{"id":4810,"date":"2021-02-08T10:42:14","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T09:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/?p=4810"},"modified":"2021-02-08T10:42:14","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T09:42:14","slug":"too-busy-to-learn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/blog\/too-busy-to-learn\/","title":{"rendered":"If you\u2019re \u201ctoo busy to learn more\u201d, you need to read this"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n\n\n<\/p>\n

Working in a coding school, there is a phrase I sometimes hear which I am never entirely sure how to respond to: \u201cI am too busy with work at the moment to be learning new things on top of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reason I\u2019m not sure how to respond, is that I can\u2019t find a tactful way of saying that this entire way of thinking is a problem<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Before I say anything else, I want to be clear from the outset that the point of this article isn\u2019t to push anyone to do more hours at work. Absolutely<\/em> not<\/em>. Few things drive me up the walls like hearing self-styled influencers in the tech scene announce that you\u2019re \u2018not a real developer\u2019 if you\u2019re not coding 60 or 70 hours a week, and I\u2019ve written before about the importance of taking care of your well-being<\/a> and avoiding burnout<\/a>.
<\/p>\n

No developer, at any stage of their career, should be expected not to have time to dedicate to friends and family.
<\/p>\n

That being said, one principle that I do believe quite firmly is that if you are in this line of work, then you should be learning <\/em>by working<\/em>. That’s why being too busy to learn is a contradiction.
<\/p>\n

In a field as creative, as challenging and potentially as complex as that of programming, this is really not an unreasonable expectation. In fact, it\u2019s a matter of staying competitive: the treadmill of technology moves quickly, and if you don\u2019t regularly update and sharpen your skills, these will eventually become obsolete.
<\/p>\n

The good news is that the sense of being \u2018too busy to learn\u2019 is very often illusory. The matter of how to organise one\u2019s schedule and priorities outside of work is wide enough that I will give it its own blog next week<\/a>, but I want to dedicate this space to the more specific side of the question, how can I learn on the job?<\/em>
<\/p>\n

Firstly, the process does not start in the office \u2013 it starts at the application level. You may not always have as much choice as you\u2019d like in terms of where you will be working, sure, but you should make it a rule of applying for positions that match your learning aspirations. Avoid, in particular, those projects you\u2019re overqualified for: they may feel easy and relaxing for as long as you\u2019re working on them, but your knowledge will stagnate over their duration, and on the long term you\u2019ll be damaging your own career. Apply for jobs which allow you to expand on your skills, and when said jobs are not doing that anymore, don\u2019t just sit on them \u2013 move on.
<\/p>\n

Once you do have a job, to ensure you are growing, there are two things that you should be: proactive <\/em>and communicative<\/em>. Proactive, because you can\u2019t allow yourself to be slotted by the rest of your team into repetitive chores. Instead, get to work on prototyping, and take on new problems, keeping it reasonable (don\u2019t start doing something you don\u2019t fully understand if messing it up will cost your company half its budget).
<\/p>\n

You should be communicative, because you ought to be clear with your boss that letting you expand your skills and trying out new things, even when the returns are not immediate, will benefit the company in the long run. If your boss is smart, you\u2019ll be given that flexibility.
<\/p>\n

Communicating is also important because that\u2019s how you find out about upskilling opportunities. Sometimes, a dev who complains that s\/he is too busy to learn simply hasn\u2019t looked into the training programs offered by their company. Big tech companies in particular often like to \u2018develop their developers\u2019 inhouse.
<\/p>\n

So, sit down with your boss, explain to him\/her that you are currently not making any personal progress, and ask to enrol on a training program \u2013 one that is included in your working hours.
<\/p>\n

On the topic of working hours \u2013 while I stressed the importance of having free time, it is not unreasonable to suggest spending a little bit of it \u2013 perhaps just a few hours per week \u2013 listening to podcasts or conferences on new technologies (as promised, we will go into greater detail on how to organise these activities next week). Cultivating yourself this way, for anyone who loves coding, should be a matter of pleasure, not duty.
<\/p>\n

Finally, as a last resort, consider leaving, or else upskilling outside of work<\/a>. If your job really doesn\u2019t offer any learning opportunities, the extra hours it demands are untenable, your boss is inflexible, your commute is too long, or whatever other issue is getting in the way of your ability to develop yourself, then perhaps you are simply not in the right place. And for that, there\u2019s always a solution.
<\/p>\n

\n\n\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Learning by working should not be optional for a programmer. And it should not come at the expense of your free time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":4809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62634,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4810\/revisions\/62634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}