LebGeeks

gamingindex

Member

finding time for personal growth as a software developer

I have been a software developer for about 4 years, and for the first few years I used to work 12-16 hours a day even on weekends, so I was much more productive than now. I love coding and I'm pretty good at it, in a few months I'm getting promoted to a senior position. but following the traumatic events we lived recently in Lebanon, and due to the everyday stressful life, I can't find time and energy to enhance my skills outside my working hours (9 till 6), especially because I would love to contribute to some open source project.
So hopefully other developers in this community can share their experience and motivate us in managing time between work and personal growth during the stressful times we're living.

Last edited by gamingindex (July 14 2021)

nefe_lpmk

Member

Re: finding time for personal growth as a software developer

I am in the same boat as you, not finding as much energy and time lately to invest in my skills.

Here is what I am planning:
- Small progress every day builds up over time. I am planning of investing 20mins-1hour during/after work to work on a specific skill.
- Start off easy with 2-3 days per week then increase when I build the habit / have the energy.
- Don't feel guilty or stressed if you miss days, there is so much going on lately, and if your holding a job, you are gaining experience indirectly.
- Have a small plan on topics you want to cover and their priority.
- Take important notes on the topic, that you can refer to later, I use OneNote.
- Finally, make sure you take time to disconnect/relax (hobbies,outings,...) to reduce stress and anxiety.

Hope that helps, good luck.

Guitaret

Member

Re: finding time for personal growth as a software developer

I have been a software developer for 12 years, alive for 33 years, and let me tell you straight: you will never reach a serenity stage in your life where you feel that you have all the time to work on yourself (career-wise and self-development).
Some hidden force of physics is forbidding anyone from taking some time off to focus on other stuff (kidding).
Seriously, it is always on you, you are the master of your own fate and all negative feelings like stress or anxiety are of your own brain creation. You need to learn to push through, and my trick to do that is knowing that perfection does not exist.

As a dev, I get exposed every day to new situations, new tech, new frameworks, new cloud shit that popped up a few days ago, another skillset that got obsolete by newer ones. All the previous takes away the confidence I have in my career, and as a result, I don't feel good or motivated about my job anymore, I feel overwhelmed not knowing which learning I should focus on, my career looks to me like a bad wiring mess in an old Lebanese building. Sometimes I suffer from imposter syndrome.
You need to understand that this is unavoidable for all people who work in tech, we are bound to a career with a very volatile experience. A surgeon on the other hand performs the same surgery for 20 years straight, except for few updates every 10 years, but not us, we are cursed to be uncomfortable by tech companies releasing new stuff every day, just so they have a competitive edge over each other.

The way to push through this is by knowing that you cannot be perfect, or master of one thing, you want to keep learning new stuff and only specialized in something when there is a need for it. The open-source project is one of the ways to feel good about yourself, but this isn't a rule, most great devs I know don't even have a GitHub account. Stick to the 80-20 rule, you can do great stuff and impress most people by knowing only 80% about something, you don't need more than that in this rapidly evolving world.

Last tips that I can give you:
- Avoid unnecessary stress, one involving life tasks/stuff that you know will not benefit you, so learn to say No and learn to delegate.
- Do breathing exercises several times a day (the 4-7-8 exercise)
- Learn to meditate.
Keep doing the above until it becomes wired in your brain.

You don't need to prove your worth to anyone, just be yourself.

tricky

Member

Re: finding time for personal growth as a software developer

In my experience, if you work for a software company you can kiss your life goodbye.

If you work for a non-software company (that has a software department), you might get to keep your life.

gamingindex

Member

Re: finding time for personal growth as a software developer

I have been a software developer for 12 years, alive for 33 years, and let me tell you straight: you will never reach a serenity stage in your life where you feel that you have all the time to work on yourself (career-wise and self-development).
Some hidden force of physics is forbidding anyone from taking some time off to focus on other stuff (kidding).
Seriously, it is always on you, you are the master of your own fate and all negative feelings like stress or anxiety are of your own brain creation. You need to learn to push through, and my trick to do that is knowing that perfection does not exist.

As a dev, I get exposed every day to new situations, new tech, new frameworks, new cloud shit that popped up a few days ago, another skillset that got obsolete by newer ones. All the previous takes away the confidence I have in my career, and as a result, I don't feel good or motivated about my job anymore, I feel overwhelmed not knowing which learning I should focus on, my career looks to me like a bad wiring mess in an old Lebanese building. Sometimes I suffer from imposter syndrome.
You need to understand that this is unavoidable for all people who work in tech, we are bound to a career with a very volatile experience. A surgeon on the other hand performs the same surgery for 20 years straight, except for few updates every 10 years, but not us, we are cursed to be uncomfortable by tech companies releasing new stuff every day, just so they have a competitive edge over each other.

The way to push through this is by knowing that you cannot be perfect, or master of one thing, you want to keep learning new stuff and only specialized in something when there is a need for it. The open-source project is one of the ways to feel good about yourself, but this isn't a rule, most great devs I know don't even have a GitHub account. Stick to the 80-20 rule, you can do great stuff and impress most people by knowing only 80% about something, you don't need more than that in this rapidly evolving world.

Last tips that I can give you:
- Avoid unnecessary stress, one involving life tasks/stuff that you know will not benefit you, so learn to say No and learn to delegate.
- Do breathing exercises several times a day (the 4-7-8 exercise)
- Learn to meditate.
Keep doing the above until it becomes wired in your brain.

You don't need to prove your worth to anyone, just be yourself.

that's the best advice someone has given me in my whole life, thank you I really appreciate it.

Guitaret

Member

Re: finding time for personal growth as a software developer

that's the best advice someone has given me in my whole life, thank you I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for saying that, the appreciation is mutual.

rolf

Member

Re: finding time for personal growth as a software developer

So hopefully other developers in this community can share their experience and motivate us in managing time between work and personal growth during the stressful times we're living.

Totally. The stress takes a real toll and it's not only the big catastrophies, actually it is mostly the small daily problems such as noises, electricity cuts, having to queue for petrol.

In the end we Lebanese will find it hard to compete on the international market, which is where you will find real growth (I don't think the internal Lebanese market is very interesting now) with other developers who have better living conditions. We are left to compete in the "cheapest" department but even there we would be at a disadvantage with cheap labour from other places.

You can't cheat with these things, I don't think there is a quick fix.

rolf

Member

Re: finding time for personal growth as a software developer

PS: Sorry the question was about personal growth! All I have to suggest is that you maybe take on a hobby project. It does not matter what it is, think outside of the box, anything can be a hobby, don't limit yourself to what is traditionally perceived as a hobby, and maybe you can even get income from your hobby in the end.

The main challenge as you know is time. If you like to cook for example, and then watch something on youtube, then that's it, your day is over. Thankfully there is Sunday, if your family lets you have that. Anyway good luck.

rolf

Member

Re: finding time for personal growth as a software developer

PS2: Please don't spend your free time outside work just writing more code. You will just burn yourself out and become fed up with coding. Try for example a hobby like I mentioned earlier that could improve some other skill (for example social skills) which in the end can help you grow at work.