Real Python - A shoutout to the street-fighting dev

Hey there,

You know what sucks about life as a “professional developer”?

Not having enough time to sit down and focus on learning.

In school (or university etc) it was easy to carve out hours to hole up and study some really intricate stuff. It didn’t even have to have an immediate “return on investment” for my time.

Heck, I “wasted” whole afternoons reading books about Prolog. Something that I’ll probably never use in my “professional life”.

And you know what? Hanging out at the university library reading about arcane stuff without a worry in the world felt GREAT.

It’s not so easy anymore, though. Fast forward a few years later and now you’ve got real responsibilities: a job, a spouse, a pet… kids maybe.

And don’t get me wrong, OF COURSE these relationships are the number one priority in our lives. I’m so insanely happy that I’ve found my wife, I wouldn’t want to trade her for anything or anyone else

Sometimes I just miss the geeky days. For some reason, it’s become more and more difficult to get into a “deep learning” state… to find time to hide in the bat cave and to tear into some juicy and arcane stuff.

I think the core of it is that juggling learning and keeping up with new stuff is so difficult.

NEW STUFF just keeps pouring in, new frameworks, new languages, new language features, new projects etc etc.

And on other days it’s just an overwhelming downpour of mundane stuff and drudgery, grumpy coworkers, “agile” stand-ups, and the like…

I mean for most of the time-management related problems we know the remedy, right? Setting goals, planning out a schedule, and so on.

I’ve been pretty strict about setting a schedule for my days but sometimes it’s so damn hard to follow it. It’s too easy to get sidetracked. Too easy to procrastinate.

And it’s silly, too. Most days we know what needs to be done—yet why is it so frickin hard to execute on your great ideas sometimes?

It’s a cliché, but it really does feel like some days there simply AREN’T enough hours in the day.

So why does it feel so exhausting to manage your time, and corralling your attention and energy to get the things done you want to do? To tell you the truth, I don’t know the answer. A lot of it is probably just a part of the human condition.

You might be studying Python or training some other skill part-time right now, taking courses and probably spending 20 hours or so a week to get ahead —

And I just want to say that is AMAZING. I know how much dedication it takes, how much energy it takes to show up every day or every couple of days and to work towards that goal…

I just got off the phone with a developer friend who’s knee-deep in this stuff right now, struggling with feeling overwhelmed. And this feeling stayed with me when I sat down to write the weekly newsletter.

Really, I just wanted to send you some love today :) Keep up the good fight, it’ll pay off eventually.

Seriously, keep up the fight. You’ll have to go through some back-breaking, grueling stuff sometimes (a lot of times) but I know you’ll be able to see through it… It will be worth it.

Happy Pythoning!

— Dan Bader