I know this is a never-ending journey. I know that I cannot be complacent. This industry is changing so fast that you have to be both a sprinter and an ultramarathon runner.

So what do I do to stay in shape?

Here are a few of the daily quests I do to make sure that I am on top of my game.

1. Read some of the top stories from your favorite news outlet (dev, twitter, favorite blogger, etc.)
2. Build a personal project and dedicate some time every day to it (I try to do 2 hours minimum).
3. Read the docs. I probably spend more time googling and reading than I do coding. This makes sense for people early in their careers, there is so much to learn. I am constantly checking Reactjs.org and ecma262 for new things on the horizon.
4. Step away, drink water, go for a walk.
5. Do some competitive programming (not a daily for me). I try and do a few problems a week from leetcode. I spend no more than 3 hours per week solving 1 of each: easy, medium, hard.
6. Open source contributing. I try and commit to something related to OSS, contributions via PRs or docs, do something that will improve OSS.
7. Blog. I have had a hard time with this one since it takes some time to craft a blog and think about what you want to say. I have become more consistent now that I have found a platform that I enjoy blogging on, and the dev community is great! So whether I release a blog post daily or I write something for the future I try to do this every day. It helps me think introspectively.

I try to keep my daily quests in a to-do list so I can keep track of what I have done for the day. This helps me stay focused on what I need to accomplish.

What do you do to make yourself a better engineer?