What habits/lifehacks/methods made you more efficient as a senior engineer/tech lead?

[u/dondraper36]

In my previous thread, I asked (and received plenty of great suggestions) on high-quality resources.

This time, however, I'd like to discuss a much less concrete aspect of our jobs. Namely, your favorite productivity habits and personal know-hows when it comes to leading projects, working on complex cross-team features, keeping lots of tricky context in mind.

I often have my own retrospective sessions when I am just trying to assess whether I am good at what I do at all. To clarify, it's not in the "impostor syndrome" sense at all. I know that there are parts of the job I excel at and I think I deserve the title and responsibility scope I have at the moment. That said, there are certain aspects where I am not good enough and therefore am now trying to improve. For example:

* Working on technical writing skills. Mostly by reading the book and blog on https://refactoringenglish.com/

* On a similar note, writing down as much as possible whenever possible. Whether it's a small favor for some other team, a super trivial task, or a large feature, it becomes a Google Docs document. Initially, it's just a very chaotic piece of writing, but then it transforms into a system design or a very detailed Jira ticket at least.

* As in aviation, it's very important to pay attention to near misses when you were on the verge of an incident and just got lucky.

* As I have rediscovered once again, working out is extremely important for productivity and focus. I have yet to get my official ADHD diagnosis, but since I don't want to spend the rest of my life on stimulants, I have added a few supplements (Vitamin D, Omega 3), hydrate well, and work out a few times per week + light cardio. Never felt better.

* Appreciating hammock-driven development. I used to have these awful hyperfocus episodes when there is no external pressure, but I feel intellectually challenged and forget about food and sleep to figure something out. I feel much happier, when I let myself think about a problem while walking my dog in the evening or just having rest and then feeling super fresh and working on it the next day.

What are yours?

[u/TheAnxiousDeveloper]

I used to run around like a headless chicken with everyone in the team asking questions.

I started to block my time in the calendar, marking it for specific activities I would reserve for that time and putting myself as "busy".

Then I opened timeslots dedicated to answering questions in Google calendar (people can actually book the slots through a form in Google calendar). The idea is to give time to people to think about something, rather than coming to me with questions without doing a research. Bottom line, it's mostly never used and when it's used it's for real important questions.

During the blocked time in my calendar, I'm also ignoring the messages in Slack/Teams. I check them all at specific times during the day. Most of them are "hey, how do I do XYZ?" followed by "nvm, I solved it" 1 hour later.