Seriously, do you want to just get shit done? Do you want to finish all those tasks in your list, but still have time to play League of Legends? Well, keep one thing in mind:
It’s all about the workflow/pipeline.
Don’t work hard! Work smart.
The second statement above seemed cheesy to me when I heard it the first time. I can not stress how accurate it is, though. Let’s go over some practical examples, shall we?
Me Blogging
I am a lazy programmer, and I want to do everything the programming world has to offer. That is definitely impossible, but how can I come as close as possible to that goal?
My previous blogging pipeline was like, go to wordpress.com, open their lousy editor, write lousy messed up HTML, save draft, preview, wait for loading… Oh man, it was horrible. The result? 5 posts per year or something…
Moving to Octopress, and using Sublime Text to write the posts, and terminal to deploy in a single line, everything fell into place. I have literally went into a blogging frenzy recently, and that’s all thanks to the ability to focus on the task, and not how to achieve it!
Application Development
Oh, those horrible, horrible days before git, and before automated tests… And, I will probably look back, and pity the non CI’d environment, as well.
I mean, after using git effectively on my apps, it was easy to tell what changes were made, and what needs to be tested for an upcoming release. Not to mention tracking versions using tags, and running automated tests in a matter of a few clicks.
Now, it is possible to release 2-3 application updates in a month, at least, without breaking a sweat. KPT v5.1.0 has been uploaded with many new features and goodies!
Reusability
After you find yourself suffering because of the “HOW” and not the “WHAT”, know that you are in deep trouble, and you must fix it.
For example, I really suffered from managing audio files, and always forgot where that script was, and what are the settings, and how to move the assets over, … UGH! Just horrible.
Solution? Go back to this post about scripting awesomeness. Let’s see hoe much my script library has grown in a week or so…
Sweeeeeeet.
Conclusion
Of course, all this, and everything on the blog, is a reminder to myself before the reader… FOCUS ON THE WHAT, NOT HOW!! Unless you just wanna do stuff for the sake of it, and just… drift in life.