A more efficient developer: master your IDE

As a developer, you are going to spend thousands of hours working with your IDE or editor of choice. It is your main tool, you need to know how to get the most out of it.

Using your IDE 8 hours a day is not enough, you need to make a conscious and deliberate effort to master it. As a wise man once said:

Wax on, Wax off Master Miyagi, The Karate Kid.

You must learn:

1. The shortcuts for all the functionality that you regularly use. You should rarely need to use your mouse.
2. Its features: read the release notes, watch online tutorials or follow some expert that blogs about it.

If you happen to use Intellij IDEA, the Key Promoter plugin will help to learn the shortcuts and JetBrains provides a ton of online material. Follow their blog and youtube channel.

But the most effective way of learning your IDE is to do pair programming. As part of your daily job, each of your partners will teach you different features, and you will have the chance to teach them to others, creating a nice cross-pollination effect.

And you can always ask your partner to slap you every time that you reach for the mouse. A win-win situation.

More about efficiency:

1. Disable notifications
2. Master your IDE (you are here)
3. Write programs for yourself
4. Why to Docker Compose a calm environment
5. Did you read my email?
6. Go and have a rest
7. The conference talk
8. Other reasons for TDD: Baby steps, ROI, Evil Manager Syndrome and Watching the watchmen
9. Where TDD falls short, find yourself a good REPL