6 Incredible Productivity Tools for Programmers

Whenever it comes to work, whether you are casually working on your side project while sipping a cup of coffee or have intense working hours to deliver your task before the deadline, you want to know that you’re doing your best. That’s when productivity tools for developers come in handy.

In this article, I'll not mention tools like Trello, Slack, Jira, etc which are pretty widely known instead I'm going to talk about tools that are underrated and not really that famous(but definitely should be adopted more).

Keeping in mind how software developers work best, the following productivity tools for developers are recommended for individuals as well as teams.

1. Cold Turkey

If you blame yourself for being unable to stay away from social media or get easily distracted by AI driven notification of your favourite streamer streaming right now! Then this is the perfect application for you.

Using Cold Turkey, you can proactively restrict your access to specific desktop applications, websites, or even your access to the internet in general. You set your own schedule and daily limits for access, based on areas of weakness. RescueTime pairs nicely with this tool, in that it can help you audit major timesucks.

Find it here: https://getcoldturkey.com

2. 7pace

Do you follow a DevOps practice pretty often in your development cycle! I'm assuming you/your team is using Kanban or Scrum boards to manage your work already. Well, wouldn't it be convenient if you could fit a time tracker solution right into your development team's board and keep track of your activities, automate burndown reports and also manage resources and budget in large organizations! Well, then 7pace is the right solution for you.

7pace Timetracker was built specifically for software development teams that work in an Agile, Scrum, or Waterfall environment. Individuals using the tool experience an average of just three seconds to log each task. 7pace Timetracker integrates with Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) for even greater efficiency.

Even if you use GitHub project boards to manage your projects 7pace has a beta offering to integrate their time tracking solution right in.

Check it out here: https://www.7pace.com/

3. Time Out

Unfortunately only available for the macOS currently, Time Out definitely tops the list of the best productivity tools for programmers to organize breaks. We love it for the plain & clear interface as well as wide customization capabilities.

You can take either a short break of 15 seconds every 15 minutes or long ones for 10 minutes every hour. Thus whether you want to do a short 15 seconds eye exercise or brew your coffee in a 10 minutes break is all up to you.

Check it out here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/time-out-break-reminders/

4. F.lux

During the day, computer screens look good—they're designed to look like the sun. But, at 9 PM, 10 PM, or 3 AM, you probably shouldn't be looking at the sun. If you have a bad sleeping habit like me and you're probably coding late nights! Trust me, you just might want to consider this tool.

f.lux makes your computer screen look like the room you're in, all the time. When the sun sets, it makes your computer look like your indoor lights. In the morning, it makes things look like sunlight again.

Tell f.lux what kind of lighting you have, and where you live. Then forget about it. f.lux will do the rest, automatically.

Check it out here: https://justgetflux.com/

5. WakaTime

This tool follows your work when you’re programming. It shows you all the details of your work as a developer – what file you’ve been working on, operating system, and even language. You can also compete against your teammates on the Leaderboard and see who has the highest score in coding.

It is very useful when it comes to managing your budget and productivity as a developer at once. Since this is also a time tracking solution, if you combine this with TimeCamp you basically become the time god.

Check it out at: https://wakatime.com/

6. Habitica

One of my personal favourites, Habitica is a free habit-building and productivity app that treats your real life like a game. With in-game rewards and punishments to motivate you and a strong social network to inspire you, Habitica can help you achieve your goals to become healthy, hard-working, and happy.

Habitica takes you to the old pixel-like platform world in which you’re a hero fighting through daily, weekly, and long-term goals, habits, and to-do lists. For every goal achieved you receive points, discover new animals, and can buy weapon to gain strength. The more you fail at your tasks, the more strength you lose. And the challenge is to keep your character alive.

Check it out here: https://habitica.com/static/home

That's all folks 👨‍🏫, Thank you for reading it till the end. These are the resources I found to be really helpful for me.

I'm sure there must be tons of other amazing tools out there too. These are the ones that I really found helpful and often get myself indulged into. 👨🏻‍💻

Also published here.

Don't forget to share these resources with someone who you think might need some help being more productive at work too. Peace out. ✌🏼