What productive things to do when quiet at work?

spengos

spengos

spengos

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I'm a web developer working for an agency and we've been going through a quiet period and this looks to continue for another few weeks.

Does anyone have any ideas I can pitch to my boss on what to do to stay productive? Getting very bored of reading through blog articles and watching tutorials and feel we should actually be building something. We have a base solution(boilerplate) we use for new projects and this is also about as finely tuned as it can be, so not much to do here either.

Part of the problem is the rest of the company is quite busy so there's been little consideration with regards to what development are doing.
 
Is there anything your company needs, such as an employee holiday booking system? You could ask if you can at least start something like that? But, rather than just writing something plain, also learn some new frontend stuff along the way like KnockoutJS, Bootstrap and make it API based so you can separate code and interface. Basically over-engineer it and learn some stuff which might apply to something bigger. Over-engineering it will also take a bit more thought and time and hopefully take you up to your next proper project.

This all depends on what sort of web developer you are though and what you know already etc.
 
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As the rest of the company is so busy speak with your colleagues see if there is anything that you could work on that would ease their workload.

For example is there a report/document/builds that are currently manually created that could be automated or auto generated based on user inputs, all depends on what your company do but I am sure there is something that you could create that would be beneficial to your company and colleagues.
 
Why not look at developing your own SEO tool that you can use in-house?

Build sites, pop it through the SEO tool and see how it scores.

Another option, how is your company regarding accessibility? Could you look at building an accessibility framework, skip links, color changers etc?

It'd be easier if we knew exactly what we the company did so we could tailor responses.

Other options are to start increasing your own skill base, c++, python, other web languages. Why not go an spend time in the other departments, see what they are doing, see if you can develop something to streamline their workload or help them in anyway. Normally if you ask anyone they'll have some gripes about the job or ideas on things that would help.

Wish I had the time to sit and develop my own ideas and actually try and get them setup, consider this time precious and put it to good use!
 
I'm self employed so it's a bit different but during slower periods I try to improve myself.

For example I recently finished javascript on www.codecademy.com. I regularly use jQuery and little bits of javascript but I haven't learnt about a lot of it, I normally pick it up as I am building sites.

I also work on 'hobby projects'. I started working with nodecg (http://nodecg.com/) to practise javascript and make an overlay for a streamer friend. It integrates with Twitch chat using tmi.js (https://www.tmijs.org/) and also uses CS:GO Game State Integration (https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Counter-Strike:_Global_Offensive_Game_State_Integration) to relay information back to Twitch chat and on the overlay.

My next project is making a basic app using Cordova (https://cordova.apache.org/) - It's going to be something basic that only I will use, but then if a client ever approaches me about making an app I will be able to say "yes I've made one before" and "yes I can make them".

It's probably a bit different when you are employed, but I try to be productive and make useful things while gaining knowledge I can use for real work, rather than sit around and play games all day waiting for the phone to ring.
 
rwm24 said:
My next project is making a basic app using Cordova (https://cordova.apache.org/) - It's going to be something basic that only I will use, but then if a client ever approaches me about making an app I will be able to say "yes I've made one before" and "yes I can make them".
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Could take a look at Xamarin (cross platform apps in C#). That recently became free and is in Visual Studio. I'm guessing you say Cordova though as that's using the existing HTML etc you know. There's also React Native which is javascript cross platform apps and may possibly be better. I don't know too much about it at the moment.
 
+1 for learning Xamarin. Microsoft bought them out and made it free :D I'm looking forward to making an app for our next project that talks to a web API :)
 
Craig321 said:
+1 for learning Xamarin. Microsoft bought them out and made it free :D I'm looking forward to making an app for our next project that talks to a web API :)
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The things Microsoft are doing recently e.g. Xamarin, the new .NET framework and ASP.Net are really exciting me. Lots of potential for things.
 
I haven't looked at it recently, but I tried Xamarin a couple of years ago and it was absolutely painful to develop in. SDK errors everywhere, buggy support, no up to date (or even a lack of) documentation. I'd hope it's improved a lot now MS have got involved with it.
 
Spunkey said:
I haven't looked at it recently, but I tried Xamarin a couple of years ago and it was absolutely painful to develop in. SDK errors everywhere, buggy support, no up to date (or even a lack of) documentation. I'd hope it's improved a lot now MS have got involved with it.
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Yeah I get that impression too from reading around. Apparently come a long way now and much better, worth learning :D. I've not used it myself, I will be doing so over the next few months for work. Need to learn it to redo their app originally made in PhoneGap.
 
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