Just to remember what I did last on my work computer in general
history
I also:
Cleaned up the "todo-board" I have, where I erased things that were completed and re-wrote the things that need to still be done. This helped the most, since I had to review whats completed and still waiting :)
Full-time web dev; JS lover since 2002; CSS fanatic. #CSSIsAwesome
I try to stay up with new web platform features. Web feature you don't understand? Tell me! I'll write an article!
He/him
If you're asking this question after returning, then this is too late, but if you're planning ahead: before leaving, either finish up your current task or push your code and hand it off to someone else so you aren't returning to a half-finished branch and merge conflict hell.
Pull from upstream, build, and poke around your local instance of the product; look for anything that obviously wasn't there before.
Ask teammates what were the biggest features or refactors that you missed.
If you have time (and a well-used and well-groomed task tracking system), run a query on tasks completed since you left, ideally sorting by estimates/story points/complexity/whatever your tool calls it, largest first, to find the biggest changes. Probably no need to read every single one, especially if you were gone for a long time.
Read your emails (😫), or at least skim them, especially focusing on feature related discussions. Not all groups have these convos over email, so if it's in a more volatile medium, e.g. Slack, you may be out of luck on this one.
Finally, yep, jump right into a new task!
When possible, I try not to spend more than like a day, maybe 2 days, on steps 1-4. Obviously you'll need more time to catch up the longer you've been out (a month for parental leave threw me for a loop...), but the idea is to skim rather than scan. Just look for the highlights; no need to read every comment on every task, the entire backlog of the Slack chatroom, or the entire output of git diff <last-commit-before-leaving> HEAD. Just get the highlights; you'll pick up the rest as you work new tasks.
I'm Drew Town a web developer and systems engineer in Colorado. Always learning, traveling and exploring. Sharing updates, trials and tribulations in tech and life.
An aspiring artist using code as another medium for creation. I am currently a software developer in an EdTech company focused on improving communication in the workplace. I work heavily in Ruby!
I do skim through the PRs and not necessarily the code but the name of the PR. If I see something that looks interesting/important then I would dig inside to see whats up.
Either way, I would time box my 'catch up' phase because I think I can spent a lot of time caught up reading through old PRs.
Whenever I'm heading out on vacation or a long weekend I always write myself a todo list before I leave. This really helps when I come back and have to remember what I was working on! When I'm back I'll go through my emails, check in with anyone I was working on projects with and update my todo list. It really helps me not feel overwhelmed when I get back!
I ran:
Just to remember what the state of things is:
Just to remember what I did last on my work computer in general
I also:
Cleaned up the "todo-board" I have, where I erased things that were completed and re-wrote the things that need to still be done. This helped the most, since I had to review whats completed and still waiting :)
When possible, I try not to spend more than like a day, maybe 2 days, on steps 1-4. Obviously you'll need more time to catch up the longer you've been out (a month for parental leave threw me for a loop...), but the idea is to skim rather than scan. Just look for the highlights; no need to read every comment on every task, the entire backlog of the Slack chatroom, or the entire output of
git diff <last-commit-before-leaving> HEAD. Just get the highlights; you'll pick up the rest as you work new tasks.I usually do a few things
Heya Jess,
I do skim through the PRs and not necessarily the code but the name of the PR. If I see something that looks interesting/important then I would dig inside to see whats up.
Either way, I would time box my 'catch up' phase because I think I can spent a lot of time caught up reading through old PRs.
But hehe, as with most things it depends :P
Whenever I'm heading out on vacation or a long weekend I always write myself a todo list before I leave. This really helps when I come back and have to remember what I was working on! When I'm back I'll go through my emails, check in with anyone I was working on projects with and update my todo list. It really helps me not feel overwhelmed when I get back!
I usually read through the git log, check closed and open issues and lightly glance through the chat group