According to the myth, there are engineers who can contribute 10X more than their peers. I don’t know whether this is possible or not, and I haven’t got a good metric for (right now, does anyone?!). I’d want to be one of the engineers who contributes 10x more so I need to find a way to measure and drive self-improvement. productivity If we use as a guideline Peopleware * Count on the best people outperforming the worst by about 10:1. * Count on the best performer being about 2.5 times better than the median performer. * Count on the half that are better-than-median performers outdoing the other half by more than 2:1 If I rate myself as a median engineer at , then I’m looking to have 2.5X more impact by this time next year. Microsoft Step one: Finding an initial metric to judge impact. There’s no point in performing an experiment without having a metrics, Lines of code written (very dependent on framework/language/project life-cycle) Number of bugs found (potential would vary widely by task and project) Number of tasks completed weighted by complexity/time estimated (as long as tasks are tracked) Number of tasks completed seems like the least flawed metric. I believe it might be a blend of all 3 and more… Step two: Finding out how I work Initial theory, if I can track how I spend my time I will be able to optimize it to be more productive. Data I might be able to collect Time spent on workstation (windows event logs?) Active application (some windows service?) What I’m reading in Chrome (chrome plugin) Amount of time in meetings (outlook calendar) Amount of time spent helping others (call history on Skype, currently remote) Overall satisfaction with day (daily survey before leaving work?) Slightly less on topic but maybe correlated Number of cans of soft drink vs water (part of daily survey) Time spent at lunch (windows event logs?) Time spent walking around the office (windows event logs?) Number of tabs/applications open (some windows service?) Amount of sleep (some sleep app) Task: time to start writing services to collect as many data points as possible! is how hackers start their afternoons. We’re a part of the family. We are now and happy to opportunities. Hacker Noon @AMI accepting submissions discuss advertising & sponsorship To learn more, , , or simply, read our about page like/message us on Facebook tweet/DM @HackerNoon. If you enjoyed this story, we recommend reading our and . Until next time, don’t take the realities of the world for granted! latest tech stories trending tech stories