The Fastest Way to Become a Better Developer (That Isn’t More Coding)

Five powerful non-coding habits that can dramatically accelerate your growth as a developer — from workflow mastery to writing and communication. These are the practices most people overlook, but they’re often what separate the good from the great.

Some developers level up so quickly that it feels like they’re using cheat codes. In just a few years, they outperform peers with much longer resumes. Meanwhile, others stay stuck, making only marginal progress despite years of experience.

What makes the difference?

Yes, hard work matters. But direction matters even more.

In this issue, I want to share five powerful habits outside of coding that can dramatically speed up your growth. If you're early in your career, these might change your trajectory. If you're more experienced, they might help you break through plateaus.

Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash

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1. Level Up Your Workflow

The creator of Perl once said the best programmers are lazy, impatient, and arrogant — in a good way. They don’t tolerate inefficiency. They automate repetitive tasks. They expect fast feedback.

Small improvements in your workflow compound over time. Learning your IDE’s shortcuts, using the command line fluently, and automating things like builds and deployments can free up hours every week — hours you can reinvest into solving harder, more meaningful problems.

If you want practical tips on automation and workflow improvements, I wrote a short book on this topic: From Commit to Deployment. I’ve also shared IDE tips in this short YouTube video to help you move faster and with more confidence.

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2. Obsess Over the Details

Growth happens when you resist the urge to move on too quickly.

When something breaks, dig into why. When something works, study how. Don’t just patch the issue — understand it. Don’t copy-paste blindly — experiment and build your intuition.

The best developers I’ve worked with treat every bug or weird behavior as an opportunity to learn. They’re curious. They search first, try things out, and only ask for help after exhausting the obvious options. This builds real confidence — not just in syntax, but in systems.

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3. Study the Fundamentals

Frameworks and tools evolve constantly, but the principles underneath them are stable.

If you invest time in learning how operating systems manage memory, how browsers render pages, or how JavaScript handles event propagation, you’ll start to see patterns everywhere. These insights give you leverage — the kind that lets you solve harder problems, not just use tools.