

It’s just the right amount of technology for what I needed.a recent workload listĪlthough the tool only explicitly promises to give a clear view of workload, I’ve found also has other benefits that are very helpful for a busy programmer. Surely somebody’s keeping track of all this though, right!?Ībstractspoon’s ToDoList gives me that view of my own work, and I noticed recently that I’ve been using it for about 18 months now! This tool has honestly helped me a lot, to the point where I’m becoming a bit of an evangelist in my office. We use Jira for bug tracking which is great, and our help desk application can give me a view of the work assigned to me in that particular system, but how do I see all the work I’ve got on my plate right now? What about swat work? This can arrive from shady, illicit sources, such as meetings, emails and conversations, much of which is not ‘logged’ on either the development or production support systems (unless the developer pushes for it). On the other hand, when you’re on swat, that swamped feeling can be a regular visitor! It’s great when you’re not on swat, because you get to concentrate. This means that, one week in four, you’re the SWAT guy, so the other tech team members can bat over any mundane internal queries and support requests from other people in IT, as well as the urgent production issues. Like many work-a-day developers, I generally work on a combination of production defects and development projects, but my team also has a rotating general support role – or ‘SWAT’ as we call it (that’s swat as in flies!). Without this view, it is very easy to get that swamped feeling, and needlessly inject pressure into discussions about workload and priority.Īs a programmer, work can arrive on my desk through a number of different channels, and the timelines, priorities, importance and urgency of each task evolve and mutate on a rapid and regular basis, making it easy to occasionally feel swamped. Top Three Motivators for Developers (Hint: Not Money!)Ī view of your workload is a self-defence mechanism, and a time management tool that allows you to manage the people allocating work to you.SouthPark: Presenting Derp (and John Edward is a douche).Jerry Seinfeld interviews Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks.Charlie Brooker explains Reality TV editing.Susan Cain: The Power of Introverts March 6, 2012.Fluent Java APIs I: The Builder Pattern March 11, 2012.Fluent Java APIs II: The MockBuilder Pattern July 2, 2012.Quiet: The Power of Introverts August 17, 2012.Dan Pink on Motivation November 11, 2012.We need to talk about Refinement February 22, 2018.
