Coding isn’t easy. Luckily, there are a lot of amazing tools out there that can help developers code faster, work harder, or simply have more fun doing what they do. Here are the 10 best productivity tools for developers we found (and which our devs highly recommend).
Sticking to a learning schedule isn’t fun – so why not make a game out of it? Habitica turns your to-do list into a game so you can track your goals. It’s simple: good habits earn you rewards; bad habits earn you penalties. As you progress through your tasks, you’ll earn rewards, like coins or pets, to motivate you. You can also play with your friends or combine team members’ tasks together into a group quest.
2. Cold Turkey
Distraction and procrastination are the two biggest enemies of a good developer. You can limit both with this app, which allows you to restrict your access to certain desktop applications, websites, or even the Internet. With Cold Turkey you can set your own schedule, timers, and limits, with a wide range of customisation to block even specific Google search terms. Plus, its built-in statistics feature will suggest problem areas for you to restrict.
Adverts aren’t just distracting and irritating; they can also reduce network performance, and make your websites load more slowly. Pi-hole goes far beyond the limitations of a browser blocker extension by connecting directly to your router to block ads across your entire network.
Finding one specific piece of code in a large document thousands of lines long is a pain; this tool makes it quick and easy. No surprise it ranks among the top productivity tools for developers.
This is a quirky music tool that mimics a code editor and which adds your coding tasks to the playlist you’ve selected. It’ll increase your productivity by helping you focus on individual tasks as you progress through a planned-out series. The music is pretty cool too — there are a lot of high-focus instrumental tracks to keep you in a good flow state (perfect if you find vocals or singing distracting).
6. Clockify
Track the time you spend on various projects with Clockify. This handy tool reports on how productive you’ve been reporting weekly, monthly or yearly summaries of the work you’ve done. It’s especially useful for freelance developers who need help tracking and calculating billable hours for project work.
7. f.lux
It’s important to take care of your eyesight while you’re working – and too much screen time can impair your vision. This tool helps to reduce eye strain by adjusting the colour of your display. It has handy automatic sensors that will change your light levels to match where you live, the time of the day, and the kind of light you have in your workspace.
8. UltraEdit
This is a great text editor for large projects, because it works for most programming languages. Some of its productivity-inspired features include:
- Syntax highlighting
- FTP support and SSH/telnet console
- Logical file ordering and grouping
- Support for editing of large files up to 4GB – great for databases
- Versions for Windows, Mac and Linux
There’s nothing worse than getting into the flow of coding, only to have your concentration interrupted. Dewo tracks your tasks, times how long you spend on each one, and maps out whenever you switch from one job to another. It then takes this information and uses it to automatically silence any notifications and distractions that might pop up, so that you can focus on writing great code without being bothered.
Keep on track of every project’s tasks, contributions, work flows, and progress with this handy card-based management system.
It’s visual, simple to use, and keeps you up to speed with your entire workflow. It’s also the management tool we personally use to keep all of our different teams working together without a hitch.
Programming is a growing and lucrative field, and new productivity tools for developers are frequently being developed to make our students’ lives that much easier. If you want to join the high-paying industries that coding skills open up, consider enrolling on one of HyperionDev’s coding bootcamps in Full Stack Web Development, Data Science, or Software Engineering.
These bootcamps are available part-time or full-time to suit your schedule, and come complete with personalised 1-on-1 mentorship to ensure you’re making fast, consistent progress towards your future career.
Sign up for a free trial by clicking here.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published on 21 November 2018 and has been updated on 13 July 2020.
