 What is going on everyone? Welcome back to my channel. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and holiday season I'm not sure when I'm gonna drop this video. So if I don't drop it before the new year happy new year as well and Today I really just wanted to talk about how you could become a more productive software developer and engineer for 2020 I myself need to do a lot better when it comes to doing more freelance work and just doing passion projects Outside of my YouTube channel it could be rather difficult though because I do full-time software development and software engineering and Having a YouTube channel wanting to work out spend time with my fiancee and family But there's still no excuse you can find 25 30 minutes a day to Pwn in and work on your craft more and there are a few apps that I want to talk about that will actually Help you be more productive that I just started using and I find them very very helpful So on mundane days like In all seriousness on mundane days like today you can find yourself really Slacking and being a little bit lazy. It's gray outside The weather isn't the best when is the weather ever really good in the Midwest outside of a couple months But I digress pretty gray outside the weather is kind of gross and there's nothing Going on like literally just There's literally nothing going on literally There's no deer outside. There's no dogs barking. There's there's nothing There's absolutely nothing Absolutely nothing going on. We are baking some cookies right here Literally guys Even the dogs outside that you had no idea we're out here. I'm not even barking. Look at them Okay, we've recognized that there's absolutely nothing to do today and as we start 2020 most of us Are going to be in weather that isn't very good So we're not gonna be outside a ton because it's gonna be freezing probably it's gonna be snowing and all that stuff So this is the time to work on those passion projects So you've recognized that the weather is lucky and maybe you've thought of a passion project or you need to think of Some sort of passion project. So the next thing this is what you got to do next thing you got to do is Unplug the laptop from the charger because you don't want to be in a situation where you can't move around a lot because your laptop Isn't charged so charge your laptop Unplug it basic stuff and open up your laptop. All right, open up your laptop unlock it Take a seat somewhere. Okay, maybe maybe sit down somewhere where there's a little bit more lighting a little bit more room And maybe you open up something like Xcode right now. I'm coding an Xcode. I never do that But I got to practice what I preach. All right, so we've opened up our laptop. It's a great step Honestly, just starting when it comes to a lot of these things are being more productive. Honestly just starting is the main part So we've opened up our laptop and maybe we're gonna start programming However, if you're building your first app my recommendation is to open up some sort of IDE or Application that allows you to design whatever app that you want to design one of my favorites is Adobe XD I don't have anything created right now. However, this is just a starting point Which is the whole point of this video is to get you started But it's important to learn how to design apps because you're making yourself more hireable Not only do you know how to do software development and engineering, but if you can design an app from scratch you can be a Whole digital agency all in one so you go all the way from like UX design all the way to product Marketing and if you can do that, you're gonna make big bucks Okay, so hopefully you opened up, you know, either Adobe XD or Sketch or fig mud to start designing your app and maybe you're gonna start watching a YouTube tutorial I don't know how to start becoming a better designer or how to design apps from scratch And maybe you also have an IDE opened up. Maybe Visual Studio Code, which is something that I recommend if you're doing web development or maybe progressive web application Development or if you're building an iOS app, you have Xcode open. Sorry to my PC users I don't have a PC so I don't know a ton of applications outside of Visual Studio and Visual Code But anyways, the next thing you want to do, this is a very important step to stay productive and not be distracted There are two apps that I want to talk about that I just started using and I find them quite fascinating But before we get into that, can we recognize the fact that my head looks like broccoli? Like I look like a piece of broccoli. So why don't you all just come on behind me so we can look at this together? So there's these two apps that I love and it's called be focused and focus All right be focused is just a simple application that allows you to time how long you want to work Right so you can press the play button and it's set for a 25-minute interval. Hey chulo. What's chulo? I apologize for that rude interruption But anyways like I was saying this basically acts as a timer and you can also add tasks So let's say you wanted to just start, you know web app you just click enter and then maybe you want to Start designing Sorry, I can't really spell designing login page And also, maybe we can say create web app so now you have these tasks and Those are to do these are maybe some tasks that you've done And then you can go back to the timer and this will keep you focused All right, so now that we have the timer and some of our tasks that we need to do the next thing We want to do is go to this app called one focus. This app is super underrated. I really like it a lot So what you can basically do is also another productivity app is when you hit this play button and you add Applications or websites that you want to block while you're being productive. So right now I want to be productive for 25 minutes. So I can't go on instagram.com I can't go on twitter.com and I can't go to Zara.com. Don't ask why I picked Zara I just thought of some sort of website that would make me make me distracted that I visit every once in a while So when I click this play button So for 25 minutes, I just got the notification that I just started a session to be productive And it won't let me use these websites Also, you can add applications as well But all you do is you just click this plus button and let me put an ESPN calm because they make me a little bit Unproductive as well and you can go to apps. I don't have any blocked apps right now But anyways now if we go over to the internet of things, let's go to chrome I can type in twitter.com hit enter. Look, I'm blocked With a really cool quote from Steve Jobs amongst other people if I go to Instagram calm Even if I go to my own page I'm still blocked which is a good feature because you may think oh if I type in Instagram comm slash someone's username That it's gonna allow me to still go to that part of the site But it doesn't because who knows the root URL Major key. So if you use those two applications timing tasks and you block yourselves from Distractions, you'll have 25 minutes or an hour of solid productivity dreams Goals and aspirations two three Five and a few push-ups every once in a while so you can stay active and you're just not Sitting at a desk behind a computer screen all day. It's not good for your back. They need healthy Well-being and a healthy life balance and dogs Man's best friend This tree house looks super cinematic It's raining outside But another important aspect of being productive and having a healthy life Work balance is to go outside. I know I mentioned not doing some push-ups That's just something I like to do But just something as simple as taking a walk outside can fire up those Endorphins make those of you all who are wondering this is not my house This is my fiance's family's house and This is what I call like my getaway I view this place as like a bed and breakfast But I don't have to pay any money for it. All right, it's probably time to get back in the house and conclude this video But every time I come out here always see some sort of animal none too crazy one day I did see a fox. Oh It's stuck There we go All right A few tips I have to be more productive as a software engineer and software developer I know it didn't go too deep into technicalities I wanted this video to be more inspirational and add a few technical details when I talked about a couple of applications That I like to use but with that being said that concludes this video I hope you all enjoyed it comment down below some of your thoughts and some videos you want to see in 2020 share this with someone who you think might benefit from watching it Subscribe if you haven't already hit that notification bell so you can know soon as I release a video and as always have a blessed Rest of your week. I'll see you all soon. Peace