Why Improving Your Focus Will Make You A Better Web Developer

What you'll learn in this episode

• The importance of focus and concentration for web developers
• Why you can and should improve your focus and concentration
• Habit forming and practice methods to help improve your focus

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Topics

The Problem

• Unlimited distractions and a constantly demanding work environment can make it near impossible to complete tasks on time
• Motivation can only be relied upon when you have it, it is not a guarantee that you will be motivated to complete your work every day
• Switching tasks/context can cause a severe drop in productivity
• Attention spans are being attacked across the board with shorter content (shorts/tweets) 

Why do you need to get better?

• Do more with less time
• Remote work is difficult to stay focused and motivated and you need to prove you can do that
• Easy to get overwhelmed
• Your focus and concentration is almost as important as your technical skills in terms of learning web development and being a successful developer
• Don’t discount tasks that seem easy but are involved

What can you do?

• Focus and concentration problems are something that can’t be solved overnight
• You have to actively practice and change your habits and environment
• Get ready for it to be WORK to get better at it
• Lifestyle
  - Sleep
  - Exercise
  - Diet
  - Stress
  - Meditation 
• Distractions
  - Clean desk
  - Focus mode on PC and phone
  - Single monitor
  - Background noise
  - Set deep work time in your calendar 
• Productivity
  - Set daily priorities
  - Work timers (Pomodoro)
  - Try different task management (Simple to complicated)
  - Start small. Focus on one thing at a time
  - Brain training 
  - Take breaks
• You will still have bad days, the goal is to lower the number rather than eliminate it completely

Links

• ‍Michael LaRocca
  - Author of the Self-Taught the X Generation blog, at selftaughttxg.com