLeave a comment

Preslav Mihaylov

After spending one great weekend at WordCamp Sofia 2017, I feel energized from all the great people I met there and all the awesome talks I saw. It was a great event. WordPress people sure know how to make a conference. What also caught my attention was the professionalism of the speakers there. Despite being a community event, most of the speakers had very professional slides and presented pretty well. On most of the events I go, I see those "Death by PowerPoint" presentations and I feel like that's just how things are. But at this event, I saw the tendency of many speakers getting literate in terms of their presentation design. They really put a lot of effort in their slides and presentations. I even saw some things which were helpful for me as well and helped me improve my presentations! It was a great conference. If you want to check out all the awesome talks from WordCamp Sofia 2017, visit this playlist. My talk was less WordPress driven, but even so I believe it can be of great use to anyone who cares about being as great of a developer as he can get. My talk is about Productivity. About the mindset behind being disciplined and performing in your work and using the right tools to help you achieve more. It's titled The Productive Developer. The idea for this talk evolved through my blog and my original post with the same name. So, if you care about advancing yourself and your career, give it a look: [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_sEj2Q_DcY[/embed]

Speaking at WordCamp Sofia

In PresentationTags presentation, productivity, speaking, wordcamp, wordpressLeave a comment

Preslav Mihaylov

WordCamp is an annual WordPress community event organized in cities all over the world. Professionals from the WordPress world come and share some great content about development, blogging, soft skills and more. I will be making an appearance at WordCamp Sofia. I am extremely honored to speak on the biggest community WordPress event in Bulgaria. The date is 11th November, Arena Mladost Hall, Sofia. My presentation is The Productive Developer. We will see what are the bottlenecks to our productivity and what are the solutions to them. But apart from that, we are going to explore some great tools and techniques that will help you not simply discover where your productivity gaps are, but systematically solve them! And the best thing about these tools is that you can start applying them right now. I am looking forward to meeting and connecting with great people on WordCamp Sofia, 2017. Going to the conference yourself? Then just let me know and contact me. I would be happy to chat and see you on the 11th of November at Arena Mladost Hall, Sofia. Stay tuned for further news and updates about upcoming slides & video.

The process of achieving a meaningful goal

In ProductivityTags achievement, mindset, productivity, thinkLeave a comment

Preslav Mihaylov

The route to success starts with the right mindset

Some time ago, I told you my story of becoming a better player in League of Legends. There was some kind of flaw in my skills and I decided to change that. So I started watching some YouTube videos about becoming a better LoL player. But the key to mastering that game was not in studying all sorts of fancy game mechanics or memorizing the items to buy for each hero. It was in adopting a mindset of always blaming yourself instead of your team for the mistakes you all make. That helped me skyrocket my overall gameplay and after a while, I was able to climb the ranked ladder of the game and I moved from the weakest division to being among the top 5% of the players in my server. This achievement was quite improbable at first. So since then I had been wondering - how could adopting such a philosophy make me a better player in the game? Why didn't all the mechanics I had watched help me, but instead it was this simple thought of always blaming yourself that released the handle of my potential? …

Keeping yourself organized in today’s world

In ProductivityTags getting things done, organized, productivity, time management3 Comments

Preslav Mihaylov

Somewhere around the start of the school year, we had to prepare our student books. We had to get some signatures, some photos and getting all the needed data on it. I was always the last one to do that. One particular year, my class teacher gave me my students book, after the head teacher had signed it, and said: "Don't lose it this time". "Of course I won't" I said confidently and went back to my desk. One week later, a man came to school and said he had found a lost students book. The teacher wasn't surprised when he found out it was mine. The funny thing is that only when I received it did I realize I had lost it in the first place. As time passed, I finished school, learned new things and advanced myself greatly. But one thing did not change - my carelessness. But now, I ought to be more responsible if I am to be taken seriously as a professional. That is why, I have discovered a framework which has helped me transition from a careless boy to a responsible person. …

The productive developer

In ProductivityTags kanban, pomodoro, productivity4 Comments

Preslav Mihaylov

When I started my first job, I was really excited as I realized that this is the point at which I start programming professionally. But once I got to actual work, there was some kind of flaw in my performance. I was trying to do my tasks from the moment I came until I finished. But while doing so, I constantly distracted myself with social media. And when I got assigned a huge task, I felt overwhelmed and it was extremely hard to even start doing it, just because I realize how much work I have to do in order to finish it. I just couldn't keep myself productive. But at one point, I realized that my approach was totally wrong. Today, I will show you a system, which has become an extremely useful tool for me, that aids me at feeling satisfied with my work and delivering maximum output. …