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| *...it's my "Never stop learning or growing tree" |
I had a really good conversation with a member my team earlier this week during our one on one meeting who simply asked, "How do I get to the next level as a developer?" I continue to ask this of myself over the years and as I've mentored others (and admittedly myself as well) I've found that are three principles that I apply year over year...
Grow Wider
Technology is constantly changing. Languages, tools, frameworks, systems, design approaches, everything is in flux. This is wonderful because there is an unlimited smorgasboard to choose from. I find something new to learn every year. It may not be directly related to my current work or project, but learning a new language shows you new approaches to solving a problem that you can broaden your mindset with. I also find it it refreshing to be able to start from scratch and have everything "new and big" again. Learn native mobile development if all you've done are WebAPIs. Dabble with CI/CD automation if you always let somebody else deploy your code. Learn to tap dance! You won't be disappointed.
Grow Deeper
While it may be tempting to always work with new things, there are certain challenges that require a depth of knowledge that you can't achieve without taking the time to really know your language/framework/tool/system. Take the time to grow deeper. Become the specialist in performance for your framework since there will be a time when every millisecond will count. Learn the design system for your stack so you can more readily build in depth user experiences. Find that thing that really excites or intrigues you and learn every facet about it. Going deeper in a few places will give you a greater appreciation for what you build and make you the "go to" person when something big comes up.
Get 1% Better
A few years back I was given a copy of Darren Hardy's The Compound Effect and then subscribed to his Darren Daily videos. This paired up nicely with a training course I was in that asked the question, "What was something we could do 1% better with this course?" The idea behind this is that we often think too much about the "big picture" changes that we want to make, feel like we don't have the time to actually do them, and thus get stuck in a rut. However, if we can find something today, tomorrow, and the next, that is just 1% better, and compound this over time, the changes will be amazing. Maybe the change is simply spending a little more time in those code reviews to understand things more. Maybe the change is asking a random question in your teams Slack thread to get a conversation going about adopting best practices. Maybe the change is listening to one 30 minute podcast while you're doing the dishes or on the drive to learn a bit more. You won't see these changes immediately, but when you look back in a year or two, you'll be suprised and what has happened.
Guess what?!
Guess what?! These tricks don't apply to just development, they apply to pretty much everything else in life too. Give it a shot 8^D
What Else?
Any principles, tips, reseources that have helped you grow? Anything you think I could explain 1% better above? I'd love to hear it.