Things That Make Me Unproductive

Things that make me unproductive

Long meetings
Having < 1hr before I know I need to stop for a meeting
Slow build times
Slow artifact uploads
Bad internet connections
Blockers
Not enough work to do
Unclear goals on what I need to accomplish that day/unclear acceptance criteria
Unclear project scope
Unclear design
When no one is testing the builds
When the PM doesn’t test the builds - this sends the signal that the project is unimportant
When the PM is out of the loop
Low energy
Having not enough caffine
Not having a project to work on
Only have tiny bug fix/pixel pushing work, and not a meaty feature to work on
Working on uninportant features that no one will care to use
Working on unimportant projects that no one will care to use
Working late at night
Waiting on feedback/code reviews
Disheartening amounts of techdebt
Slow unit tests
No unit tests
Reddit/Facebook/Quora/Hacker News distraction
Too loud of an environment

Quiet area
Music
Lots of caffine
Early in the morning before other distractions
Having quick, well defined task to get started for the day (bug fix, visual polish)
Daily status updates and daily time tracking
And above all, believing that the project will be useful to others