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Ben Halpern
Ben Halpern

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What good habits are you trying to adopt?

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Ben Halpern

For me it's carrying my journal/pen. I so often do not have it when I need it. And not just for taking notes, which I could do on my phone... but just to scribble on while I work through an idea, design, scheam, etc.

I have it with me at my desk, but I want to develop the habit of carrying it around with me and not leaving it at the last place I was.

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Erik Nelson

I've been trying to just use my notebook more in general. Recently having gotten a fountain pen has helped me want to do it more. I definitely do want to try to get better at having it with me more though sometimes that's inconvenient.

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Jonathan Lacanlale

OOOOOOooooh this is honestly my favorite habit and it helps so much! For anyone that also likes notebooks that have fancy notes (color coding, specific topics, revised notes for later review) it helps to have one separate notebook for those notes, and an easy-to-carry notebook for scribbles and idea jotting.

Sometimes when working through problems on paper, you might encounter some [method, topic, practice] that might help in the future and it'll definitely be a lot easier to have a proper section in a cleaner notebook instead of having it scattered amongst a sea of scribbles.

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JeffD

I forget it all the time too :)
I write all my drafts in the free pages of my paper agenda.

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Glad I'm not alone 🙃

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Max Antonucci

I've always got my journal with me and plenty of times it's been useful. You never know when you'll find info best saved for later, it relieves your brain of so much cognitive energy to just write stuff down for later.

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katy lavallee

i was subscribed to a monthly notebook/pen delivery and i found ways to remember because they started piling up, which forced me to think about it more.

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Hannah (she/her)

Have you ever tried a Rocket Book? You can write on it and reuse the pages over and over by wiping them clean with a moist cloth. They also have an app where you can scan your pages so you can have a digital record of them. I have one and I love it. I had boxes of notebooks before and I just have the one Rocket Book now.

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katy lavallee

Yeah I have both the one you use with Frixion pens and the one you use with Crayola special markers. I only use them for traveling though because I still have tons of notebooks and pens from when I had the subscription. I want to use them up.

Although, probably when they are gone I’ll subscribe again because a couple of my friends run the subscription box service. Also if I don’t have notebooks piling up, I won’t have as much incentive to remember to bring my notebook with me.

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ketoaustin profile image
Hannah (she/her)

Ah, I see! That’s cool that you already have a rocket book. I didn’t even know that they had crayola markers. 🤓

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hkly

Getting a pocket-sized pen was really helpful for me to be better about carrying a pen with me. Full sized pens were always a pain in the butt to carry around if I didn't have a bag or backpack etc.

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Anthony Bouvier

I really wish I could get into the habit of this. I have a journal. I have my favorite pen. I never remember to bring it anywhere.

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Tiffany Wismer

Love this idea.

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dance2die profile image
Sung M. Kim • Edited

Reading for 30min ~ 1 Hour before 🛌😴

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gameoverwill profile image
Wilfredo Pérez • Edited

For me:

  1. Read before go to bed.

  2. Study at least 1 hour by day.

  3. Write one article on my blog --- weekly.

  4. Keep updated my personal trello.

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Emma Odia

It seems like we both got the memo for this agenda at the same time. Just add:

  1. Pushing relevant code commits everyday.
  2. Spending less time chatting and making quick phone calls instead.
  3. Replying to emails immediately to prevent pile up
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Wilfredo Pérez

Pushing relevant code commits everyday.

This is really hard, I tried it and I failed. I think that I couldn't fit that with my schedule. Good luck :D

Spending less time chatting and making quick phone calls instead.

Also use voice notes, if the people in the other end are busy and their can't pick up.

Replying to emails immediately to prevent pile up

Foruntunately I receive more span that serious things (Honestly I don't know whether it's good or not)

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emma_odia profile image
Emma Odia

So far, for me I have been consistent with this because on the side I find small projects that require minor fixes and make contributions to. Also I have a full side project that have features yet to be implemented that I can also push code to. Then there's the alternative of following along with expanded code tutorials, create my own own repo and commit my own code to my repo.

Voice notes definitely work. The goal here being to cut to the chase ASAP.

Well, simply reply to the "serious mails" only! Spam is called so, just because.

I'd like to know what good habits you are developing too.

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gameoverwill profile image
Wilfredo Pérez

So far, for me I have been consistent with this because on the side I find small projects that require minor fixes and make contributions to. Also I have a full side project that have features yet to be implemented that I can also push code to. Then there's the alternative of following along with expanded code tutorials

That's a good idea, I'll use it maybe starting from a small project and I'll add new features.

I'd like to know what good habits you are developing too.

As a developer I don't have a lot good habits, but I can mention, Use an Ide to write code besides use an linter to write code more cleaner, Memorize shortcuts (You can save time, instead of using the mouse), apply "Single Responsibility Principle", And the last one but not least every piece of code that I use from internet I try to see if this is the best aproach or if I can optimize it.

That's not too much I think and sometimes I feel I'm not a great developer, but I'm improving every day. :D

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Kevin Woblick

Wow, that's a very ambitious habit plan. After reading that you are a father of 2, studying 1 hour a day sounds even more impressive. How do you manage to take that time?

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Wilfredo Pérez

Yeah, it's an ambitious habit plan but nothing is easy when you are adapting to.

About managing my schedule is not hard for me (seriously), because of the 1-hour studying every day is at night from Monday to Friday, and weekends pretty early. During workdays I try to start to study at 8:30 PM - 9:00 PM this is after I share 3 hours with my family, some days I play chess 25 minutes trying to do something different to disconnect (I'm sorry, I like playing chess although I'm a terrible player). One thing that is helpful is that my current job is 15 minutes walking from home then I don't spend a lot of time going/coming back home.

One trick that I'm using is the reminders, for instance, I have one alarm from Monday to Friday at 9 pm that recalls me to study, is very useful when I'm distracted.

Another thing that is important to mention is that every week I review whether my actual schedule works or not, so I don't have for now a final version of it.

The others taks that I put in my main comment but read before go to bed, I'm doing in my job. I hope explained well, as you see it's not rocket science. Thanks a lot for your time reading :D

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kovah profile image
Kevin Woblick

Thank you for these insights! :)

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gameoverwill profile image
Wilfredo Pérez

Not problem :D if you need more details or help send me a pm. :)

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Yechiel Kalmenson

Not reaching for my phone when I'm around my family.

I'm an introvert, so my phone is my refuge when I'm in an overly stimulating environment, but I realized recently that I found myself too often responding to my kids by barely looking up from the screen and nodding.

I'm trying to break that and treat my phone as off-limits whenever my kids are around.

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Conrad Beach

I think that's something a lot of us would do well to work on.

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Quentin Sonrel • Edited

I'm not sure the dev.to database is strong enough to handle the full list 😋

Joke aside, top 5 would be:

  1. Sleep better/more (since anything else is impossible if I'm too tired)
  2. Improve my productivity (being less distracted, having a better workflow...)
  3. Work more often on my side projects
  4. Being more active on some dev communities (doing it right now 😉)
  5. Launch my f****** blog!
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Ekim Kael • Edited

man it's hard.
"5." is the final boss for me.I could discover something and write it in french being native in this language but to translate it in english it's another fighter path.

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Holy-Elie Scaïde • Edited

Very much like you. But French is the official language, not the native one. I read a lot in order to improve my English, but I've only started to write articles last year (just a few). I asked for help. I'm using Grammarly and ask for my friends' review on my posts. You don't have to write an essay, just something short will do.

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Devin W. Leaman

If you'd like someone who speaks English as their native tongue to help with translations and working out kinks, I'd be more than happy to help! I'm all over the web as Alcha so feel free to contact me however works best if you're interested. I've also studied French for a few years in school so while I'm not fluent, I might have a slight advantage 😅

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ekimkael profile image
Ekim Kael

Ohh cool.i really appreciated.
See you soon in your DM

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shanise profile image
Shanise Barona

Working out regularly and reading 10 pages a day of a physical book.

I've gotten into audiobooks recently, which are great, but I want to make use of my local library more so I'm challenging myself to slow down and make dedicated time for reading.

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ekimkael profile image
Ekim Kael

pretty good

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Emma Odia

This right here is gold! I think it is high time psychologist conduct a research on how short posts affects the mental capacity for deep thinking.

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katylava profile image
katy lavallee
  • no screens 30 minutes before getting ready for bed (which takes about a half hour itself)
  • writing gratitudes and what i want for tomorrow before bed every day
  • practice guitar every day (i've been playing since i was a kid but i'm still pretty mediocre)

i'm also trying to break the habit of getting up and playing games for an hour right away. it's hard because i feel like that wakes me up. i haven't succeeded even once yet :P

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Jesse M. Holmes

i'm also trying to break the habit of getting up and playing games for an hour right away. it's hard because i feel like that wakes me up. i haven't succeeded even once yet :P

Reddit was my time stealer. I'm doing much better.

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Ben Halpern

i'm also trying to break the habit of getting up and playing games for an hour right away. it's hard because i feel like that wakes me up.

Perhaps you could try replacing it with a different activity that also wakes you up?

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katylava profile image
katy lavallee

yeah every day i intend to read instead of play games, and then once my tea is ready i'm like "nope".

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4lch4 profile image
Devin W. Leaman

What I tend to do in this case is lock down my devices when I first wake up. Make it as difficult as possible to fire up a game when you wake up and as easy as possible to just pick up a book.

If you play online games, disable your network connection for the first few hours of being awake. If single player games are more your style, I'm honestly not too sure how'd you prevent that 🤔 Potentially you could use child locks or some special scripts to prevent it from launching and giving you a notification "YOU SHOULD BE READING!" Or something like that 😅

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katylava profile image
katy lavallee

For me it's the iPad and match-3 games. I had this app installed that would block internet access to blacklisted sites like facebook and twitter. That worked to keep me from playing games because most of them use Facebook to log in. But I learned that if the app was already open I could still play :P.

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4lch4 profile image
Devin W. Leaman

Hahaha, that's the biggest issue with locking yourself out. If you find a workaround, it's hard to bring yourself to fix it again, it's like cheating the system 😜

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cotcotcoder profile image
JeffD

Discover something new, every day, in every topics
(Forced curiosity)

  • Every day I listen random music/artists I don't know (Flow in Deezer)
  • I take random path when I'm walking (small street hides street-art)
  • I buy random food at market (strange cereals or vegetables)
  • I experience a lot when I cook
  • Once a week I listen random podcasts about subject I don't really care (history, garden...)
  • I test software or languages I don't really need (curiosity)
  • I speak with strangers every time I do carpooling.
  • I use the 'random page' link every time I see it. Wikipedia have one :)
  • I always click on Google doodle

I'll try to extend this list with speaking with people from other countries, cooking foreign meal, etc ...

It takes a lot of time, it's the perfect opposite of productivity, but it's something we can do as human (computer don't love random :) ). It helped me to find awesome artists, nice photography subject, great meal, new way to work, new way to think, fun anecdotes and so much.

It's the best way to break sameness and forget a bad day :)

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Antoine Mesnil

Workout more
Practice spanish
Work on side project more regurlarly and not just when I'm motivated

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Ekim Kael

how do you for your side projects?
if you have any recipe give me please

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Antoine Mesnil

When I can, I stay a bit more at my workplace to work on my side projects (they're cool with it) for two reasons: I know I'm productive with this setup and recently as soon as I got home I had no motivation to get back to "work", the rhythm was broken. It's not much, 30min to 1 hour but at least it's regularly and that's the most important.

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Ekim Kael

Thanks i'll try if it works for me

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Damien Cosset
  • No screens an hour before going to bed
  • Wake up earlier
  • Write down more stuff
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Leonora Der

Going to nature or riding the bike regularly. I usually find myself in the office even in the evening hours... and so I should be able to stand up from desk, leave work, leave own projects for a bit and go...

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endan • Edited

The idea of 1%∞ (One percent infinity):

One percent infinity.

The idea is to improve one percent everyday, forever.

One percent is not very much. It really isn’t. It’s tiny.

The idea of 1%∞ is the start of what has become a near obsession, for me, with small goals. Teeny tiny goals.

Seriously.

It really works for writing, because writing is such a concrete thing with a very finite finish line. Two words: the end. All you have to do is make 1 percent progress toward those two words.

If you write one percent of a book every day, you’ll have a book written in 100 days. That’s just a little more than three months. One percent! If your book is 80,000 words (or about 300 pages), that’s only 800 words, or three double-spaced pages.

Link to the whole blog

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Kim Arnett 

How much time ya got?

I think the big ones are:

  • taking myself out to lunch once a week to read and get out of the office.
  • Balancing self-care and outside work (but still tech related) activities.

Never stop improving! 💪🏼

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Ernie Hao

Commit at least one thing to Github everyday, no mater how small.

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Garrett

Spending less time on social media. During work and my own time. It's distracting, adds little to my life, and keeps me from doing more important things.