5 Quick Tech Wins That Make A Big Difference
How small changes to your dev workflow can save you 34 hours monthly.
Hey there Solo Dev!
You know how small habits can create a BIG impact?
It’s the same for solo dev.
The past two weeks I’ve spent A LOT of hours developing.
It’s made me reflect on one thing specifically: how much time I was wasting, and how I could reduce it through small wins.
Why Quick Wins Matter for Solo Devs
I’m sure you’ve heard it before.
If you get 1% better everyday, you’ll get 37 times better in a year!
Trust me, bro. Let’s just ignore the fact that this is not endlessly scalable, obviously.
But there’s still truth to it.
Or maybe you’ve seen one of those calculations of here’s how much money you’d have if you invested $1 a day every day for 39 years, where the graph goes ballistic towards the end.
This is due to the compounding effect.
And it’s something we can harness as solo developers as well. You should be critical about your workflow every day. Can you shave some time off anywhere? Even shaving seconds off a task you repeat a lot compounds into valuable time.
And that’s what’s most important as a solo dev: time.
There’s never enough of it.
Here are some quick wins I implemented, and you can too.
Quick Win #1: Git aliases
Using Git to handle version control for your solo project is essential. You want it safe, with the potential to revert if stuff blows up.
But sometimes all the pushing, pulling, committing and adding gets tedious.
For example, if you need to add your changes to track them, and then commit to your branch, you have to use the following commands:
git add . && git commit -m "message"That’s really annoying to write every time.
So why not use an alias? A shorter version?
I added one, so now I only have to type:
git ac "message"If you want to add the same one (or alter it to your liking), run this command in your terminal:
git config --global alias.ac '!git add . && git commit -m'
Time saved: 30 seconds or so for each commit
Quick Win #2: Timebox problems
You know how some problems just stump you? You sit there, trying your hardest, and it just doesn’t seem to do what you want.
So you keep trying.
And trying.
And trying.
And then 3 hours pass, you throw in the towel, come back the day after and one-shot it.
Yeah. A lot of the time we just need to get away from the problem from a while. That’s why I like to time box problems.
When I get stuck, I set a 20 minute timer. If I’m no closer to a solution when the timer goes off, I put the problem away.
Work on something else. Go for a walk. Anything.
Time saved: however long you usually let yourself get stuck trying different things randomly. Multiple hours every week?
Quick Win #3: Clipboard manager
Let’s face it: as devs we sometimes copy and paste.
Especially with cracked developers in the form of AI churning out 9000 lines a second.
So what’s really annoying? Going back and forth copying the same thing. I use Maccy. If you’re on Mac as well, you might want to check it out. I recommend installing directly from their GitHub as it is open source.
Now I just click shift+cmd+c to see a list of previosuly copied text.
Time saved: several minutes a day, and you have to do less context switching.
Quick Win #4: Take breaks
There are no scheduled breaks at my current day job.
At first, I found it difficult to take the breaks I needed. I’d just keep going. I’d take the lunch break, but I believed I wasn’t working hard enough if I took more breaks.
But that’s just stupid.
We NEED breaks. Our output suffers if we continually work without them. Taking those 5 minutes every half an hour (or however you prefer to take breaks) is likely to make your productivity INCREASE.
Don’t neglect breaks.
Time saved: hours of low productivity grinding every week.
Quick Win #5: Code formatters
My current project is written in C# and typescript.
I use two separate code formatters for this:
CSharpier
Prettier
Each time I write a new section of code, I let the formatter do its work. This not only saves time formatting manually, it also reduces your mental load.
Time saved: honestly, I don’t even know. 10-30 minutes a day of manual formatting? As well as the mental energy saved from not making tiny decisions like that.
The Compound Effect
Let's do some quick math:
Git aliases: ~30 seconds × 10 commits daily = 5 minutes
Timeboxed problems: ~60 minutes per occurrence, maybe 3 hours weekly
Clipboard manager: ~5 minutes daily
Code formatters: ~20 minutes daily
Strategic breaks: ~ 3 hours of increased productivity weekly
That adds up to about 30 minutes saved daily plus an additional 6 hours weekly from better problem-solving and more strategic breaks.
That's around 34 hours monthly.
What could you do with an extra work week each month? Ship that feature you've been putting off? Finally launch your product? Or maybe just enjoy some well-deserved rest?
See you next Saturday!