Reducing stress and increasing productivity with development productivity tools

I recently started to focus on my productivity beyond my core development toolsets. It’s easy to overlook any efficiencies that don’t directly impact code but their’s still a lot of places to improve productivity and also improve your overall developer experience. Here’s my list of none development productivity tools that improve efficiency but in many cases reduce stress and just make life a little easier.

Password manager

I honestly don’t know how anyone can function without getting some help with password management. My favorite is LastPass. I use it every day and don’t know how it would be possible to work without it.

Bookmark Manager

Seems obvious but spending time organizing your bookmarks will pay off. I use Chrome which has a good built-in bookmark manager. I put all my daily links in the bookmark bar for easy access. It’s great my bookmarks are saved with my google account so I can easily move from machine to machine.

Note management

Keeping notes helps organize my thoughts. I guess the media isn’t that important but having access to your notes at any location is. I mainly use Evernote on my desktop and phone

Travel Apps

When traveling recently switched from paper boarding tickets to using my phone. It’s only a small time saver but checking in for a flight on your phone is convenient especially when you don’t have easy access to a printer.

Email

Yes, this one should be obvious but its worth spending time making sure your emails are organized. At a minimum make sure all your automated email notifications are automatically placed in folders where they can be read when you have time and won’t clutter your main inbox.

Remote Access

Even if you don’t travel often it’s worth making sure you can remotely access your machines. I used to configure my router to allow access to remote machines but it’s just to much trouble when other solutions are easy to find and do a better job. My favorite is TeamViewer. It’s just so easy to setup and use.

Headphones

There’s always a time when you will want the drown out ambient noise. I find when I’m really in the groove listening to ambient music improves my productivity and enjoyment. I use Boise noise canceling headphones which have also become a must-have piece of equipment when traveling on long flights.

Cloud Storage

The main advantage of cloud storage is having an offsite backup. I don’t put the code on cloud storage but pretty much everything else that I want to share or backup. I use Google Drive and Dropbox.

Github account

There’s just so many benefits to storing and sharing your code in a public place. I started wanting to solve offsite backups but knowing how to use GitHub has so many more benefits

SSH

Being able to remote into remote machines is becoming increasingly important. If the environment supports SSH login then spend some time setting it up. Being able to easily authenticate from the shell removes the constant stickiness of entering a username/password

Well, that’s my list for now. It would be interesting to hear if anyone has any other must-have productivity tools.!