Essential code review practices that actually save time

Code reviews are crucial for software quality, but without proper best practices, they can become a bottleneck. Here are three (of course, it can be more) reviews efficient yet high — quality. I’ll include real examples where they help

1. Review in small batches

Don’t wait to review 500+ lines of code at once. Encourage small, focused pull request of 200–300 lines at a maximum.

Real situation: Last month, our team had to review a massive pull request that touched our entire authentication system.

The change included:

• Modification to the user registration flow.
• Updates to the password reset logic.
• Changes to session management.
• Adjustments to role based access control.

The review took three days, with a multiple developer going back and forth. We found critical security issues only after deployment. The scope overhelmed the reviewers. If it had been split into focused changes(user registration, password reset, etc.), we could have caught these issues earlier. Then, we could have deployed with confidence.

2. Use automated checks first

Let automation handle the basics before human review begins. 

A junior developer spent hours reviewing a colleague’s code. He left comments about:

• Missing semicolons
• Incorrect identation
• Unused imports
• Non — compilaint method names

Meanwhile, they missed a critical race condition in a concurrent operation. Configuring automatic mechanisms to automatically indentify issues would be benefical. Then, reviewers could foucs on logic, architecture, and business requirements.

3. Time — box reviews

Schedule dedicated 30 — minute blocks for code reviews rather than context — switching throughout the day.

Real situation: A developer was deep implementing a new feature when a message arrived: “Can you review my PR? It’s urgent.” They switched context, started the review, but got interrupted by another urgent message. The review was left half — complete, forcing the author to wait. Later, the reviewer had to start over because they had lost their understanding of the changes.

Set aside review time to:

• Keep reviewers focused
• Give authors clear feedback
• Inform the team of timelines
• Minimize context switching

One team I worked with established “Review Hours” — two one — hour blocks each day dedicated to code reviews. This predictability helped everyone plan their work better.

Common pitfalls when people ignore these practices

The “Big Bang” Deployment: A team accumulated two weeks of changes before review. The resulting 2000 — line pll request was so complex that no one could complete a through review of it. They deployed on Friday evening (don’t do it!), and by Monday morning, three critical customers workflows broke.

The never — ending review: A pull request lingered for two weeks. Reviews kept finding new issues in different parts of the code. The author became frustrated; the code became stale, and merge conflicts multiplied.

The surface — level review: Reviewer felt overhelmed by big changes. So, they only checked clear issues like naming and formatting. They missed a database query that would cause significant performance issues under load.

Remember: The goal of code review isn’t perfection. It’s to maintain code quality while moving development forward. These practices help strike that blance.

What practice you found helpful in your code reviews? Share you experience in the comments.