How to be PRODUCTIVE

hey what up guys my name is achernar and welcome to something a little bit different this is gonna be more or less its log today we're gonna be talking a bit about productivity and what it means to be productive in programming and just my thoughts on being productive in general I need to go ahead and pack because I'm going to San Francisco in two days for GDC and instead of doing that I'm gonna procrastinate and make a video but first coffee [Music] so good it's not that I'm addicted to coffee it's just that I pretty much need it I'm damned I am addicted to coffee alright sorry I thought I'd just make a little bit of a video instead of actually packing for San Francisco which would be the probably the appropriate thing for me to be doing right now considering I am leaving very very soon but I'm not a big fan of packing so here we are making a video this is really gonna be a bit of a chill video I didn't plan this at all like I'm not saying that I was I'm just procrastinating for the sake of the video I actually this is literally what's happening in my life right now I'm I just literally thought I'd just make a video because I like recording on this camera it's nice and small and it's a bit of a new camera for me as well so it's really cool just making videos anyway well we're gonna be talking about today as I drink this coffee and think about what I actually should be taking with me on my trip is the topic that I get asked a lot about and that I am not sure I fully understand myself because I struggle with this as I'm sure a lot of people do so this is just gonna be my thoughts as with every video I make even the ones that are technical and where I say this and that specifically those videos are all opinion based you have to realize that even though I do my channel is kind of a technical channel and I make a lot of videos about how to do certain things and in those videos I will be like this is the only right way to do it that's all an opinion people have different opinions people work in different areas there's no one answer for every problem in the world so whenever I say things like this this is just my experience my opinion I'm 23 years old I'm not exactly a 40 50 year old 60 year old elder or whatever that had that knows everything about life I have no idea what I'm doing to be honest with you to be really real with you is getting Dave anyway the point is this is my opinion take us with a grain of salt I'm not a special person by any means I'm just me so anyway I thought I'd talk a little bit about motivation and programming and productivity because productivity and programming I'm gonna try not bang my head in my hands on the table cuz I know I chase the camera but productivity in programming in software engineering and game development in in a lot of artistic areas and creative areas as well is not exactly something that you can measure right it's you can't just I can't go to my manager and say I wrote a hundred and fifty lines of code today so it was about like an 8 out of 10 day or something like that that doesn't exist because there is no real metric to be able to measure productivity you could also say hours that I was actively involved in thinking about the problem and coming up with a solution to the problem maybe but even then some days your brain will just be on fire and you'll be coming up with all these problems all this sorry all these solutions to problems and you'll just be you'll just be calculating things and in an incredible space but other days you'll just be sitting there and you'll still be thinking about work it's not it well it's not like you'll be procrastinating and watching YouTube videos like you might be now with this one it's not like that it's more so the fact that your brain is just not really into it and so you won't be as as product as productive on that specific day as you might have been on other days so that's not really a nice metric lines of code definitely isn't because it depends what you're writing if you get tasked with rewriting something from scratch and you have the basic idea of the architecture there may be thousands if not tens of thousands of lines of code that you need to lay down and you know exactly what you're doing so you can wind up writing thousands of lines of code per day I've done that before maybe you're copying and pasting from other kind of previous versions of the same system so you're just pasting in four thousand lines of code at a time and slightly modifying an aura factoring it but other days maybe one line of code will take you two days or something because it's very crucial line of code and something was wrong it was very very subtle and it was made causing a bug on a specific CPU on some kind of Android device or whatever it might be incredible is incredibly narrow and specific and it might take you a really long time to write that single line of code that is worth spending that time so you can't measure productivity on lines of code what else is there task completion so like maybe you get tasks with a bug like how do you how do you determine house how simple local or complex that bug is yeah it you can't sometimes usually when a bug comes in I'm speaking like from my experience at work usually when a bug comes in the first step is identifying how that bug happens there may already be reproduction steps that you can actually do to kind of get the bug to be reproduced every single time and 100% of the time that you perform those steps you will get that bug that's really easy sometimes it'll be something that happens very rarely but what it does is catastrophic and so you do need to fix it it might take you a week to figure out how to actually reproduce the problem so that your debugger can catch it and then even then that might be something that is situational it might be like a race condition between threads that you can't replicate every time unless you figure out the exact environment that you need to actually make it happen software engineering is such a complex field that measuring productivity is pretty much impossible so how do you become productive how how can you maximize your productivity I'm just gonna give a few of my thoughts and what I think about all that in a second but I'm really interested to find out what you guys think about being productive and how you actually what makes you productive because everyone is different I mean that's for sure the things that I find work for me might not work for other people they might not work for me a lot of the time as well what makes you productive how do you measure your productivity we all have good days we all have bad days so how can you actually ensure that you have more good days than bad days okay so I think personally the productivity is very closely tied with motivation if you're more motivated to do something you're just gonna be more productive right because you're it's not only that you're enjoying what you're doing it's more so that you have a strong desire to actually do the tasks that you're currently doing and that desire I feel translates directly into your brain just being more switched on and being able to come up with things if you hit a roadblock but you're motivated you won't you won't think about it and be like oh no I have to do this you'll kind of be like okay no worries I got this plan I got this plan I got this plan let's just start executing them straightaway you're in the zone right you'll continue just working you're just pumping out whatever solution to whatever problem is even though I'm kind of talking about programming right now by the way this applies to everything I'm not just a software engineer I'm a musician I like taking photos I like making videos I like plenty of other things I'm really into art and all that stuff there's more to me than just programming so when I'm talking about this I'm definitely talking more like even though the emphasis is kind of in the examples I'm giving are with software engineering in general there's applies to anything right whether it be making a video for me because that's something that I need motivation for us well and that's something that obviously is depending on how productive I am I can't imagine how three videos in one day sometimes sometimes I just can't even make one because I'm just not into it at all right but if you're motivated to do something then you become more productive if I come to work and suddenly the thing that I'm working on is I don't know a new real-time and reflection system or something really cool that I might be into this is just an example then I'll want to come into work earlier pretty much to just get on with the task and to see how how I can do it because that's like all I can think about I'm in the zone right now I'm motivated by this task that I'm doing so I'll be more likely to continue working on it and spend more hours on it and even when I get home I'll still be thinking about it and coming out with different different ways whereas if I'm doing something really really boring at work let's think about something maybe I'm just triaging bugs for like some tool that no one uses or whatever then that will that might actually take me longer even though it's nowhere near as complex because it's more boring and being bored is definitely something you want to avoid so if motivation is tied in with productivity then really what you should be doing is finding ways to motivate yourself that might be a topic for another video but finding motivation is key I really do believe that if you can find ways to continually keep motivating yourself to do things then you will be more productive and that's gonna be better for everyone right it's going to be better for you it's going to be better for people you're working with it's going to make your life more fun and I definitely believe that it will probably make you happier and maybe even make you a better person if you're definitely too motivated on a certain project that you're working on that you're not socializing with anyone and you refuse to see your family or whatever because you're so busy that's obviously very negative and that's bad but in general you'll probably be the less the less bored you are the happier you are I feel and that's not to say that being busy is good because if you're super busy and you're too busy that can definitely be bad and you don't have time to be bored so you're not bored but that doesn't necessarily mean you're happy anyway this is turning into like some kind of psychology psychiatrist session I don't want it to turn into that but those are kind of my thoughts so finding motivation is the key to productivity and since you can't really measure productivity in software engineering then you just have to find ways to motivate yourself because that will result in high productivity levels even though you currently measure the product I mean you can what metrics would you think you could use to measure productivity because that is an interesting thought I mean I I still think it's something that isn't really measurable and because of that if you can find ways to keep yourself happy and motivated then you will just be more productive and even though opportunity isn't something you can measure you can definitely relatively measure it right so I had a two out of ten day versus an eight out of ten day you just know that you were more productive that day because you were happier you were less tired you were more passionate about the thing that you're actually working on not necessarily a way to absolutely measure productivity but it is relative to your like yep what what I did yesterday I was more productive today than I was yesterday and finishing certain products and more finishing certain tasks is also not really a good metric because it mmm really depends on the complexity of the problem which itself is hard to measure anyway those are my thoughts I don't wanna make this video too long or anything I really should get packing but I just wanted to share my thoughts with what I think about being productive in this industry and in every industry definitely let me know what your thoughts are I'm really excited to read some of your comments and see maybe I am missing a piece in the puzzle maybe there is something that can make you more productive I like being productive a lot because I don't know being bored for me does kind of I think make me a little bit more depressed and just a bit more a bit less happy than if I'm actually doing something and going out there and working I don't know maybe I'm just addicted to work but anyway oh this is getting I don't even have time during my coffee this is getting really deep I will see you guys next time good bye oh and one more thing before I get back to packing if you want to follow my journey to San Francisco and JDC and all of that definitely follow me on Instagram I'll have a link in description my name's just the turn on Instagram I'll be posting tons of stories with my entire adventure and all that and and I've heard that coffee in America is terrible I know that Melbourne which is where I live is known for having really really good coffee so I probably can't expect that level of coffee in San Francisco but surely there are some good cafes please let me know where I can get good coffee in San Francisco otherwise I'm we're just gonna just not gonna make it out I think anyway see you guys later goodbye I love you like a madman to but though my heart is falling - I'm in love your body yeah last night you in my room I'm not my bed sheets smell like you every day discovering something brand-new I'm in love your body oh I'm in love yoy yoy I'm in love with you I'm in love with you body everybody's covering something brand new I'm in love with the shape of when we can't even let the story like I really need to go pack

Channel: The Cherno

Views: 40,068

Rating: 4.9402146 out of 5

Keywords: thecherno, thechernoproject, cherno, c++, programming, gamedev, game development, learn c++, c++ tutorial, productivity, productive, motivation, How to be PRODUCTIVE

Id: 7hwWMUM0wZo

Length: 14min 42sec (882 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 16 2018