It's All About The Priorities

Life is full of wonderful surprises and so is work. As a developer, it's easy to burn out when you have more tasks than you can handle. In this article, I will share a simple tip that can make the process smooth while achieving the goals.

Picture this, it's July 16, 1969. Apollo 11 is landing on the Moon with a 0.043 MHz processor. At the time of landing, the instructions for the CPU far exceeded than what it could manage. Luckily, it didn't crash, made it to the moon safely.

Interestingly, it was expected that it would happen. Engineers designed the software inside Appolo 11 the way that it would run instructions according to its priority. There was a priority queue for the instructions for the CPU. For example, during the landing, the instruction for adjusting the balance would have more priority over something like adjusting the room temperature.

Fun fact, the phone you are holding has over 100,000 times the processing power of the computer inside Appolo 11.

This is clever and the same idea can be applied to our daily lives. For instance, I work full time as a software engineer, write a bi-weekly blog, always have a side project at hand and participating in a 30-Day LeetCoding Challenge. No matter what, I always spare my resources according to the priority.

You might be saying - "Oh, come on. It's easy during the quarantine!", and you are right I can't deny that. However, prioritization is critical when you have less time/resources.

Let me quickly go through how I prioritize my tasks. I am not going to bother telling you how my tasks are prioritized at work as it's mostly done by product managers.

As Warren Buffet once said

The best investment you can make is an investment in yourself.

Keeping it always in mind, I try to prioritize things that have something to do with future me: self-development, learning a new skill, constantly improving knowledge.

One cool thing about the priory queues that you can visualize it. And it's also advised that you should keep track of the queue. I use Notion for documenting my weekly/monthly goals and their output.

And by the way, don't forget to leave enough room for a good night's sleep, meals and workouts, give them the highest priority you can give. They should always be on top of your queue.

I hope this technique can help you achieve your goals with a clear vision.
Good luck landing on the Moon!