Productivity and Time Management

Learning Goals

• Identify strategies for improving productivity in a fast-paced, learning environment
• Implement productivity strategies and approaches for the upcoming week
• Review your current approach to time management and calendaring
• Implement time management strategies for the upcoming week

Evaluating Your Current Approach

Navigating learning technical and professional content in a remote setting at Turing is no easy task. Today we are going to take some time to reflect on your approach and consider adjustments moving forward.

Productivity Analysis

In your notebook, reflect on the following questions:

1. When have you felt most productive at Turing? What does it look like? What does it feel like?
2. When have you felt least productive at Turing? What does it look like? What does it feel like?
3. In your previous experiences (work, life, school, etc.), what strategies have you used to influence your productivity?

Share Outs

In small groups, be prepared to share your responses to the questions above. We will come back as a group to review the learnings you and your cohortmates discussed.

Productivity in a Remote Setting

The remote nature of Turing can be a difficult transition for most students - the less structured environment puts a premium on personal accountability and maximizing your time. Today, we are going to cover some strategies to improve your efficiency as a developer and a student.

1. Less Mouse/Trackpad, More Keyboard - Over time, using your keyboard rather than your mouse will save you time and energy for simple tasks. It may not seem like much, but saving a few seconds over the course of a day, week, month, year, etc. adds up. Additionally, having proficiency with keyboard shortcuts can be a great differentiator from other new developers.
   • Windows + S to quickly open Windows Search
   • Windows + D to quickly show/hide the desktop
   • Windows + V to quickly open your Clipboard history
   • Windows + . to quickly open the Emoji panel
   • CTRL + ESC to quickly open the Start Menu
   • CTRL + Shift + ESC to quickly open the Task Manager
2. Maximize and Manage Your Screenspace - Using your external monitor and laptop together will allow you to maximize your available screen space and reduce the need to constantly be switching between views. There are some additional shortcuts that are worth calling out now:
   • Windows + Tab opens the Task View and displays all your apps as tiles to easily cycle between them
   • ALT + Tab to switch to your last active window
   • CTRL + ALT + Tab to view all your open apps and switch between them using the keyboard arrows
   • Windows + Up arrow to maximize the active window to take up the entire desktop
   • Windows + ALT + Up arrow to snap the active window to the top half of your display
   • Windows + ALT + Down arrow to snap the active window to the bottom half of your display
   • Windows + Left arrow to snap the active window to the left half of your display
   • Windows + Right arrow to snap the active window to the right half of your display
   • Windows + Shift + Right OR Left Arrow to move the active window to a different monitor
3. Eliminate/Reduce Distractions - Know Thyself. Identify what causes you to become distracted and find ways to reduce those! For example, if you find yourself checking your phone at times when you want to be focused, consider taking steps to remove that distraction. You could silence your phone, put it in a drawer until designated breaks, or other measures to help curb your distractions. Also, many applications such as Slack have settings to limit the number of notifications you receive - we recommend experimenting with these tools to find a better balance of work and life.

Workspace Analysis

In your notebook, reflect on the following questions:

1. Where do you typically work during class time? What is your working environment like?
2. How do you manage your laptop, external monitor, and notebook?
3. What is one part of your workspace that is working well for you?
4. If you could change one thing about your setup, what would you adjust?

Time Management + Calendaring

As we discussed in Mod 0, keeping track of your time and managing a calendar is a very difficult skill to master. We are going to revisit some of the concepts we discussed and apply them to your current Mod 1 calendar today.

Read through this list of tips on your own. Identify one tip that you have been using and has been working well for you and one tip that you haven’t been using and you want to try. I’ll call on folks to share out.

• Purposefully build in the scheduled time for health, wellness and whatever else you need to be your best self. If you don’t plan for it, chances are it won’t happen. Turing moves fast, but it is still a marathon. How can you make sure you are creating a sustainable schedule/routine? If you are working part-time, be sure to block that time off as well!
• Color coding can be your friend. Choose different colors for Turing-related and Life-related tasks. This way you can get a quick glimpse of how well you are finding a balance between these two competing priorities.
• Break down time blocks into smaller chunks. Anything over an hour will usually be unproductive and give too much time to procrastinate. Additionally, on each calendar event, name the specific task you expect you to complete in that time. If you don’t finish or something else takes longer, you just move that block instead of losing your tasks. It’s like a task list and a calendar in one!
• Avoid context-shifting too frequently. On the flip side, don’t break down your blocks too much. For example, trying to cram 4-5 different tasks into a single hour is also not productive and can be extremely exhausting.
• Treat your blocks of time as appointments that shouldn’t be missed. You wouldn’t miss an appointment with a manager; treat your other blocks the same way, even for independent work or study time.
• When you think of something you need to do, put it on your calendar immediately. For example, if after a lesson, you think to yourself “I really want to go back and finish that activity we started in the lesson…” you should immediately pull up your calendar, find a 15-30 minute block of time in the next couple of days and make an event for working on that particular exercise (and add the link to the lesson and/or exercise to that event).
• Reflect on your time management each week. Build in time each week to reflect on how well you stuck to your schedule. Be gracious to yourself and adjust the upcoming week. If you created some time blocks for yourself that did not achieve their goal, be sure to schedule that time in the week ahead.
• Time management becomes more important throughout the program. As the program progresses, you will find yourself balancing more responsibilities, such as attacking the technical curriculum while simultaneously searching for your first software developer job.

Time Management + Calendaring Practice

We are going to spend some time diving into your calendar for the next 3 weeks at Turing. The goal is to get a sense of what is coming up, what obligations you have outside of Turing, and ideally create a good balance of work, school and life obligations.

1. Ensure that you have the Launch calendar connected to your personal calendar
2. Create two additional calendars to capture your other obligations. Give these calendars a different color than the Launch calendar
   • Life
   • Work (if working while in the Launch program)
3. Add your known Life obligations to your calendar for the rest of the module
   • Consider using this as a way to track the activities that you need to be a successful human! This could look like blocks of time for exercise, meal prep, connecting with your friends/family, etc.
   • This is also a space to add other obligations such as appointments and commitments outside of Turing.
4. Add your known Work obligations for the rest of the module (if applicable)
5. Build in at least one time per week to reflect specifically to do some reflection on your time management and review/adjust your calendar
   • We have seen students find success with this approach when they build in reflection time at the end of the week. Consider how you could use 30 mins of your time on Fridays to review your previous week and make adjustments for the week ahead?