The most exciting part about technology is the relentless pace of change. With new technologies come new opportunities that previously couldn’t even be imagined, let alone brought to life with the right team, some imagination, and money.
The people to whom it falls to build that new world are very often us, software developers. Developers who have existing systems to maintain, bugs to fix, and user stories to get across the line ready for the client demo.
Where can a busy developer find the time and brain space to keep on top of all of these technologies, have a life outside work, and avoid burnout?
In a recent LinkedIn “Workplace Learning Report,” the primary challenge keeping workers from further learning, growth, and general self-development is simply that they are too busy. For software engineers and devs like ourselves, it can often feel like we are running at the edge of the technological world, laying down 16-bit map tiles as we go, hoping to stay ahead of the curve just enough to stay relevant. All with the risk of picking the wrong “hot new thing” and tumbling into the abyss.
Depressing metaphors aside, how can we stay up to date at a sustainable pace? Well, one of the wonders of that relentless pace of change is the large array of options available to you for learning new technologies and best practices.
I’m going to help you put a framework in place to keep up, without sacrificing all your free time. You will leave this article with some practical steps to implement, regardless of if you have a technology in mind that you have been trying to learn for the last 6 months or if you have no idea what the next big thing is but you know it’s coming and want to know what it is.
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Passive Approaches
Passive learning can slot into your life without you changing what you’re already doing. Think about the old fable of filling a jar with rocks, then stones, then pebbles, and then sand until everything is full. The rocks and stones are the big things like work, school run, sleeping, etc.
The pebbles and sand are the gaps left around the day, where we can slot in entertaining developer content that makes use of the rest of the time without feeling like work.
Audio and video
Technology podcasts and YouTube channels are a great way to keep up to date while walking the dog, doing the dishes, going for a run, or even in the bathroom. You want to find ones that are equal parts informative and entertaining.
I listen to podcasts at 1.5x speed with silences taken out, and podcast players such as Overcast have Smart Speed that can do this for you. The top two that I listen to are CodingBlocks.net and HTML All The Things — both are funny, well-produced, and cover topics from the foundations, such as recursion and data structures, to newer trends, like infrastructure-as-code and Vue vs React.
Audiobooks can be a great way to consume the latest and greatest long-form content, and you can easily knock out a few chapters a day during your commute or morning jog.
For those of you who prefer your audio with a visual element, YouTube doesn’t disappoint. In fact, it’s now home to the Remote Developer Careers channel, where Arc’s Head of Developer Relations, David Roberts, talks us through topics like acing technical interviews and speaks with thought leaders such as engineering manager Marcus Wermuth.
Having these on in the background whilst doing something else will raise your base technology awareness significantly with next to no real effort on your part other than popping headphones to maintain your attention as you simultaneously do other rote or manual tasks.
Read More: How to Know When You’re Ready to Become a Senior Software Engineer
Social media
Believe it or not, there are thriving developer communities on both Instagram and Twitter — I should know, I’m very active on both! Instagram tends to cater more to the early-stage and self-taught software developer, whereas Twitter covers the full gamut from coding newbie through to the seasoned veteran.
Of course, there are also plenty of dedicated groups on LinkedIn and Facebook. To find the ones that would suit you best, try getting more specific. Rather than joining broad groups for all software engineers, narrow yourself down to your favorite tech stack or the industry in which you work.
You don’t need to engage if you don’t want to — simply follow a few of the bigger names and see what pops into your feed next time you’re on the train, watching TV, or generally at a loose end. The aim isn’t to actively study but instead to spend a few minutes each day raising your awareness, chuckling at just how much hate PHP gets, and getting a feel for trends.
Communities
Setting your homepage to a site like Dev.to or installing the daily.dev Chrome extension will let you see a handful of headlines a few times a day without much extra effort. If something really grabs your attention and you want to learn more, then the article is just a click away.
Developer Slack channels and Discord servers are becoming extremely popular, with some having thousands of members. The quality and tone vary among them all, though, so join a few and see what you like. People post articles, have general conversations around a topic, ask questions, and complain about JavaScript.
What’s not to love?
Read More: 10+ Important LinkedIn Best Practices for Remote Software Developers
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Active Approaches
Unless you’ve really let your tech skills atrophy over the last decade, you likely know the myriad options you have for actively studying a topic. The problem isn’t where to go, but instead finding the time to make it work.
Before I get to my tactics for making time for self-development, here are a few of my favorite places to learn.
Educational course platforms
Udemy, Pluralsight, Skillshare, Coursera are all online learning platforms that have paid or free courses ranging from a couple of hours of quick, snappy content to 50-hour monsters that take you from zero to hero if you really need it. The downside here is the longer time commitment, but the upside is you tend to learn a lot. Many people, including myself, have built a career from these places.
Educative.io and AlgoExpert.io are semi-interactive, semi-video, lots-of-text educational course platforms that understand that many people prefer reading but don’t necessarily want to plow through a big book. Both are fantastic, with my preference being Educative — if you are prepping for interviews, I highly recommend their Grokking the Coding Interview course, no matter your level.
Find a mentor
If you’re already a software developer working with an engineering team, you’ve got some great potential mentors right there in front of you. Whether you need long-term guidance or just someone that has all the answers, make use of the connections you have around you.
If you’re in between jobs or if your colleagues at work aren’t an ideal option, there are other places you can look. Check out local or online networking events for developers and engineers to start with. Look through your LinkedIn connections to see if the ideal future mentor is already in your circle.
Don’t forget to pay this forward later on in life!
Read More: How to Network: a Guide for Remote Software Developers & Engineers
Finding the Time to Learn on a Busy Schedule
Most of us have busy lives and packed schedules. However, we are all busy in different ways, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach for carving out time to learn.
The obvious one is to simply ask your employer to use some work time to do personal training. While that would be great, most engineering managers and CTOs can’t afford too much (if any) of this self-development time, often not more than one day a month. If you need to learn containerization and DevOps from scratch, that’s not going to go very far.
So, what to do?
1. Plan
Treat your learning time like it’s an important doctor’s appointment. Schedule it in your calendar, put a reminder on that event for 10 minutes before, and stick to it. Half the battle sometimes is just getting up and doing the thing. Making it easy for you to stick to a plan will go a long way to getting on and doing a course or reading a book.
Be realistic. Set yourself a small, easily attainable goal at first, and increase your commitment with success. Don’t aim for 10 hours a week right off the bat.
2. Buy some time back
This one requires you to be in a comfortable financial situation, which, as developers, many of us are fortunate enough to be in. We spend 40+ hours a week working for our employer being paid to do work. Don’t then spend another 5 hours a week doing chores and housework that you could potentially afford to outsource at a much cheaper rate than you earn at.
It might feel decadent and expensive, but if you have identified a gap in your skills, then think of it instead as an investment in your future. Spending $500 a month for 3 months could mean that your laundry, cleaning, gardening, and odd DIY jobs get taken care of. Now imagine, for example, that by the end of that time, you have a new skill that could add $10,000 to your annual earning potential. You might think a little differently about that expense!
3. Automate some of your life
I have batch-cooked for nearly 10 years. One evening a week, I make two large, single-pot meals full of vegetables, protein, and spicy, delicious flavors. I then freeze it all down and have them for lunches and dinners over the next 10 to 12 days. Home-cooked meals become a 15-minute break rather than an hour of deciding, cooking, and cleaning. That extra 45 minutes a day is a big win, and easily enough for two Udemy videos.
With the technology we have these days (which, as developers, we’re actively contributing to creating!), there are plenty of other parts of our life we can automate. Set up auto-payments for your known monthly bills. Get your groceries delivered right to your door. Buy a Roomba. Don’t like shopping for new clothes? You can even automate that with monthly clothing subscription boxes! (Check out Stitch Fix, ThreadLab, Trunk Club, and Wantable Fitness to get started.)
Read More: How To Use Social Media Thought Leadership To Level Up Your Developer Career
Set Yourself Up for Success
Most people start with big goals for self-study and extracurricular learning without really making any changes to their life to make that feasible.
Start small.
Add a podcast to your commute, watch a YouTube video at breakfast, or follow a few people on Twitter.
If you know what you want to learn, then just aim for 15 minutes a day of active study. It might feel pointless and inconsequential, but 15 minutes per day for just one year is more than 90 hours!
Get some small wins under your belt, and slowly move up the commitment level as you can.
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