https://www.moderntreasury.com/journal/reducing-feedback-latency-with-local-ci-for-developers-and-ai-agents

Definitely worth checking out if you want smoother DevX by finding out what’s wrong quicker and not relying so much on the cloud.

While 3 years sounds very accelerated, it’s totally possible for most people with the right planning. I also don’t think it’s the right idea for most people, though there are good reasons to do it. Fundamentally, you have to be clear on what this degree means to you and how it plays into your life goals.

Warning: I’m not your advisor and not a replacement for one. Please meet with them before every single semester with your entire plan and be upfront about your goals. A lot of people think advisors aren’t friendly to 3-year plans, but they were fantastic with mine and helped me reshuffle it so it was more realistic. If you seem uncertain, they’ll guide you toward a risk-averse path, which is the right answer for most people, but showing preparedness and determination can get you strong support. That being said, feel free to email/DM me with your plan and I’ll try to give feedback.

Note: The info here is accurate at time of writing. CS requirements will keep evolving, but the mindset will stay largely the same. Feel free to reach out or make a pull request if you’d like to update any information.

Figure Out Your Overall Goal

When people talk about UIUC in 3 years, it can mean very different things.

6 Semesters

Typically this is what most people mean: 6 full-price Fall & Spring semesters. These happen over 3 calendar years, though many people space them out with internships, study abroad, or gap semesters.

I suggest this if you’re optimizing on

• money spent less on education
• time spent in class
• more room for internships than the 3-5 summers normally available

3 Calendar Years with Summer Semesters

Adding summer classes can get you to 7–8 semesters while still finishing in 3 calendar years, with a more spread out workload closer to a typical 4-year pace.

This has many of the same advantages as the 6 semester plan, but with more breathing room. I’d suggest this to those optimizing for

• less years spent as a student
• having a gap year or similar

Consider 7 semesters

While 6 semesters is a little tight, 7 gives far more breathing room and can still save money. Your 7th semester can also be a part-time semester, which is cheaper, and this allows a longer college experience, one more summer break/internship, and often a longer gap between graduation and a job start. UIUC will still let you do the May graduation ceremony even if you graduate in December.

Note for OPT: Graduating in December reduces the lottery attempts from 4 to 3 for the duration of an OPT. It might seem small from afar, but I’ve seen people really regret this.

Plan

Start planning early, ideally before your first semester. This needs coordination around proficiency tests, degree requirements, and paperwork. You can still start later in your degree, but the later you do, the more stressful it gets. Make a worksheet of what every semester will include, with clearly defined classes or class groups, to ensure the whole plan works. The UIUC Course Explorer is useful for checking prerequisites and seeing what’s available.

Understand the CS and Math Main Sequence Really Well

The main thing to keep in mind is making progress on the core CS sequence as quickly as possible. CS 225 unlocks a lot of elective chains at once, so getting there early helps a lot. Use your degree page to map out your exact sequence, but for most CS majors the common part looks like this DAG:

Note: This image is made using Evan Wallace’s Finite State Machine Designer that you’ll definitely see in many of your UIUC classes.

• I’m using double circles to indicate the terminal class in each required sequence
• CS classes are indicated with no number, and I’m using M to indicate Math classes
• ‘con’ stands for concurrent. This means you can take the next class in the sequence if you’re already taking that one. Here there is CS225+233 and MATH257+CS361. I highly suggest both to shorten your chain.

The longest chain is length 5 in both Math and Computer Science, so ensure that you’re making strong progress toward each. This strictly forms the lower bound of how quickly you can graduate. If your goal is 6 semesters, this means you only get a single semester where you’re not progressing on the longest chain, and I recommend having that one semester be the last one for slack. Later I’ll talk about proficiency tests, which can shorten the main sequence and get you to electives quicker.

While the Math sequence chain is 4, quite a few people come in with credit for Calc 1 (such as IB) and even credit for Calc 2 (APs, college courses), so they start further along. Unless you went to a narrow slice of elite American and international schools, you’ll usually start around the beginning. I suggest first trying to get through the placement/proficiency tests so you can start as far as possible to at least get past calc 1 and ideally 2. Some of the newer CS + X majors vary in how far you need to go in this sequence, but I personally think every CS major should understand multivariate calc and linear algebra and strongly suggest taking them anyway unless it really gets in the way of your graduation plans. I’ve used concepts from these a lot in later classes and they’ve come up in my job as well.

In the past, prereqs weren’t as strictly enforced, so some of the older advice you will get may not apply, but often it’s still possible if you ask nicely and acknowledge to advisors, professors, and the department that this might blow up in your face. This is usually easier after your first semester since you can point to your strong academic record so far. I had a roommate who took CS 233, 374, and 421 at the same time for their third semester, and did CS 225 alongside 126 (precursor to 128) during the second semester. I don’t recommend relying on this, but it can certainly help. Having overrides on prereqs worked well for me when I was signing up for grad classes since their enforcement is less strict and professors have far more leeway.

Some of these classes also have math requirements, so keep that chain moving too. I have seen some first-years take CS 357 and 361, though slot them in when it makes sense for your plan. This depends on which electives you’re more interested in. For example, I wanted exposure to C and systems-level stuff for my electives, so I took CS 357 early since it aligned with my Statistics classes. I wasn’t as interested in the programming language side, so I put CS 421 toward my senior year. I had a passing interest in functional programming, but not enough to go much deeper than type inference and lex+yacc.

If you’re not sure where your interests lie, frontload core classes to ensure more optionality later.

CS College of Engineering - Account For Electives

If you’re in CS in the College of Engineering, you’ll have 8 electives: 6 have to be within CS, and 2 can be outside. For most people I’d still suggest doing all CS anyway, but go based on your interests and your semester’s overall difficulty. As soon as you’re able to, generally in your second year, start loading up on electives as they unlock. Assuming you finish CS 225+233 by the end of your third semester, you’ll have to take 3 electives for 2 more semesters and 2 electives for one semester. Not all electives are equal in difficulty, so definitely keep this in mind as you slot things in.

CS (+|&) X - Frontload your X Classes

There are quite a few of these majors, so I’m generalizing here, but almost all of them function kind of like a minor and don’t require many electives beyond fulfilling a handful of groups. The X portion of your major likely also has a main sequence that’s 4-5 classes long, so you should be moving that along almost every semester too. For example, I was in CS and Statistics, so I was also pushing along my Statistics main sequence, which definitely made the earlier parts of college core class heavy. If you need to, move more of the general education requirements towards the end of the degree.

CS (+|&) X - Consider CS 233 + CS 341 over CS 340 + Two electives

Not all, but many of these majors let you opt out of CS 233 (Computer Architecture) and CS 341 (Systems Programming) in favor of CS 340 (Introduction to Computer Systems) plus two 400-level electives. I strongly recommend doing CS 233+CS 341 anyway:

• The GPA risk is overstated: The low averages that gave last decade’s CS 241 its reputation have largely disappeared in today’s CS 341, and CS 233 runs higher than CS 231 did.
• It’s not actually faster: Taking CS 225+CS 233 and then CS 341 in the next is two semesters. Taking CS 225 and then CS 340 still takes the two semesters, and most good electives only unlock after 225 so you’ll be taking them along CS 340.
• The material builds an important foundation for your later education and career: Processor internals, assembly, systems programming, network primitives, latency/throughput tradeoffs, cache optimization, parallel programming, and so much more. The CS 340 syllabus itself notes the gap clearly:

CS 233 and CS 341 invest 8 credit hours in going into detail on topics that CS 340 covers in 2 credit hours. Our briefer overview is sufficient for many purposes, but leaves out details needed for hardware-aware application domains such as embedded systems and cybersecurity.

That said, read the 2020 topic comparison, the CS 341 syllabus, and the CS 233 learning goals to decide what’s right for your goals.

General Education Requirements

Graduating in 3 years means making tradeoffs, and this will often be at the expense of the broad liberal arts education UIUC is known for. Those classes are genuinely great, and it’s hard to get this kind of educational opportunity later in life, but taking high-effort gen ed classes will make 3 years more daunting. There are many UIUC classes that can count toward two or even three requirements, as well as some eight-week online forum-post style classes that are very little work.

Similar to the earlier sequences, the students who went to the right schools (tm) will have quite a few of these requirements already fulfilled, but it’s still quite doable. Proficiency tests still help here for things you do have prior knowledge of.

Many students have the same idea, and these classes can book out quickly, so don’t have too rigid a plan for exactly when you’ll finish each requirement, as long as you’re moving along on gen eds. As you progress later in your degree, you’ll be able to register earlier, and being in the honors program also helps.

In terms of scheduling, I suggest pushing this later in your degree because I think it’s more important to hit your core degree requirements upfront, especially for CS&X/CS+X, but this can be fairly flexible. If you do have a language requirement I think it’s fine to do towards the end because it doesn’t unlock anything too meaningful.

Personally I enjoyed my higher-effort comp lit classes a lot, and getting to survey new fields like linguistics, disability studies, and horticulture was great. Despite the tight timeline, you can still take many interesting gen eds, but this will always come at a cost and this is tragically a luxury.

Winter Classes

There are also winter classes, but it’s a very short break and these typically just get gen eds out of the way, which I don’t think is better than doing it in a normal semester, especially with double/triple-counted and 8-week classes available. Still, it can work well for you if there wasn’t much opportunity to overload on gen eds so far, like after your very first semester.

That being said, a student schedule can be intense and having a high-quality break of a few weeks goes a long way. I honestly liked using winters as a true guilt-free break of doing nothing and spending time with family to recharge for the next year. I also came from a part of the world with very standard daylight, so this helped me recover from the seasonal depression a bit.

Understand The Relative Difficulty of Classes To Balance A Semester

While planning, you should have a solid idea of each semester’s difficulty because you don’t want to accidentally burn yourself out. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and having the right pacing throughout is key. For the ~5-6 real classes you’re taking each semester, aim for two hard, three medium, and one easy class. Depending on your planning, you might end up with a semester where you have three hards which you’ll have to power through.

Figuring out which class falls into which bucket isn’t easy. I like to approach this along these axes:

• how much work a class has: homework, midterms, quizzes, MPs, team projects, readings
• how intellectually challenging a class is
• how do students typically perform
• past background in the class
• how interesting you find the class

For example CS 374 didn’t take much work per week and only had 3 exams, but it was definitely a lot of thinking each week to arrive at optimal solutions, while CS 341 wasn’t as challenging but it needed discipline as it was a lot of work each week in terms of homework with very careful debugging.

What’s easy for you might be hard for others, and you might find yourself getting humbled by a class most students consider quite easy, but generally averages across a large sample hold, so I recommend understanding data.

GPA

The first piece of data you should understand is the GPA averages for the class:

• GPA++ - enter a class, class level or just filter by category (e.g. CS 4) to see gpa history by professor - developed alongside my uiuc roommates
• waf.cs GPA visualizations many different great data visualizations - developed in the group led by Professor Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider

As someone who loves education and learning, it feels bad to talk about optimizing classes around GPA. I don’t think the point of an education is taking the easiest possible classes to get a piece of paper, but I’m also someone who overplayed my hand in the past and got burned. There’s a nuanced middle ground between optimizing for GPA and actually learning a lot.

Past Student Reviews

The second piece of data is more subjective, since it’s mostly from disgruntled students who can be very unreliable narrators, and it has all sorts of demographic and difficulty bias mixed in. Still, I think it’s useful for things like workload or course structure that GPA data can’t capture. Usually I’d look on:

• RateMyProfessors - Has basically every American university on it, but the data quality is really bad.
• r/uiuc - and similar subreddits have gossip on various classes and professors. It’s a little better than RMP but not a lot better.

Also filter by class since the same professor can vary a lot across courses, but trends like teaching quality or friendliness do hold. If an instructor is new to UIUC, you can often find online gossip from their previous university too.

UIUC also collects internal teacher evaluations called ICES, with far better completion rates and less bias toward upset students, but these are only accessible within the department. I do wish it were public since it is much better than the places I’ve linked, and there’s a good r/uiuc discussion about this. It still suffers from a lot of the same biases I mention though.

Public Teaching Material

UIUC CS has a great culture of just publishing teaching material on the open internet, which is great for learners outside UIUC, but also students who aren’t in the class yet. In breaks before term started, I’d often just watch lectures from a past semester, read their slide materials as a broad first pass. Depending on your experience learning the material, it’s a decent way to gauge how hard a class might be, but I’m putting it lower in my recommendations because it’s really hard to judge without having access to the homework and exams. As a side bonus, doing this will often make the classes easier since people learn better with multiple passes.

Credit Fillers

Quite a lot of people have a large amount of pre-existing college credit coming into college, to the point where “sophomore by credit hours” is a running joke. While many of these credits are quite useless in terms of getting to advanced classes earlier, it does save the effort of having to fluff up credit hours to graduate in 3. Not having this means taking ~21 credits each semester which is quite a lot, and assuming you don’t overload the first semester and take 18, this leaves 22 credits overload for every single remaining semester. Actually having that kind of load with a realistic class schedule is going to be too much for most people, so you should strongly consider taking credit hours that require virtually no work just to check this box.

There are many options here:

• at the start of your degree there might be some orientation/job training classes that take little work. For example, I had optional LAS 100 - College Success for International Students that gave 2 credit hours and CS 199 - Course Assistant Training for 1 hour.
• many electives have a 4 credit grad version, and 3 credit undergrad version. The difference in workload isn’t too large for most classes, so I suggest doing the grad version in those scenarios. While it’s only one extra credit at a time, these do add up. As a side bonus you do learn more and can even double count it toward a UIUC Master’s.
• 8 week online-only classes where it’s practically just writing short discussion posts. I ended up learning a bit more than I anticipated and some of the readings were great, but these are definitely not at the level of a standard college class.
• trying some activity-based classes like walking or vegetable gardening. Some can be deceptive though, 1 credit Ice Skating was my hardest class I’ve ever tried in my life, I regularly went to so many office hours and extra skate sessions and still ended up dropping out because I was so behind.
• CS 397/497/499 research credit. This can be a lot of work so your experience may vary, but I found it quite interesting and it didn’t really feel like work at all. I did this almost every single semester and nearly hit the departmental maximum.
• community college classes at places like Parkland which can be far less work, though this will cost extra money

If someone doesn’t have a strong starting point in terms of the CS or Math sequence, it makes sense to be hesitant about a three year plan, but I don’t think anyone should decide against the three year plan because of the overall credit hour requirement.

Proficiency & Placement Tests

The CS & Math main sequence chain length of 5 is the main thing to tackle, and the best way is starting further along in the sequence. Many of you will have Math credit already, but UIUC doesn’t recognize high school AP/IB Computer Science for the intro course, so that’s the first one to consider testing out of, then see what else you can. Getting MATH 220/221 and CS 124 out of the way leaves a chain length of 4 to cover in 3 years, which is far more doable.

proficiency.cs.illinois.edu is a great website with detailed information on the exams, and you can take the first four main sequence classes: CS 124, CS 173, CS 128, CS 225.

The Math department lists out their proficiency tests here which I suggest reading. Similar to CS, you can go quite far in the core sequence: MATH 220, MATH 231, MATH 241, MATH 257.

Someone being able to do all of these is quite rare, but people can often get surprisingly far. These are free, so I suggest trying them anyway. My suggestion is to target CS 124, CS 173, and one math test from wherever you’re starting. Doing more than that is a lot to prep for over the summer. If this is winter, only target one test.

The right time for these tests is usually before your first semester begins, which means summer for most people. It does get in the way of that peaceful break between high school and college, but having entire semesters of a headstart is worth it. There’s also a window to do these right before the second semester and before the start of the summer term, but after that it is not worth thinking about much later since these only cover early-sequence classes.

If you don’t prof out of these classes, your first semester will be lighter on major classes, which is a good time to frontload gen eds and keep the 3-year plan going.

CS 124

If you did high school CS or self-taught growing up, this is likely the right test for you. Brush up on Java and object-oriented programming basics first. Complete CS 124’s public online version with daily homework at learncs.online. There’s also CS 199: Even More Practice, review slides and 3 problems per slideshow written by me and a few other CS 125 Course Staff.

If you find this taking longer than 2 weeks or don’t really have any CS experience, I strongly suggest taking the class instead. Having the right CS foundation will pay dividends for the rest of your college life and future career. It will make the 3 year plan harder, so also consider if you really want to do the degree faster since having a better education is worthwhile.

Personally I did CS 124 anyway, though more out of a feeling of misplaced imposter syndrome, and I loved the class enormously. I went on to be part of its course staff for nearly my entire college life, won an outstanding course assistant award, made most of my college friends across several years from there, and got to spend a lot of time thinking about the near future of CS education. At the time of writing the course assistant CS page still has me in the main picture to advertise the position.

CS 173

If you have learned introductory logic, set theory, or basic proofs, I suggest the CS 173 proficiency test too. Start by reading Professor Margaret Fleck’s amazing textbook Building Blocks for Theoretical Computer Science. It’s one I kept going back to years after the class — it doesn’t assume much background and covers the core concepts really well, so definitely familiarize yourself with it. After that, look at the CS173 Official Study Material, especially the past examlets.

If you find yourself not sailing through all of it, like I did, just take the class. Personally I was good with about half of the material but lacking on the rest, and I gained a lot from taking the class which helped me do well in CS 374 later and excel in my new grad interviews.

Calc Tests

I suggest only doing tests at a level of math you’ve already learned, but for review, check out Paul’s Online Notes for Calc I+II+III. I used them a lot as a student, and they’re very well written. I also liked Khan Academy’s videos, and they have plenty of practice problems too. Often when I was stuck, I used Wolfram Alpha’s Solver (led by UIUC CS Professor Stephen Wolfram) to cross-check while practicing.

My own high school credit started me at Calc II so I wasn’t too worried about it, but in hindsight I should have been starting in Calc III just to be faster.

ALEKS Placement Test

UIUC has students take the ALEKS PPL Mathematics Assessment Exam when starting out to figure out whether to begin with Calc I or earlier. I didn’t prep at all for this since calc was very fresh for me, but I suggest doing a bit of review beforehand. If you don’t get placed into Calc I, I highly suggest taking the time to build the right math foundation in your coursework and avoiding calc proficiency tests for now.

Understanding UIUC’s Cost

The main reason I saw people do a shorter time is cost, and it’s important to understand what your cost will be so you can make the right tradeoffs. A guide to fully optimizing your cost at UIUC is beyond the scope of this page and there’s a lot written on this online, but I think it’s important to understand it broadly as it relates to how your degree plan will go.

Typical Semesters

• There’s a three tier structure for tuition, with in state students at the cheapest rate, around double for out of state and slightly higher for international students.
• UIUC has a fixed tuition cost for four years of your degree. This eliminates the biggest source of variance to worry about.
• Fall and Spring Semesters don’t charge by credit hour.
  • ≥12 credits (full time) - no price increase for going beyond.
  • 6-11.99 credits - 2-3 typical classes
  • 1-5.99 credits - 1-2 classes

The best price ratio is still with overloaded semesters, but if you can make your last semester part time, that will also save thousands of dollars. However, also consider replacing that partial semester with cheaper rates in the Summer or Winters.

Overloaded Semesters Due To Fixed Cost

Unlike many other universities, UIUC is a fixed cost once you cross 12 credits (full-time semester), which means that you should think about sustainably overloading (>18 credits) when possible because there’s no extra cost here. I crossed it for many of my semesters for this reason since you’re getting more for the same price. If any of your semesters are part-time, the tradeoffs are really different, but for a 3-year plan you’re likely taking full-time semesters. If you have lots of incoming credit as you enter UIUC, you probably won’t actually need to overload.

I don’t recommend overloading your very first semester since university is already a huge change, and living in a new city (and often country) where everything is different. Advisors will usually try to stop you as well.

Summer Tuition

While it is per credit hour and still followed the three tier structure, the cost is around half of typical tuition, so it can still win if the alternative is extra fall/spring semesters. Most students aiming to reduce costs will live in off-campus apartments, which usually run on yearly leases, so there’s no extra marginal housing cost in that case, especially since the supply of summer sublets is much higher than demand.

With summer you have to remember that most courses are compressed to 8 weeks so it’s actually twice as fast. If you want to recharge between semesters, are doing research, are interning somewhere I suggest only taking a single class. If you’re fine with the intensity of a normal semester, take two classes. Taking more than that can be challenging so I don’t suggest it.

If you just finished living in the dorms, summer sublets can also be really cheap if you look carefully. I did not look carefully, trusted the wrong person, and had multiple break-ins which contributed to a campus massmail, which accidentally cost thousands in ‘rent’.

Housing And Related Expenses

The other large cost in UIUC is housing, especially with the mandatory overpriced one year requirement that acts as a quasi-tuition that many aid/scholarships don’t adequately cover. Urbana and Champaign are relatively affordable places to live with quite a lot of midrise dense housing that’s connected to public transit, so after your first year the market rate living you can get will be much cheaper and you’ll likely have far more space over the dorms at a fraction of the price.

In the past, I’ve not seen the university grant exceptions due to financial hardship, medical disabilities, and even people who spent the first year doing remote university were forced into the sophomore year dorms. There are exceptions for a few rare cases, but don’t count on it.

First read the pricing pages for the dorms, even the cheapest quad sharing room cost twice what having my own room in a market rate apartment literally next to campus near the CS building cost. I suggest taking the cheapest meal plan (12+15), and a double or triple since it’s barely more expensive than a quad. If you get lucky, there’s another UIUC scheme called Private Certified Housing which has some cheaper rates, but these have limited capacity and go out very quickly. Some are religiously affiliated so keep that in mind.

The general tradeoff you need to keep in mind is that almost all market leases will include the summer and winter, you can avoid this slightly with sublets, but that means a constantly shifting living situation. This instability can affect your academic productivity, so definitely be careful about this. Market rate apartments can get quite cheap, so it’s still fine if you’re paying for the breaks.

Housing is the second biggest expense after tuition, so having one less calendar year on campus will literally save a lot.

Aid And Scholarships

Despite aid/scholarship often not being adequate, most instate and some out of state students qualify for more than they realize. It’s really worthwhile to dig into these to reduce the sticker shock. I’m listing a few I’m aware of, but there are many more that are just very poorly documented.

• Illinois Commitment - Families with under $75K in assets and income (at the time of writing) get 4 years of tuition covered. Note this doesn’t guarantee dorms.
• Office Of Financial Aid - If you can submit FAFSA in time, there’s more than many expect.
• Illinois Scholarships Main Page - Listing many scholarships at university and college levels
• UIUC Merit-Based Scholarships - List of many scholarships. The university also automatically considers many people when applying
• UIUC CS Awards - Many CS department specific ones that are smaller but still worthwhile

During the Degree

With the planning done and a good starting point through tests, now comes actually following through. How to do your degree well is a huge topic and out of scope for this post, and I’ll leave some helpful links at the end. More specific to the three-year plan, every semester make sure to:

• track your degree progress against your overall plan - I did this with Google Sheets, but use whatever tool fits best for you. With every semester, things become more solidified and you can reshuffle as needed as long as you’re still good on the overall plan and main sequence. I also kept 3-year and 4-year variants of my plan, and you should plan branches accordingly.
• right before and after you register for classes, run a DARS Audit to ensure your academic plan is actually working
• go to your advisor every single semester with your plan and audit so far and the classes for the remaining semesters to get their thoughts
• do well in your classes, learn, and have fun!

Caveats

There are some important caveats of following the 3 year plan you should keep in mind. Besides my points below, also read these:

• a great r/uiuc thread
• Angela Zhang’s reflection on finishing MIT CS in 3 years
• The Daily Pennsylvanian’s Why some Penn students decide to graduate in three years

Opportunity Costs

Many students arrive with a scarcity mindset since school was a far more limited environment. College has an abundance of classes, clubs, and research to explore. 3 years is still perfectly doable while having a lot of fun side questing, but keep in mind you’ll get to do a lot less than most of your peers who are spending 4 years. While there’s so much opportunity, your true scarcity is having a shorter timeframe and you should take extra care in what you take on.

If you start taking on too much, the opportunity cost can be your three-year plan. I actually ended up in that situation: I wanted to do lots of fun extra classes, do research and teaching almost every semester, have a really busy social life, and go deeper into an area of study that has excited me almost all my life, so I abandoned my plan toward the end of my second year. Part of my motivation towards four was also COVID-19 taking away the in-person campus experience I enjoyed so much, so ironically I ended up spending 3 years on campus anyway.

Less Internship Time

Besides being fantastic learning opportunities, internships are also a prime hiring pipeline through return offers. Graduating early can mean fewer chances of return offers, though keep in mind internships before your final year don’t give full time return offers and just return for another internship. So you can actually have the same number of internships eligible for full-time return offers. Due to increased flexibility from having an accelerated timespan, I saw many friends add fall/spring co-op around their summer internship during their final year to vastly increase their odds for full-time return offers.

Shorter Rose Colored College Campus Life

College is more than classes and setting up a career. It is an incredible and unique time for fun, friends, parties, events, exploring whimsies, clubs, growing up, greek life, geek life, learning new skills, trying the great food scene, or even just spending time between classes doing nothing. With such a large student body, incredibly vibrant college towns, and so many things to do, there’s something about this life that will never come back again.

A busier and shorter life on campus will take away from this and it is something that can weigh quite a lot as the years go by. I really wish everyone can experience this, but it’s unfortunate that financial reality makes this a luxury for most people. Three years is still plenty though, and if you play things right around the start of your degree, you will still get quite a lot of the fun parts of college. It might also force you to be decisive about not wasting your time on things that don’t spark joy or bring you anything.

Spend a while reflecting on what this means for you. I really liked the TV miniseries Tatami Galaxy, which explores a student in 10 different parallel timelines all starting from a different club picked during an equivalent of quad day and the joy, sorrow, anguish, and growth that represents in his goal to achieve a Rose Colored College Campus Life.

Bad Reasons

Only do this plan if you have a good reason. College is designed around a 4-year cycle and the minimum degree requirements are intentionally light. If you can get the full college experience, I highly recommend it, but circumstances really vary and privilege absolutely applies. I think almost all reasons to graduate early are valid, but here are a few I’d caution against:

Peer group

If your main motivation is seeing your friends do it and wanting to do it too, I’d suggest against that, since their circumstances might not match yours and it might be driven by pointless competitiveness. As time goes on, a lot of that peer group might end up doing 7 or 8 semesters, which is far more doable, and then you’d have taken on extra stress for nothing. It is nice to take classes in sync with your peer group, so I suggest doing that and piling on extra things once they wrap up. Many of my friends who did three ended up living on campus for a fourth year as well, so many friends might still be around.

Personal Challenge

I am always in support of people taking on a harder pathway, but a 4-year plan with more challenging classes, research, internships, and teaching is a far better personal challenge to grow. You can follow pretty much all of the above advice and just use the extra breathing room to go further in your interests. It’s really hard to get this kind of environment after undergrad.

Good Reasons

I think the primary reason to think about this is cost, but I saw many other good reasons too:

Sticker Price

Despite being a state university, UIUC isn’t cheap, especially if you’re out of state and international.

If you’re fortunate enough to afford four years, I highly recommend it. I was extremely lucky, and that’s what enabled me to take four years. Doing so much HCI research, taking several grad level classes, having a very broad general education, near daily social plans, getting to be part of teaching almost every semester and summer, going on endless sidequests and meeting my long term life partner happened because I had the luxury to fill it out. These were the best years of my life till that point, and I am so sentimental about my time at UIUC.

I think it’s wild that tax funded universities with free land in a dedicated college town that doesn’t even pay the staff that well can still cost so much. Unfortunately, that is the reality of today and college debt is a burden that can really drag, even in a field with very high salaries like Computer Science.

Industry Opportunity Cost

Related to the idea of a price tag, the financial opportunity cost of an entire year of salary is something people should acknowledge. For many people who are doing a three-year plan, their new grad salaries can be $150k-$250k and I’ve seen a few offers like $500k. I don’t know if these kinds of offers will last long term, but at present there is a sizable sum of money that people are walking away from. In a long career of 40-50 years and compounded growth, it might not amount to a large portion of overall net worth, but it is a lot of money nevertheless. This one year’s pay can become a large part of adequate retirement savings depending on the circumstances of retirement.

Doing A Combined Masters

I knew many people who did a 3+1 BS+MS program, which let them graduate at the same time as their typical cohort, have the same number of internships, and walk out with a nicer degree. While most CS-related jobs no longer have a huge boost for doing a master’s like in the past, it’s still a sizable bump in few cases, and not having to take a career break for one is really nice. Access to classes is quite similar to undergrad, but getting a whole extra degree for one more year of CS classes is nice. As many CS degrees don’t have an explicit 3+1 program, you can just apply for a master’s to start right after. Generally most good students will get in through home-field bias and internal connections.

This can actually work out cheaper than a normal 4-year degree too, because grad-school teaching and research positions often come with tuition waivers and stipends, while the undergrad equivalents barely hit minimum wage and don’t offer as many hours. Many people I know got to experience 4 years at UIUC more cheaply because of this, though it’d be nice if undergrads were given the same level of waivers like some universities do.

Note for OPT: doing a combined program for 4 years will skip the 3 years of undergrad OPT (1 year normal + 2 years STEM), which means less time in industry and fewer lottery attempts if that is your goal. If you’re targeting academia this is fine.

Starting Grad School Earlier

As an undergrad, UIUC enables you to get a grad student-like experience with teaching, research, grants, publishing and upper div classes, but becoming a graduate student earlier is worth considering if you’re sure about your path. Being a grad student explicitly makes it easier, and having an extra year to focus on research can really produce better outcomes. I still recommend spending the full time in undergrad to explore whether it’s the right move before getting locked into a research area, but getting there a year earlier can be nice. If you also intended to do a PhD at UIUC, this can be quite streamlined since you can double dip the initial breadth requirements from undergrad too.

Study Abroad

Studying in a different country is an extremely worthwhile experience and it forces you to grow in all sorts of ways. It’s also just fascinating seeing how different cultures approach the same topics, even a relatively standardized field like Computer Science. Having fewer semesters at UIUC means you could do an 8 or even 12 month study abroad if you wanted. A funny side effect is that you can even save money doing this because universities in other developed countries are much cheaper than American ones. For most people, this is a great chance in life to just spend a few months living in another country that won’t naturally come up again in life.

I didn’t do this personally because my entire UIUC experience was already studying abroad, but I knew international students who used it to try even more countries.

Industry Internships

While doing part-time semester internships and full-time 3-5 summer internships in a normal 4-year/8-semester plan is already quite a lot of room for internships, doing this can let you do even more, especially toward the end of your degree. Typically there’s a lot of burden on the summer after junior year’s internship to net a return offer, but having a spring or fall co-op/full-time internship right before graduation can increase the odds of a full-time return offer quite drastically. Interning is also just a fantastic learning experience: mentorship, sampling different industries, relatively lower stakes for career mistakes, trying different tech stacks. This can also help on the money front, I knew someone who covered the gap between scholarships and tuition with savings from numerous internships.

Also keep in mind that UIUC’s Research Park, Champaign county tech offices (e.g. Cloudflare, Wolfram), and Chicago City Scholars can let you intern around while taking proper semesters too, though it can be a little tough to balance both so I suggest lighter loads.

Not Liking University or Wanting to Spend Less Time Here

Some people don’t like life in academia. Others miss family, don’t find the right social crowd, or simply want to get their education and resume life back home. Whatever someone’s reason, I think it’s valid, even though I’d love it if everyone wanted to spend a long time at UIUC and experience what I did. Time is a very precious resource, and if less time at UIUC aligns with your goals, I think that’s absolutely worth it.

Links

These are largely out of scope for this post but worth checking out:

• My guide on Staying Productive - a lot of different strategies you should A/B test on to be highly effective
• Drshika Asher’s UIUC Mental Health Sources Links Collection
• Drshika and I also wrote a SWE interview prep guide which is about prepping for DS&A style algorithms effectively while using time well from when we were CS 225 CAs
• How to Be a Study Ninja by Graham Allcott is one of the rare self-help advice books on doing really well as a student that I suggest. Most of this field has very vague advice that doesn’t work, but this book is really actionable and chances are you’re already doing some of it
• Drshika, Monika Para, and I also ran a summer series of follow along workshops focused on a fun and friendly start to side projects called Summer of Side Projects. Go through these tutorials and then use it as a fun launching point to quickly explore your interests and build up a nice portfolio.
• Testing 101 is a small starter guide I wrote on the red-green-refactor mindset on having clear failing tests, working in small increments till each piece works, and then using that as a way to prevent regressions while building more code on top. The main trend I noticed among successful students as a course assistant was working in small increments, testing them, and debugging quickly.

Good luck!

Thanks to Monika Para, Drshika Asher, Divvyam Arora, and Davis Keene for taking an early look at this post.

Two branches diverged in a yellow code,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one processor, long I stalled

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it jumped in the code;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was truthy and wanted compare;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that condition equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere cycles and cycles hence:

Two branches diverged in a code, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Meltdown

Back in 2019, I wrote this while studying for a branch prediction midterm in UIUC’s CS 233 - Computer Architecture. In general, I really adore Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken and have often thought about it at various stages of life, alongside his other famous poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Zenpencils has a beautiful comic version of the poem, and it’s always fun reading the rift in interpretations of the poem.

Everything should be free unless I tag it with Paid. If it’s paid, it’s not an affiliate link.

Start With Basic Ruby

Rails uses Ruby heavily, and before doing any Rails I highly recommend starting with a cursory understanding of Ruby.

Try Ruby

15-30 minute in-browser introduction to Ruby with some interactive exercises.

Learn X in Y minutes

Quick syntax reference for various aspects of Ruby. After a while you might not look at this as much, but it’s a great starter.

You don’t need to be an expert in Ruby before starting Rails, but definitely take the time to eventually learn the language well if you’re planning to use Rails for some time.

New to Programming

Learn to Program by Chris Pine

If you’re new to programming in general, I highly recommend Chris Pine’s short book. This is how I really got into programming myself when I was 12. It builds up basic programming concepts in a nice chapter-by-chapter format and has great exercises.

Installing Rails

Installing Rails has always been an ordeal, and my go-to guide has always been:

Go Rails Install Guides

Select your OS and version, and it’ll apply the right template for installing Rails and all the moving parts it needs.

Once you have it working, newer Rails versions come with an idempotent install script called bin/setup that can be used to install or refresh your Rails setup.

Quick Dive Into Rails

Rails is a huge framework that’s famous for being batteries-included for basically every baseline web development need. It’s a lot to take in, and in my experience it takes months before someone is broadly fluent in the whole thing. The best way to learn is to take a quick tour of the core concepts Rails offers, and then learn more in later passes based on what your project needs.

Official Rails Getting Started Guide

I’ve contributed to many sections here so I might be a little biased, but it’s a great intro tour of major Rails features.

Rails Girls Guide

It’s not too recently updated, but I think the chapters cover broad concepts quite well.

New to Frontend

freecodecamp.com/learn

You don’t need extensive frontend knowledge to use Rails well, but if you don’t have much of a background, try FreeCodeCamp’s in-browser exercises that build up HTML, CSS, and JavaScript really well. This is how I picked up a solid foundation after years of Swiss-cheese knowledge.

Frontend Frameworks

Rails started with a model of embedded Ruby and sending HTML over the wire, but it’s also popular to use it with a frontend framework. Here’s an example for React with Rails 7:

How to integrate React with Rails 7

Rails Philosophy

Rails has a very opinionated philosophy on how to develop and why it is the way it is. You must have already noticed in the tutorials so far, but if you’re this far, you should definitely understand the underlying principles.

The Rails Doctrine

An Introduction to Ruby on Rails – From someone with a frontend background by Luiz Felipe Diniz

This post is also an interesting take from someone coming in with a frontend background.

Deeper Dives

Now that you have the basics down, there’s no fixed order for the rest. Learn more based on your curiosity and what you need.

Rails

Michael Hartl’s Ruby on Rails Tutorial - PAID

I highly recommend this long book that walks through several Rails applications with increasing levels of complexity, along with software best practices. It peels back a lot of layers that Rails generators usually handle, and you’ll have more confidence to build your own stuff by then.

This book is how I went from a programmer to a software engineer. It took me more education and work experience to get to where I am today, but this book was my proper start.

Ruby

poignant.guide

Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby is a cute and quirky book that dives deeper into Ruby and its language design, with lots of nice illustrations.

I actually have this one in print from a limited-edition run. I don’t know if there are still any runs around.

Ruby Koans

Ruby Koans has you understand particular ruby edge cases and key concepts through fixing a series of failing test cases. It’s a bit old, but worked well with my recent Ruby version.

Ruby-Style Object-Oriented Programming

While you’ve probably worked with other OOP languages before, Ruby takes a certain message-passing purist approach to it. Until I read all of this myself, I never fully appreciated why it’s such a powerful paradigm and why Ruby is uniquely well-suited to it.

I think Sandy Metz writes about it the best:

Sandi Metz’ Rules For Developers

Four rules for Rails code. It’s a broad heuristic, but it goes surprisingly far in helping you think through object design, relationships, and how objects call each other well.

Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby (POODR) - PAID

This dives deep into object-oriented programming ideas and how to use them to create readable, flexible code. While I wasn’t new to the principles in the book, it really helped me embrace the why and how.

Rails Guides

Rails officially has lots of guides across a broad variety of topics. It doesn’t have everything, but it’s a great starting point when you want to learn more about specific areas. Besides the Getting Started Guide, where I’ve contributed a lot, you might spot some of my other contributions:

Ruby on Rails Guides

The Two Rails Stacks: Core/Omakase vs Prime

As you go further in the Rails community, you’ll encounter a popular set of alternative defaults adopted by many Rails projects. The exact stack has changed over the years, but it’s common to see:

• RSpec over minitest for testing
• FactoryBot over Fixtures for test data
• A service layer for business logic instead of putting more logic in models/controllers
• Frontend frameworks like React instead of Embedded Ruby with Hotwire

I recommend sticking with the Rails Core/Omakase defaults initially since it’s more intimidating to learn both at once, but learning these eventually is worthwhile. If you’re joining a pre-existing Rails project, you’re likely to see some of these Prime stack choices.

These two blog posts from a while ago capture the split well. It’s interesting how much stays the same.

Rails Has Two Default Stacks - Steve Klabnik

Rails Core Stack and Rails Prime Stack - Noel Rappin

https://www.moderntreasury.com/journal/floats-dont-work-for-storing-cents

Basically, lots of things go wrong because of the many quirks of IEEE-754, lossy formatting, and various rounding modes. Please use integers, BigDecimal/BigNumber, or even strings instead.

https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-chat-app-with-stomp-and-react/

https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-upgrade-node-and-jest-while-on-react-scripts-v4/

There was absolutely no good resource for navigating all of this, so I wrote a guide for that and added links to basically everything helpful I found on the way. Luckily Facebook has now officially stopped recommending CRA, but there’s so many years of React applications created using this that will need this kind of guide to break out and make basic upgrades.

https://www.moderntreasury.com/journal/social-media-myths-about-fednow

Ideas are hard.

I won’t even try to sugarcoat this fact. The structure of ideation around school projects is comforting: existing guidelines, rubrics, and deadlines. Free-form ideation is harder.

This can feel overwhelming at first, but each time it becomes a little less so. After a while, the unease transforms into nervous excitement and you become an idea machine. The nervousness doesn’t go away, but it becomes more productive. It becomes fun.

Make something useful for yourself first

Many people start with too large a scope — helping every person in a country, or all college students generally. That’s a good end goal, but not a good start goal. The issue with targeting a broad audience is the vagueness in covering all use cases. This could end up with a massive list of features, making it very daunting to get version 1.0 out. This is why I see the majority of side projects and startups fail. It either ends up incomplete or as something that no one wants because it’s hard to know upfront what everyone wants.

I think the best way to get ideas is to make something for yourself first. Working for yourself is a much better problem. You know your needs the best, and you have a good idea of what has worked for you before. Users are generally hard to survey and interview, but it’s easy to figure out what you would want in a program.

Once you have something you’re happy with, expand your idea slowly (ignoring the instinct to snowball). At this point, you’re further along than about 95% of projects out there!

Now try adjusting your software to include: (roughly in this order, but one at a time)

• Friends
• Family
• Classmates
• Co-workers
• Local community

This kind of growth is organic, and it’s a reliable path to making something that lots of people want. You may realize that you’ll want to pivot and rework your idea a lot. It’s perfectly acceptable to stop at something that maybe only your local community finds useful. It’s even okay if you’re the only person happy with it. Focus on making people happy one at a time, starting with yourself, and you’ll find yourself with good results.

This Annoys Me

One way I see many successful projects start is by picking something that annoys you or someone close to you. As software people, we have the power to streamline the world to make it friendlier and less stressful. Many things are broken by design, while others are broken by a lack of care. These annoyances can be a starting point of something worthwhile.

These can be in many forms:

• The interface is ugly
• It is not accessible to many people: disability, language, slow internet, requires pre-installed software
• It takes too many steps to do a task
• A workflow needs lots of different software
• It does not spark joy

Doing something silly

Another way I’ve seen good projects born is when someone said, “What if I did this silly useless thing?” and then made it happen. Sometimes your project isn’t solving a problem — it’s just something you want to try out. It might fail, it might succeed.

Someone Already Did It

Most of the time, your idea has already been done. And if that isn’t the case, then it might be close to impossible to do. There are still many ideas that don’t fall into either of those, but they are not the majority. Over time, you’ll find good sources of inspiration that lead to fresher ideas.

Even if what you want to do is already done, that’s perfectly okay. Not everything you do has to be original. Besides that, it can be pretty fun redoing things that already exist out there. As long as you’re not copying the existing code as is, I think that projects that start this way can be a valuable learning experience. I personally spent a lot of time re-implementing things that already existed, which gave me a real appreciation for the tradeoffs involved.

Gimmicks

Sometimes it’s elitism, and sometimes it doesn’t feel important, but do not undervalue a “gimmick” or “flashy” component. People often dismiss good UI/UX, exciting features, good art, or a novel type of computer interaction as a gimmick. Sometimes these can make or break a project. Sometimes they don’t add to a project, but they do make it more fun.

Users are often more likely to use your software just because of these ‘gimmicks.’ I think side projects with more of a gimmick/flashy factor are always more fun to both make and look at.

Combining other fields with CS

Today, CS is at a point where it’s rapidly expanding into almost every facet of society and knowledge. Many fields didn’t have much CS traditionally, but now there are a lot of low-hanging fruits. Take some time to explore your interests and past experiences outside computers and think about what could be useful. Many successful companies and research projects are born out of a combination of CS and something else, and there’s room for many more.

Note Every Idea

At first, ideas will be hard to come by, but you’ll start generating endless ideas after a while. Most will be bad, practically impossible, or already done, but they’re still a valuable part of the process. Don’t discard any of them, even if they seem kind of cringe. Many billion-dollar companies today were once a “bad” idea that people did not think would work.

Aggressively note down all your ideas in places where you can find them later. I like Google Keep, but there are dozens of different note-taking programs. Your ideas are probably better than you realize. Doing this will:

• save you time, since you might come up with the same idea again
• give an easier starting point when you get to programming
• makes you think harder about what your idea actually is
• keeps you from forgetting - trust me, you will forget, and it will often only take two or three minutes per concept!

(If you’re smart, you can turn 8 of your unused ideas into a summer series of workshops)

Good Advice From Others

These are excellent articles that inspired me a lot.

• A Software Developer’s Guide to Side Projects - Simple Programmer. He’s written a whole book of advice as well.

• How to Get Startup Ideas and Do Things that Don’t Scale - Paul Graham. He’s written a lot of similar posts that I reread now and then.

• Software engineer, it’s okay to not have a side project - Benoit Pasquier. I think this article gives a good understanding of the toxic side project culture. If you feel things are becoming a source of anxiety or feel like a chore, step away. Trust your instincts.

Based on an earlier version of this post with feedback from Drshika Asher and Maaheen Maajed

Advice on this is complicated to give:

• Productivity is hard
• Everyone is different
• When some things are optional, like side projects or life improvements, all the usual barriers can become even more daunting.

There’s no single good approach. What works is experimenting with lots of good approaches and finding the few that work for you. I’m going to list many of them briefly here, and it will take some time to figure out what works for you.

Before trying any of these, start by disregarding one-size-fits-all models of productivity. Most self-help advice takes simplistic, standardized ideas of getting work done and often tangles them with shame. Not all of it is bad, and a few excellent resources do have nuanced advice. I’ve linked a few of those at the end of this page, and hopefully this is one of them.

With any of these sections, try it for some time before writing it off. Two weeks is a good rule of thumb, but feel free to adjust based on your best judgment. There will be an adjustment period when you try anything new, but you should be able to tell fairly quickly after that if something actually works.

It’s also important to realize there’s no shame if a section doesn’t work for you. As you try and drop things, you might feel pretty negative at first, but it’ll fade as you experiment more and start seeing these as a box of tools you’re filtering through.

You’ll likely need a combo of many strategies that’s unique to you, so keep experimenting with strategies and their combinations. It might take a while until you’re fully at your peak, but even the journey there will start improving things early. You might read this list (and others out there) and realize you’re already doing some of these well; start with those.

Never forget: always be kind to yourself. It’s an introspective process and many parts can get uncomfortable.

Time of the Day

Some people work better in the morning, some in the evening, and some are exclusively night owls. Try different times and schedule productivity around what works for you. Sometimes different tasks also work better at different times of day, and as you figure that out, you can broadly set up daily schedules.

Days of the Week

Some people work better on weekdays, and some on weekends. Some work better with the week’s deadlines nearby, and others like being farther from deadline pressure. What works for you might vary, but experimenting with days of the week is worth it.

Together or Spread

Some people are far more productive doing large chunks of work in one go; others like interleaving with other tasks or doing a bit each day. There isn’t a fixed answer, and there’s lots of variation between these two, but try to figure out intervals that work for you. You can also have a hybrid approach where you do maybe six 50-minute work blocks with 10-minute breaks, twice a week, getting the best of both worlds.

Pomodoros

The idea is that you use 25-minute timers with 5-15 minute breaks in between. It’s named after tomato-shaped kitchen timers. People like the structure and clear time blocks, but others find it limiting or the pauses unnatural.

Some people only use it to gain momentum, using the Pomodoro clock for the initial stages and then continuing once they have momentum. Many others use it to prevent burnout because they want to stay productive throughout the day.

Some people even like getting a real kitchen clock that could even have a ticking noise. The tomato look is a classic but finding another cute one can be pretty helpful.

There are timing variations too. Some people like short bursts while others prefer longer blocks. Here are some popular ones:

• 45 minutes of work - 15 minutes of break
• 50 minutes of work - 10 minutes of break (my personal favorite)
• 60 minutes of work - 15 minutes of break
• 75 minutes of work - 15 minutes of break

These are all roughly in the 5:1 work to break ratio but that’s just a convention that works for many people and aligns with our 60 minute hours, but definitely think about experimenting on what works for you. If 60 minutes of work and 30 minutes of break works better, go for it. Check this post on pomodoro leverage ratios which thinks about this aspect more.

Goal Setting

The idea is that you set fixed goals for specific time bounds that help you get things done. A popular convention is SMART goals.

• Specific - you set a clear end deliverable that can be met instead of some vague idea of a result. Starting with a vague idea is fine but quickly distill down to something more specific. Vague goals make it harder to start.
• Measurable - you can tell if you achieved it. If you can’t measure, it will be more intimidating and would lower your productivity.
• Achievable - don’t set yourself up for failure or aim too high. Some goals you can do within the constraints of today (not what future you can do after years of learning). Sometimes you can set a stretch goal and make sure your main goal is reasonably achievable, and the stretch goal is nice to have. Having achievable goals helps you get started and retain momentum.
• Relevant - what you’re aiming to do is something that actively helps towards the overall task you’re trying to do. Treat your productivity as a scarce resource that you will value, so you should ask if a task is worth your time. If you have an MVP already in place, it will help you figure out what is relevant and what is not.
• Timely - this is probably the most important. You need a finite and fixed time bound on a task. Software can be hard to estimate at times, but we still have to learn to give reasonable estimates despite that, and developing this skill helps both you and others.

Here is an example: “I will create a sign up button (measurable) that links to my backend register function (specific and achievable) which I need for creating user accounts (relevant and possibly linked to an MVP) within the next 50 minutes (timely).”

Over time you’ll figure out your own form of goal setting, but I suspect you’ll share a few core ideas with this. I don’t think it’s effective when someone else does this for you, like corporate upper management; it works best when you set them up yourself. It’s a rule of thumb, and you’ll learn when it works and when it doesn’t.

This often pairs well with Pomodoro-style working due to the time bound nature of this strategy.

Social Productivity/Body Doubling

Sometimes doing things alone is enough (and for some people, it works better), so it’s also worth experimenting with a crowd you like working around:

• public places like coffee shops and campus hang out areas
• quiet sections of a library without ambient noise
• virtually (especially with the pandemic), websites like focusmate (stranger pair-ups for 50-minute sessions)
• pair up with friends and see each other’s to-do lists with timers using a website or chats

In the end, many still work best alone, but this is effective for most people. It’s often part of why workplaces exist and colleges have so many study spaces, even when people aren’t collaborating 100% of the time.

Social Encouragement

It’s sometimes helpful to have people compare progress and encourage each other, and this can take many forms at both the goal-setting and achievement stages:

• broad lists that cover something like a day, week, or month as a summary of goals
• short lists of what can happen over a small time block like a pomodoro

There is a lot of variation on this end, but this can have some pretty strong gains.

Small Setup Time Followed By a Fixed Break

Sometimes, when you don’t feel like starting a task right away, do a quick 2-5 minute setup step and then start after a fixed break. This works surprisingly well in practice because the hardest part is often the inertia of starting, not doing the task itself.

Having a little work started and reducing the friction of getting back to work counteracts that inertia to a large extent. Procrastination is often a result of having an unclear starting point, but doing setup separately can break that while only taking a few minutes.

For example, if I don’t feel like programming right now, I can quickly open up VSCode with my terminal and project ready. Then I set a 15-minute timer where I can still chill, and then get started.

2 Minute Rule

Instead of aiming to do the whole task at once, your goal is to do two minutes of work. You can even count 1 to 120 in your head if you need to. After 2 minutes, you might realize it’s not that bad and keep going, or decide it’s too overwhelming right now and try another 2 minutes later.

For me, I end up continuing about 80% of the time, but your results may vary. The most important thing is that even a low success rate is worth it because either outcome is fine, and odds are you’ll keep doing the task. The underlying principle is that starting is the hardest part, and continuing gets easier. It’s like jumping into a seemingly cold swimming pool and realizing after a minute or two that it’s pretty alright.

This strategy pairs well with the setup idea above because your 2 minutes can be setup. Even if you walk away, the work you did in those 2 minutes makes it easier to come back.

Have High-Quality Breaks

A lot of productivity advice is centered around working, but having good breaks is just as important. Many people think they shouldn’t have breaks or believe that breaks are something to be ashamed of. Not all breaks are alike, and you’ll have some breaks that you like more than others. It might seem counter-intuitive but try to find as high-quality breaks as you can. Higher quality breaks will often end up being shorter, more satisfying, and make you more productive. Many people try to shame themselves or treat a break as some reward but it’s better to reframe it as part of the productive process.

For instance, I might find a 15-minute call with a friend far more likable than an hour scrolling through social media. Or it might be more fun to do a walk or even a short exercise.

Schedule Recurring No Work Times

Like the previous point, I find it useful to actively block out periods of time where you will not be doing any work. It could be a day, a few hours, or even a few minutes spread over the day. In this slot, you have to take a break and not work at all. Regardless of how the day is going, you get guilt-free no-work time.

If you treat your non-work time as sacred, you may find it easier to keep your work time sacred too. It sounds counterintuitive to write off large blocks of time as unproductive, but doing this ensures the productive time left is far higher quality. On average, this can leave things better overall, especially for long-term productivity as you reduce burnout.

There’s no clear agreement on how long that time slot should be, and it often varies by person. Some like having a fixed set of hours in the day clearly blocked off; others like blocking off a full day or so. As a starting point, try at least one clear day a week, and if you’d prefer a daily version, at least an hour a day.

Todo Lists

Some people find it overwhelming just to keep track of what needs to be done, and keeping it all in their head can get exhausting. Having an external to-do list is helpful since the cognitive load is pushed onto technology or paper. You can use this to split big intimidating tasks into smaller, friendlier tasks as well. Some people like the motivation from sharing these or checking off items. Many sites have gamified to-do lists like Habitica.

This combines with SMART goals well too.

Additional Deadlines

Deadlines are great, and it’s perfectly fine to use them to your advantage. In general, if deadlines are what works best for you, then you can even create artificial ones. Some people can set that up for themselves, while others need external enforcers: both are perfectly fine.

For example, if you have a big project due at the end of a month, schedule a weekly call with a professor or manager where you’ll show stages of your progress. You might think you’re an inconvenience, but most people are glad to support efforts like this. Many people never take the initiative to ask, and there’s almost nothing to lose. Sometimes you’ll even get pointers.

Additional Consequences

Hitting productive goals can come with a reward depending on the goal size and the effort you took. Most of these you can arrange for yourself, though you might find your peers are happy to help in lots of small ways.

Some people prefer a slight negative consequence, like money on the line that will be lost or donated to charity. Negative loops can be a slippery slope, but used in a light-hearted way they can be effective.

Mental Health and Undiagnosed Issues

I am not qualified to give specific advice on this, but this is something that trips up surprisingly many people, and some attention plus specific help can go a long way. If you suspect something or have an untreated issue, definitely consult qualified experts who can help you improve many aspects of life, including productivity.

Sleep, Food, and Quality of Life

In general, try to keep your quality of life and health factors as good as practically possible. Trying to sacrifice those for productivity doesn’t really work short-term and mostly doesn’t work long-term either (even if you think it does). Sometimes, these issues are hard to fix, but even a 20% improvement in some quality of life factors can significantly affect your productivity. You don’t need to be the pinnacle of health, but any progress there will also help your productive life.

Iteration over Perfectionism

“Perfect is the enemy of done” (origin disputed).

When things are not going well, your brain will often set very high and unrealistic starting goals. It may not even let you get started, since you’ll aim for perfection right away instead of getting there through iterations. People might think this thought process leads to good results, but it rarely does. Instead, you start imperfectly, feel confused sometimes, go back and forth, erase some work, experiment, and keep refining what you’re doing. This workflow will get you far closer to great outcomes than perfectionism at the start.

To quote Paul Graham’s Hackers and Painters,

I was taught in college that one ought to figure out a program completely on paper before even going near a computer. I found that I did not program this way. I found that I liked to program sitting in front of a computer, not a piece of paper. Worse still, instead of patiently writing out a complete program and assuring myself it was correct, I tended to just spew out code that was hopelessly broken, and gradually beat it into shape. Debugging, I was taught, was a kind of final pass where you caught typos and oversights. The way I worked, it seemed like programming consisted of debugging.

For a long time I felt bad about this, just as I once felt bad that I didn’t hold my pencil the way they taught me to in elementary school. If I had only looked over at the other makers, the painters or the architects, I would have realized that there was a name for what I was doing: sketching. As far as I can tell, the way they taught me to program in college was all wrong. You should figure out programs as you’re writing them, just as writers and painters and architects do.

Non-Zero Days

This point and the next one are inspired by this famous Reddit comment.

The idea is that you’ll have days where things go wrong, days where nothing happens, and your entire to-do list feels like a reminder of how worthless you are.

On those days, before the day is over, do a tiny amount of non-zero work. Read a single page of a book, write a single line of code, add a single test case, do a single push up, or whatever. Anything that is not zero. Your ideal productive self won’t appear right away (as much as we wish), but from a series of non-zero days that slowly add up. Even if you’re not doing well, at least you can break the negative streak and give yourself a fresh start.

Forgiveness

No matter how hard you try, things will not go as well as you expect. That’s fine.

Always forgive yourself. If you want, I, Harsh Deep, will forgive you too. Maybe you had the skills you needed, and perhaps you had something unexpectedly go wrong. Perhaps you can’t come up with a reason at all. Everything is going to be okay.

The past is gone, and forgiving yourself pushes you towards creating a better tomorrow. Being stuck there is a spiral that only drags you down, and life is too short for that. This is easy advice to give but hard to follow. I promise it’s worthwhile, though.

Motivation

And finally, motivation. This one is tricky because it’s often what people blame first when they’re not able to work, but usually a large variety of factors are the real problem. Motivation is also a complex emotion with many types and ways to build it. It certainly helps to have something pulling you forward, figure out your style, identify what is blocking you, and work specifically to remove blockers.

Good luck

Productivity is complicated, and honestly, no one has completely figured it out yet. Over time you will arrive at what works for you, but don’t beat yourself up over it or try to be a perfectionist about it.

You got this!

See More

• 7 Ways to Maximize Misery 😞 - good call outs with specific advice

• How to be a Study Ninja: Study smarter. Focus better. Achieve more. - I was extremely skeptical about this book (and the entire genre), but it has a lot of specific, realistic, and practical advice with a toolbox approach to productivity. Some approaches might work, some might not, but it’s worth experimenting and potentially getting huge gains in results.

Thanks to Nehal Sai Tangudu for proof reading and providing feedback on an earlier version of the post.