Recently I re-watched a talk from Uncle Bob where I heard a statement that simply resonates with me. The quote from Uncle Bob is this
"(...) But you chose a career that requires grooming, and maintenance(...)".
This makes me very happy to hear because it justifies my time "spent" messing and fiddling around with new stuff. I really don't like the term "spending time", because I'm choosing to use my time to read a technical book, hear a podcast, watch coding videos, etc.
Most stuff is just new to me like Angular, ASP.NET Core, OData, or GraphQL. But some stuff is well known in the industry like DDD, CQRS, Event-Driven architecture, etc.
What is the reason❓
If you don't want to do it for fun, the number one reason to keep learning is to keep up to date with the industry you're in, in my opinion. Whether that is Web development, mobile development, security, etc. I mean spending time to learn and grow in my career. To go home and put in the hours to keep being up to date with the industry and tech around us... it takes time, but if my field of expertise changes rapidly, I must respond accordingly.
Take breaks ⏰
Just because I'm learning by watching some tutorial, or watching a conference talk, doesn't mean I should sit all day. I'm trying to move out of my desk more often during the day and do some exercise at the end of the day because as a developer I spend A TON of time looking at a computer screen.
It's like every single thing I can do is on my computer... so yeah, I'm working on it! You can also to a self-assessment to see if you need to take some time off the computer. Take a walk or just go somewhere and let your mind wander.
Right now I'm trying to adopt listening to podcasts on my phone and just pace around my room, or leave my room and go elsewhere while I listen to Software Engineering Daily (great podcast btw) or TechJR (another cool podcast 😁). The goal is to simply not look at a screen.
Conclusion
This was a short post, but hopefully, it gave you a reason to keep learning outside your working hours or motivated you in some way. I too watch shows on Netflix 🎬 and play some games 🎮 on the weekend. It's important to take breaks from the job routine and relax with some friends, to reduce the possibility of burning out or lose motivation. But I can't help the fact that I'm excited when new tech or libraries surface to the land of the IT industry. For example, Deno just released its first version, and I'm quite excited for the future! I mean... 100% Typescript support and top-level await... that's just cool!!
So I study, and learn, and realize I'll never know everything... but I can try, and I can surely try to be better than the person I was yesterday, or a week ago or a year ago. Keep on improving!
More from me
I hope you enjoyed reading 😄. Check out one of my other blog posts if you are interested:
- How I made my resume with react-ultimate-resume
- Submission post for the Twilio Hackathon
- An Introduction to Hypermedia APIs
Resources
- UncleBob Expecting Professionalism (Kuppelsalen, Copenhagen) - The Uncle Bob quote I referenced is at the timestamp: 1:05:57
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