The easy road to become a TOP performer software engineer: Simplifying productivity

The article says productivity improves when a software engineer chooses three most impactful tasks for the day instead of juggling a long to-do list. Those tasks should balance immediate needs and long-term work, and they should be chosen by reflecting on team priorities.

It also says productivity depends on using time according to energy, measuring outcomes with signals like sprint points or merged PRs, and building simple systems that make planning easy to repeat. The Big Three should stay the priority unless something urgent outside the plan appears.

Reading notes

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• Focus on the three most impactful tasks of the day instead of a long list.
• Choose tasks that create value now and tasks that support future work, such as a bug fix and a technical design document.
• Use hours according to energy level rather than treating every hour the same.
• Track outcomes with measures like sprint points or PRs merged.
• Build simple systems, such as templates, AI summaries, and scheduled backlog reviews, to reduce decision fatigue.
• Treat the Big Three as the main plan and only replace them when something outside the plan is truly urgent.