This article is about how programmers pretend to be working hard. Two completely different motivations motivate a programmer to do this pretense:
The first one, you are a lazy thing - you want to work without reward. If you are such a person, my colleagues and I will despise you. You do not need to read the following. This article is not written for you!
The second is that you have too many things to do and you need to take the time to think and learn. Most companies, managers or people in charge of management ignore the programmer is a mental worker, not a coolie.
They usually have the point that programmers should work hard all their time. However, we are people to think about. We need time to organize our ideas, learn new knowledge, improve ourselves and become better programmers.
If you belong to this category, you need to read the following tips that will help you to steal your time thinking and studying from your heavy work.
Work hard, give a good first impression
This sounds like puzzling. The most crucial word in this sentence is the first impression. Assuming you're new to a team, your boss and your coworkers will rate your performance on Day 1 or Week 1 and probably feel what kind of programmer you are.
The subjective impression you give is that you will have more freedom in the coming months and years. Work hard from the very beginning to show that you have an outstanding level of skill, which is definitely a rewarding reward. It would be best if you could rescue yourself when your stupid boss or colleague encountered unsolvable problems.
Do not be too aggressive in the team
Be careful, do not look too good in the team, appropriate low-key. You can show that development is fast, but not too fast. The boss will quickly get used to your productivity, will give you more and more work.
This approach seems to run counter to your original intentions. You hope to have more free time to do more important things. However, if you do so, you should have a strategy. And doing so also avoids making your coworkers look stupid and slow. So do not do it too fast, but do it well and finish it on time.
Let the code well maintained
You should write the best code to make it easy to maintain. The longer you work on a job, the more degradable the code will be to your personal productivity.
Do not forget, "Any time spent debugging bugs is a waste of time!" Bugs in the code will get you getting slower and slower as new features become available and your stress will get bigger and bigger. Good design and writing some simple documents will save you time in the future. Automate your daily repetitive work. Write automated test.
Create a good network of people
Good at learning from others. The better your relationship, the more solutions you have when you encounter a problem. The company's regular workflow is just for normal problems.
You need someone to help you when you have a tough problem. If others do not like to work with you, they will not help you. Therefore, it is very important to always please the people around you.
to sum up
There are many other very useful tips that will allow you to gain more freedom from your busy work. But the most important one is that once you work, you have to work hard, smart, and fast - to do what you like to do with the time saved.
Remember, the richer your knowledge, the better you can solve problems / create value. We are mental workers. We also benefit individuals by improving their capabilities.