[terminal_d]

Thinking hard and pausing before writing: If you can suss out the pitfalls for some program before you write a significant amount of it, it'd save you a lot of time. The way you've learnt something can lead you to be stubborn about a certain process, which means you might have to "hack" your way through it -- I ""prototype"" code in an easier language before I start writing it. It doesn't have to run in that language. I use lua for this purpose.

Take diligent notes: My system (in emacs) helps me out here. Taking a few seconds to look for a solution in your notes trumps going through a wild goose chase on the internet only to encounter links that you immediately half-recognize as something you tried six months ago when you had $issue. "Quantified life" stuff helps out here. Here's a big protip: never delete your bash history.