Microhabits - small action, big impact

 Let's talk about #microhabits - the small things that don't seem to make a difference at all in the short term, which are setting you on a long-term trajectory.

What are microhabits?

Microhabits are actions that take nearly no time and seem to have a very limited scope, and seem to not be worth mentioning, yet they set you on a compounding trajectory. Many years after adopting a microhabit, people adopting it are worlds apart from others around them.

Here are some examples of software development microhabits:

• Appropriately naming stuff
• Fixing typos
• Refactoring
• Making sure the code is easily testable
• Adding important unit tests
• Generally keeping code readable and workable
• Creating a working build at leasts a few times a day

No excuses

I often hear, "This was an emergency," or "This was just a demo," or "There was time pressure." These are supposedly justifications for not doing the things above. In the working world, there will always be some stress, deadline or emergency lurking behind the next corner. Everything else is cockaigne.

Here's the thing, though: Microhabits become "second nature" and it's more effort to break a habit than to pursue it, so we can't argue that pressure is a reason to do something slower, more complex and less routine than what we'd normally do.

People with good coding microhabits will pursue their habit and keep their code high quality regardless of circumstance. Simply because it's a habit. An important realization about habits: they'll never form if you constantly interrupt them - so consistency is key.

Form the right microhabits habits today!

Which actions, when done consistently over many years, will result in a codebase you'd love to work with? Adopt these, and keep doing them consistently.

And which would result in a codebase you'd loathe? Stop these, and avoid them consistently!

If you want to do a facilitated Retrospective on the topic, you can use this simple template: