Developers can save time and improve productivity by optimizing their development setup, including their IDE, terminal, and workflow.
Optimizing the dev setup is crucial for efficiency, focusing on workflows, smooth inputs, instant feedback, and minimal context switching.
Steps include streamlining the terminal with tmux and zsh, supercharging VSCode with essential extensions and settings tweaks, automating repetitive tasks with custom scripts and Makefiles, and using dotfiles for portability.
Tips for optimizing the setup include using one terminal window, keeping a scratchpad, profiling your shell, cleaning your PATH, and minimizing extensions and plugins for faster performance.