How to grow professionally and stay productive over the long term
In principle, being a developer is not so easy - especially if you strive to maintain the relevance of knowledge and skills and avoid burnout over the years.
But we make this task even more difficult for ourselves. It's time to stop sabotaging your own efforts and get rid of bad habits that prevent you from achieving professional success in the long term.
Too many distractions
You walk into an office, turn on your computer, and are about to write code. The editor is already open, but you remember that you haven’t had a coffee yet, so you go to the kitchen and wait for the coffee machine to prepare a cup of invigorating drink.
On the way back, you meet a colleague and talk for five minutes about how your favorite team played yesterday ... Finally, you are back at your workplace and are ready to correct the unpleasant mistake you discovered. You work for five minutes, and then the phone rings - this is the boss, and he really wants to talk.
Half an hour later, you come back slightly irritated - and to unwind, you decide to read Reddit. Later, you dived into the code again - but someone wrote on Slack: one of the juniors needs help. You sigh and tell you where to look.
Returning to the task, you remember that you have not checked your mail yet - it turns out that you need to answer a couple of letters. Yes, and there are a lot of notifications in social networks ... Ten minutes later, you are surprised to find that you are still flipping through Facebook.
It's almost lunchtime and you have two meetings scheduled for the afternoon. You haven't been able to concentrate on writing code for more than five minutes in a row, and now it is clear that today you will not do anything significant.
Sound familiar? We live in a world that is destroying our productivity. Social media, coworkers, executives, and clients all fight for our attention and distract us from the work we love.
By wasting time, you don't grow as a developer and only get frustrated. To stay productive, you need to protect your time from other people and from yourself.
Let your coworkers know when you are ready to meet or help them, and when you should not be distracted. Try to allocate at least two two-hour blocks of continuous work per day.
Let everyone know that while you are focused on your work, you will not be answering calls, looking at mail, or chatting. And put on headphones: even if you don't listen to anything, everyone else will know that you are busy. Continuous two-hour blocks should be occupied exclusively with work.
Surely someone will find your approach uncomfortable, but your productivity will increase. And if you are honest with your colleagues and show understanding, they will soon get used to it. At the same time, of course, during the time outside the allocated blocks, be ready to help and communicate - so that the team can benefit from your professional experience.
How to stop wasting time
Let's say you managed to set aside some time and get down to your actual work. Excellent. Now you have to win the battle with yourself - focus on important tasks, without being distracted by social networks, mail and anything else that requires attention.
Disable all social media. Sign out of accounts, close chats, and turn off notifications on your phone. Nothing should be distracting. If possible, leave your phone in another room. Work in silence or to music: choose something that helps you focus - not necessarily your favorite band.
Start using the “tomato” method - most likely, you have heard about it, and you probably ignored it. And in vain: dividing work into intervals with short breaks can work wonders - so choose a work interval of 25-90 minutes, and make breaks five times shorter. Stick to a schedule like this and the results will surprise you.
Try using the zen mode editor, which is found in many modern IDEs. In this mode, the editor expands to full screen and removes unnecessary interface elements, which helps to focus. The less visual clutter on the screen, the easier it is to work on a specific task.
Remember to do the most important or the most difficult tasks first: everything else can be done at other times.
Photo by Luis Villasmilfrom Unsplash.com
Overtime work
The working day is eight hours (I hope you do the same). The road to work and home takes another hour or two. And now you are a little late with the project, so you decided to catch up at home - just a couple of hours. You also understand that you are working with outdated technology, so on weekends you learn a little new things. As a result, the working week stretches to 50 hours and even more - that's a lot ... and such a workload is very typical for developers.
It's even worse if you work for a company where overtime is common. Of course, sometimes you need to work a little longer to complete a project, that's understandable. But if overhauls happen constantly on every project and even every week, then something is wrong with the company.
Overworking at work affects all other aspects of life: stress increases dramatically, social life suffers, you get tired faster. Sleep problems may appear, it will be difficult to concentrate, and mood suddenly changes. Due to a weakened immune system, you are more likely to gain or lose weight and other medical problems. Moreover, overloading will make you work less efficiently, and therefore the original goal of doing better work will not be achieved.
In short, overwork should be avoided. But how can this be achieved?
You need to set boundaries - both for yourself and for others. Set the limit for working hours per week: 40, 50 - whichever you think is correct. Let your colleagues and bosses know that this limitation is good for them too, because you can't stay productive if you work harder.
If you are overwhelmed with work, refuse new tasks. Effective division of tasks is also your boss's responsibility. If you are usually willing to take on new responsibilities, your boss may not know that your schedule is already tight. So communicate your workload - politely but firmly. If the boss does not pay attention to this over and over again, remember that you can always leave: do not stay in a hostile environment longer than necessary.
Organize your free time. Many people relax by playing games or watching TV shows. If that's what helps you, great. But try other activities as well: walking, gym, gardening. Any activity will certainly be more useful in terms of rest from work than just lying on the couch. In addition, exercising can reduce some of the adverse effects of overexertion.
Have a clear training schedule. Don't try to squeeze in more hours on one day: this is ineffective and will only tire you. It is better to do half an hour or an hour a day than six hours once a week. Don't try to cover many topics at once - choose them carefully: it is better to focus on one thing than to go to the top. If you are interested in learning more about this, I have a whole article.about a smart approach to teaching programming.
Photo by Markus Listed from Unsplash.com
The fixed mindset
Have you seen that 22-year-old prodigy sitting at two tables from you? He is a full stack developer, knows everything about servers and starts working in DevOps. Or Sarah from the second floor: she is a database and cloud computing specialist - she is predicted to be a CTO in a year or two. It seems that these two are some kind of superhuman: they do not seem to be overworked, but they already know everything.
And you? You feel like you're struggling to stay afloat. The industry is constantly changing, you are tired and you will never learn anything useful again. You might even be fired soon - who knows?
Such thoughts often haunt me too: it seems to me that I am not a good enough specialist, that there are high-quality programmers around, and I cannot advance further as a professional. But the reason for these thoughts is what the American psychologist Carol Dweck called the fixed mindset or "fixed" thinking.
With this way of thinking, you think that your qualities are unchanged: you are smart, hardworking, you show concentration in some way, but that's all. And if someone in these areas is better than you - well, out of luck. As it is, so it is, nothing can be changed.
For a programmer, the fixed mindset is a huge disadvantage, because we have to constantly learn and adapt. If we believe that we are not good enough, we will end up falling behind even further. On the contrary, we need to think that we can become better and learn new things - otherwise we can start looking for another job.
Moving from a fixed mindset to a professional growth mindset means believing that with the effort you can change and develop - and that mindset can work wonders. Whoever you are now, you have the opportunity to become better. If you work hard and handle it smartly, you will realize this opportunity - you will become a better specialist.
It is possible that others can do more than you - but this does not have to be always so. You are able to grow professionally and learn new things - remember this.
About the translator
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