The creator of Reaper, Winamp and many other cool digital things talks about being productive as a developer:

The most productive programmers have an ability to cut through to what’s really important, focus on that, and then know when they’ve gotten stuff right.

What would you do if you were in Angelina’s position? Would you choose to have a mastectomy or you try other preventative measures first?

Anya, the author of DIY U, talked about making your own education using web technologies.

Even though this talk was given a while ago now, with the current economy and its extremely damaging effects on education, most of these ideas are very topical today.
Degrees are increasing in price (from £1000 to £10,000 here in the UK) and don’t provide any guarantee of a stable income anymore. But education is still badly needed, so students and professionals are turning to learning outside of traditional structures. The rise of MOOCs these days is a sign that things are moving fast in that space.

I share Anya’s enthusiasm; there is never been a better time to be a student and and an educator. But there is still a lot of work to be done to design the new spaces for today’s education.

But not tonight. Tonight I’m writing a blog article. I’m moving forward on at least one of my projects.

I’ve known for a long time why I’m frustrated by not contributing enough to open source, not writing enough blog articles, not playing , writing or recording any music, not doing this and not doing that, blah blag blah.
I know, and you know it too: what’s stopping me is the lounging for too long when I actually have time to make stuff I care about.

Time is precious.

On a related note, I also killed my GTD system this week, after more than 6 years of using it religiously  Don’t get me wrong GTD is a very useful system, and it helped me get through my PhD painlessly (more on that next week). But more times than I can count, the system was more about helping me cope with the little (and mostly unimportant) things with minimal effort than about working hard on the big and important stuff. I got by pretty well, but now it’s time to go further. It’s time to work hard, to think deep, and to become a master at things I enjoy doing. It’s time to practice music, to become a better designer, to improve my programming skill, and to serve my family, my colleagues and our customers better.
It’s not about the list anymore ; I know exactly what I have to do, and if I don’t I know exactly how to find out. I might not like what I find, but tough: this is the thing, the difficult, boring, I-would-rather-do-anything-else-but-this thing that I will do now. Successful people are successful because they do their thing, no matter what, every day.

Tonight, I’m killing the biggest obstacle to productivity: plain and simple lack of courage. And I don’t need time management anymore. Do you ?

Get your head in the game, at work and on the court.

At first I was all defence, mainly focusing on “not screwing up”, but I quickly grew very frustrated: many times, I managed to catch and send the shuttlecock back, only to see it, helpless, returned to our side too fast and far away, impossible to catch again. I was disappointed and didn’t know were to start to improve, but I was determined to get better, so I did the only thing I could think of: I just observed the best players very carefully  and tried to determine what made them so good.
As I intensely observed the games, I tried to predict where the shuttlecock was going to go in advance, so as to improve my own estimation when I was playing and improve my reflexes. I quickly realised that the trajectory was in fact more about psychology than physics; trying to anticipate the trajectory was useless. The best players didn’t just throw the shuttlecock back very quickly, they threw itstrategically, always looking for empty spaces that I didn’t cover or expect. No wonder I was at their mercy; until then I kept sending the shuttlecock straight to them, basically offering them free points and letting them lead the game. They truly “played” me the whole way through.

From that moment on, I focused on strategy, sending the shuttlecock in empty spaces on the opponents’ courts. This had several benefits, one of which being, of course, winning! But I also noticed an interesting side-effect. The game started to become more colourful, richer, and I noticed nuances and subtleties I never saw before. I truly started to play with my opponent, to work strategically with my partners, and to grow a passion for the sport. Each game is now more intense and more engrossing. I learn something new every time. What seemed like an obvious realisation truly changed my game, and people noticed.

At work, I noticed a similar phenomenon: stepping back and observing what people do, what makes me better and what my pain points are, helped me to find out that I had a major flaw: I don’t plan what I do thoroughly enough. Many times, I just opened up Eclipse or Photoshop and messed about for a while to get what I wanted by trial and error. A few minutes of planning before each task, using my trusty notebook for sketches if necessary, would have saved me a lot of time. It would also help me to think more deeply about the user experience, the necessary details to take in to account, and everything that goes into great quality.
If you ever you feel stuck or just want to improve, maybe it’s time to just step back for a minute and analyse the situation. It might just change your game.

Show the machine who’s boss

Getting Started: OS shortcuts and other useful tools

The first tool you’ll need is already on your computer, and you might be using it ineffectively: it’s your Operating System (OS). Whether you’re a PC user on Windows or Linux, or a Mac fanboy (or fangirl), you need to know the most common shortcuts on your system in order to accelerate your coding and become really effective as a programmer. I don’t want to spoon-feed you information (after all, as an IT professional you should be an expert at finding information on the web), so I’ll invite you to look at how you can do the following things in your system of choice:

• Switching from one application to the other,
• Copying and pasting,
• Quitting a program,
• Navigating from tab to tab in a given program,
• etc.

You should also enhance your machine with multiple desktops (and of course learn how to switch from one to another quickly). It’s already available on Mac OS and Linux (again, look it up), and you should install VirtuaWin no Windows. Also, learning how to launch programs within navigating through a menu will save you a lot of time. On a Windows PC, you can install Launchy or just use Windows search to access any program by just typing its name. I really like Launchy because it’s a little more powerful that the standard Windows search feature. The equivalent on Mac is QuickSilver (I hear it’s even more powerful than Launchy), and if you’re a GNOME user on Linux you can try Do, which looks quite powerful too.
The point is, be effective with your Operating System, and always look for ways to automate things and to avoid using the mouse whenever possible.

Text Editors and IDEs (Integrated Development Environments)

To type your code, you’ll need a text editor.  Text editors vary in style and features, but essentially they help you make sense of your code (using syntax highlighting), find and modify bits of code with search and replace features, and automate complex tasks with macros.
I won’t recommend any particular text editor, but the important thing is to learn how to use you text editor like a boss. Like with your OS, learn the keyboard shortcuts, and use them in order to reduce the time you spend using the mouse. It will not only make you very productive, it will make you look like a computer wizard. Your mum will be very impressed.

When you get comfortable with your language(s) of choice, you will eventually use and IDE, which is essentially a text editor en steroids. It will do all sorts of things in addition to helping you type: compile your code, find classes and variables, set up new projects from scratch, display helpful messages when your code is wrong, etc. Like for text editors, there are many options to choose from, depending on your language and personal preferences, but again you need to focus on using the IDE effectively. Learn as much as you can about your IDE, and don’t do anything without asking yourself: “is there a faster, smarter way do accomplish this task?”. Watch out especially for repetitive tasks. Use the awesome computing power that you have at your fingertips, and use your own “wetware” (your brain) for high-level coding.

What’s your text editor or IDE of choice? How do you use your OS? Any good productivity tips to share? Leave use a comment !

Open Source software is like a dojo for programmers.

Believe it or not, some people actually work on code for free every day, and give the code away for others to use, modify, and even sell. They do it for fun, because they enjoy tackling interesting problems. It’s called open-source (or free) software, and getting involved in this will make you a better developer. Also, as you get better at coding by contributing to an open-source project, it will become a great way to demonstrate your skills to potential employers. Open source is a gift, take it with all the gratitude it deserves.
Through open source projects, experienced developers give you their software to use completely free of charge, and you also get to be mentored by them through the magic of the internet. You can study their code, emulate their style, propose new ideas and implement them in the project. In other words, you can gain experience as a developer, just like you would do in a company, without leaving your home.

Since many open-source projects can be intimidating for a beginner, I recommend that after a few months of studying the basics of programming you have a look at Daniel Shiffman’s Nature of Code repository, based on his book. Look at the code in the GitHub repository, chapter by chapter, then read the corresponding chapter to understand it better. Then, try to reproduce it (or port it to a new language) and improve it. If you find something that doesn’t work, post an issue and explain the problem (use the top menu). And voilà! You’re an open source developer.
You can read the book online for free, but I recommend that you buy it to reward this impressive(and self-published) work of pedagogy (UK link to Amazon). You get the source code and the mentoring at the same time. Trust me, it’s well worth a few bucks.

If you’re more interested in web design and front-end developement, I really recommend that you take a look at Twitter bootstrap. It’s a really nice place to start learning the basics of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, with code from the top developers in the industry.
Finally, if developing WordPress themes is your ambition, make a copy (a “fork” in GitHub language) of the _s (underscores) theme, developed by the good people at Automattic(company created by WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg).

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t understand everything initially, it’s perfectly normal, and you’ll have to get used to that (I call it the WTF factor of software development. Get used to it. It never goes away.).
I have a friend who started studying karate a few year ago, and told me that beginners train alongside experienced karate fighters in his dojo. That way, beginners get to see how it’s done be trying to emulate the masters, even though they won’t do it right the first time, or the 100th time after that.
Think of GitHub as a web-enabled programming dojo. Become a black-belt developer now.

Thankfully, you can become proficient at touch typing within a few weeks. You just need to practice for about 10 minutes every day. To get started, just download TypeFaster (for PC users) or Typist (if you’re on a Mac), and just follow the instructions. You can also practice online using services like TypingClub. All these software packages work in a similar way: they show you a series of letters and words to type, and at the same type they display where the next key you need can be found on your keyboard (and which finger you should use for that key). It starts with j and f (see picture), then expands outwards to d and k, s and l, etc.
Do that every day for a few weeks, and you’ll be well on your way to impressing your friends (and future employers !) with your computers skills.

In the next item of this series, we’ll talk about the software you’ll use to show off your typing skills and, more importantly, create your awesome programming project.

Wireframes and grids are designers best friends. This long article details how to create and use wireframes in your web design process. If you’re looking to become a designer, this is a must read.

Wireframe are the foundation of web design