TJL #50: Delete all your code (Daily productivity #25)

Simple tips & trick to be more productive

Jan 13, 2021

Welcome back Daily Productivity #25. In this newsletter I share interesting stories aimed at making you more productive.

Read today’s tip down below! 👇

Daily Productivity Tip #25

Delete all your code (and then set it up again).

I'll Delete Your Commented Code Without Reading It and I'm Not Sorry

Forcing functions, a term borrowed from Interaction Design, surface problems in such a way that they are almost impossible to ignore.

By applying a forcing function, the problem becomes so painfully obvious that there is no other option than to fix it.

Here are three examples of forcing functions when writing software:

Dig out an old or cheap phone and try to run your app on it. Any major performance bottlenecks will suddenly become obvious
Pretend you’re a new developer in the team. Delete the project from your development machine, clone the source code and set it up from scratch. Gaps in the Readme file and outdated setup scripts will soon become obvious
Put your software into the hands of a real user without telling them how to use it. Then carefully watch how they actually use it

This second forcing function resonated with me, because it was forcefully applied on me!

Recently I was on-boarded onto a new project and… well… the experience wasn’t all that great. There was no README, no description of the data, the code was a big pile of scattered notebooks, and there was just stuff everywhere. It was a mess.

In end, I got on-boarded, but it just took a bit longer. By deleting your code every once in a while you basically force yourself to experience the project as if you were new. This makes it painfully obvious what gaps there are in your README and other setup files.

So my advice to you is to every once in a while just delete all your code and try to get set up from scratch.

(I just realised that this tip ties in really well with starting with writing your README. By writing your README first you already have some skeleton of how you want people to interact with the project.)

Thank you for reading!

That was today’s issue of the Daily productivity Newsletter 🚀

Daily Productivity is a newsletter in which I share practical and effective tips on how to become more productive.

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As always, you can find me on my website janmeppe.com or on Twitter at @janmeppe.

Previous TJLs

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