Building Better Developers - A Guide to Holiday Planning and Reflection

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer Podcast, where we work on getting better step by step, professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. You may have noticed that we had a slightly different intro this time with our little Thanksgiving special Turkey Gobble thing, which Michael's looking at that going, I got to find that little piece of music and make sure that he does that when he edits this podcast. Yes, he does. It's in there. I think it's called Turkey Gobble. A little bit of inside baseball there. We are Building Better Developers. We are Develop-a-Nur. I am Rob Brodhead, one of the founders of Develop-a-Nur, also a founder of RB Consulting, where we help you make your business better. We find the ways that you are using technology great and find ways to do that better. We find ways that you're not using your technology and find ways to either kick it to the curb or leverage that. And all of those points in between, the focus being simplification, automation, integration, ways to take that technology sprawl and put it into a nice little bucket or a little box with a bow on it because, hey, it's holiday season. Good and bad. We're going to, in this special episode, we're going to talk a little bit about, we're going to open it up and talk about good and bad for this year. So bad for this year is, it was a, from a business point of view, this is one of the most challenging years I've had in a long time and in years and years. I can't remember when I last had this much of a challenge. And it was basically just a lot of stuff that just, you know, a lot of timing issues and stuff like that. So it's just like a lot of projects that started to look really well and then, you know, people ran out of funding or they freaked out a little bit about like the markets or the world around them, things like that. So not a great year business-wise. Good thing is that even in this bad year, and it sort of goes to that thankful kind of idea of this week, even with all those challenges, there was growth, there was skill growth. I mean, I'm actually, I can say I'm a better developer than I was when I started this year. And there's just a lot of opportunities there going forward. So even though it's, you know, it's one of those, I guess it's like when you're, when you're, you know, face down on the dirt, they'll only, you know, it's easy to get up fairly quickly and things like that. But so there's definitely better days ahead, even though there may have been some nasty ones behind. Better days ahead for all of you guys, because now you get to get an introduction from Michael. Go ahead and share that with us. Hey everyone. My name is Michael Milosz. I'm one of the co-founders and developer. Also the founder of Envision QA, where we help small to mid-sized businesses kind of analyze their software stack, figure out if the software they're using really meets the business requirements. And if they don't, we help them build custom solutions or find that right solution for their particular situations. Good and bad for the year. Good start out with the fact that I relaunched my company. I went from watch consulting, rebranded, re-nitched and got off to a good start this year. Started off with a good customer and things are moving forward and things are looking bright. Bad side, kind of all the things going on in the world, unfortunately have had some family health issues and we're still dealing with that even towards the end of the year. It's just one of those things where sometimes they just can't figure it out and you're stuck with questions. And we'll get through it. So he mentioned end of year and that's what we want to talk about this time. We're getting into this holiday week, which for some people is always sort of interesting is some people this is actually we're getting into a busier time. If you're in the world of certain areas, particularly if you're in these places that have these Black Friday sales and this is the time of year where they're ramping everything up. And it may be that it's some sort of selling some sort of product or maybe you're in the food industry or something like that where maybe there's more people out there eating more meals, travel where people are moving around or events where it's still like maybe Thanksgiving events and Christmas events and New Year's events and Diwali events and all these things. It could be very busy for you. But for some of us, it's not so much. And so I really want to talk about the I guess we'll take both of them. But for those of you where things are like settling down a little bit, that is that makes it like this is a perfect time to do a little bit of a retrospective. We talk about this every year is take this time to look back on how did your year go? What are some things that you had on your list that you started off maybe your New Year's resolutions that have faded into the woodwork somewhere? Or are there some things that you got accomplished? Are there some things that in particular right now, are there some things that you could still accomplish if you would just like buckle down for the next few weeks and try to knock these things out? And if not, complete them and accomplish them. Are there some things where it would make a lot of sense to kick the accomplishment or completing that into next year, but use these next few weeks to set yourself up for success? Examples that I've used in the past are things like if you want to write a book next year, like that's one of the things that maybe you're going to do it this year, or you're going to do it next year, then what do you need to do to get started on that? Where maybe you want to start some of your research or look into what are the tools for writing a book or publishing a book or reaching out to people to figure out how you're going to go through those processes. Or if you want to start podcasts, maybe you want to go through what's involved with that. What do you need to do to get the wheels in motion for that? If you want to create a product, maybe it is a good time for you to sit down and actually those are one of the things that I find it's really good in these less hectic times to spend a little bit of time put together requirements or maybe some design thoughts, but then allow that to just like percolate a little bit in there so that as you get into the next year that you've got a better set of requirements and design and things that you have actually thought through that you may spend a little bit of time on it and allow those to think in and just work through some of those scenarios. It does make that process better if you've now got sort of like it's a second nature for you to think about how that works and what's the product and what is it providing and how do the features and all of those things that make up a product. Now along all of this time as well, you do want to be able to like take a few minutes like chill a little bit, relax a little bit, things like that and re-energize basically because you've had a year. It's like whatever you've done, it's been a year. It's been at this point 11 months and if you haven't taken a little bit of time to like chill and relax and enjoy life then go do that as well and there's nothing wrong with going out and enjoying life a little bit and you don't have to feel guilty about it because sometimes those are the best times to get those ideas or solve that problem that's been really difficult to solve. We've talked about walking away and taking a break and things like that. So there's just a few of those things that as I, every year as I get into this time, these are things that start to like you know bounce around in my head because there's some things like well what if I, what do I really want to get done before the end? How am I going to do this like last push and then looking forward to next year is starting to be, you should at least now start to put some things on your radar like what are some of the things I want to do next year? Now one of the things I want to do right now is throw this over to Michael and see like what are some, what are your thoughts on this and where are you at in your year-end rituals as we'll call them? So it's kind of an interesting dilemma for me from year to year. It almost changes because it kind of flows with the seasons of work because some years the start of my year is always kind of slow and then it's like usually quarter Q2 and Q4 are like my busiest times of the year. And then other years it's like Q1 and Q3 are like slammed and then Q2 and Q4 are just quiet. So a lot of things I really struggle with this time of year is how do I get to a point where I can step away and actually spend time with the family during the holidays because for our family Thanksgiving isn't just about the turkeys and that our daughter was also born on Thanksgiving. So it's also a time of celebration for us. We, you know, you have Thanksgiving parties, you have birthday parties, things of that. So it's a lot to juggle just for family requirements and obligations. With work, it's interesting because as I get into Q4, I start looking at planning out where I need to be for next year. You know, you start looking at the books, you start making sure things are balanced, that you can cover the bills to the end of the year. And then do you have what you need to go into next year? You know, do you have that little nest egg so you don't start next year off kind of in the red? Sometimes that happens because just time wise with holidays and that checks don't always come when they are supposed to. The other thing is for me personally, I always start reflecting on what were the goals? Like you said, you know, what were we trying to accomplish at the start of the year? Where am I at? You know, you kind of go through those checkpoints of did I accomplish most of what I was trying to do? You know, we try to stick to that 80-20 principle because you aren't always going to get 100% done, but you don't want to beat yourself up. If you're not even at 80%, then you get a kind of question, did you set your goals too high or what happened? You know, did you have a shift? Because sometimes, especially around the holidays, if you aren't meeting your goals, if you're not kind of staying on track, it can get a little depressing because you're like, oh crap, you know, things aren't going right. Things aren't, it can be a hot mess. Usually that's when you need to stop, take a step back and just, you know, like we've talked about in building better habits, make those lists, kind of reset, set those goals. And I'm actually doing that this weekend. I've actually been going through and getting the books ready to wrap up for the year, met with the accountant yesterday. So I'm starting to get into that year end mindset, but already looking at next year as to what I need to do, what customers do I need to start bringing in and things like that. However, it's not just work again. You know, you got to make sure you plan for those holidays and make sure that you have time for your family and time for yourself, because this is also one of those times where obligations from work and obligations from family can overlap. And you might get a little stressed out because there's too much going on. If you find that happening, just make, cut your list back a little bit. You know, what is not mission critical? Move that maybe to the first quarter or move that, you know, to your non-family time so that you can spend time with the family. And that might help get easy through the holidays. Yeah, I think it's, this is where it's always a challenge for me. And also the message even that we have during this season is because there's, we are, as part of like building better developers and stuff like that, we are driven. There are things that we do that we don't work nine to fives. We don't, you know, clock in and clock out and that work lives with us. It is, it is yet another family member. Sometimes it's the most obnoxious family member. And sometimes it's a great one. And so it's, this is always a time where there's that challenge of finding balance between spending some time to recharge, spending some time to enjoy your life outside of work, but also finding ways to take these lulls essentially in a way to use that to be better at your work. For example, one of the things that a lot of companies will do, they'll have a quiet period. You know, maybe it's, maybe it starts at Thanksgiving. Maybe it's, you know, the week, the last couple of weeks of December or there's different times like that. And you may have one in the middle of the summer sometimes, but when you have that quiet It's from a business point of view, it's a great time to catch up on technical debt. Now as an example for where it can help us is maybe there's some things that you are dealing with that are part of that idea of automation and things like that, where maybe there you're spending a lot of time on something and you need some time to, to just dig into it and actually automate it or house cleaning. For example, like I was just looking at stuff the other day because I've got a Dropbox account and had a bunch of stuff out there and it was saying like, wow, you've got a lot of crap out there. And it was like, you may want to run out, you may run out of space for storing all this stuff. I started looking at it and there's a lot of stuff that I don't need out there. It's old. It's not, it's like, you know, stuff that's out there. Mailbox is the same thing. You may have tons and tons of, depending on who you are, you may have an inbox that's got thousands of emails. If those things have been sitting there in six months, just like sweep through and delete them. At least now you have hundreds of emails instead of thousands. You know, it's things like that. Maybe there's a tool that you've been wanting to work with or a toy that you wanted to work with and use this time to like spend all the time to do it. One of my, just as a, you know, something that may help you out as a years ago, and I think I've talked about this, I would take the second, usually like two weeks off the Christmas and New Year's timeframe. Like a solid two weeks, maybe two and a half weeks. It sort of depended on how the holidays fell and what sort of vacation I had. This started when I worked for, you know, had an employer and I found I could take five or six days of vacation time and turn it into like two and a half weeks of vacation time when you factor in the holidays and stuff like that. Now during that time, it was always a great idea or a great opportunity for me to, because I had so much time and especially if I wasn't traveling or anything and we were just hanging out at home and doing the regular stuff, I had lots of time every day that I could also get some work done along with just like sleep in, chill, watch Christmas movies, whatever it happened to be. And I would get into a habit of, because it was just, you know, everybody else sort of sleeping in and stuff like that, I get up and maybe at, you know, seven, eight or nine, something like that, go spend three, four, five hours working, get into effectively lunch time and then just take the rest of the day off. And that was part of my deal. And so, I would go in and say, okay, I'm going to limit what I'm going to do. Yes, I'm going to do a little bit of work. I'm going to do some extra stuff, but I am, you know, essentially going to time box it or I'm going to limit it and say, at this point, I'm done for the day. And then I would go and then sometimes part of that was like, that means that I'm going to turn around and say, okay, so now I'm going to like go play some games for a couple hours or something like that because I have that opportunity. You know, it's finding that balance among these things. And you know, if you've been spending all year working 60, 70, 80 hours a week, something like that, it is not going to kill you to take a week or two off and to not work for those couple of weeks. You know, the work, trust me, work will still be there when you come back to it. So don't be afraid to walk away and allow yourself some time to like refresh and get back into it. And if you're like me and you enjoy your work, when you go away from it for a week or two, you're just that much more motivated to jump into it when you get back because probably you've had all these ideas while you were not working and it's like, oh, I want to do that. I want to do that. You've got all of these things. And now you're like, all right, now I get to go attack these again. Thoughts on that? Yeah, it's actually, it's a really good point because there's been times where you were on some of the projects with me on this where it's like we worked through the holidays, like we were working up to the deadlines and that helped no one because at the end of the day, the people you need to get the work done typically are not going to be around during the holidays and you're going to be stressing trying to get your piece done, but they're not there or people aren't there to answer your question. So it's better to take a pause, take some time off, reflect and go play a game, go for a walk, go do something that you normally don't have time to do. But the key is, you know, it's a time for family. If you're not around your family, maybe go find some friends or go hang out at a park, look for a parade or if you have a small town nearby, go check it out, go walk the storefront. Sometimes that's, if you're not a huge shopper, sometimes the decorations on like small towns or like malls are fun to just kind of walk around, just browse and watch. And I'm not really a mall person anymore, but I used to just enjoy walking around the mall. You don't have to worry about the weather and then, you know, get a hot cocoa. You just chill. And then when you're done, you go home, you relax. For those of you in colder climates, no, maybe sit down in front of a fireplace, you know, read a book, do something that is kind of outside your normal a little bit or something you just don't have time to do normally. Do it now. You know, take a break and you'll be more refreshed at the end of this week, going into the next week and getting ready for that last crunch for the end of the year. Yeah. And that's the thing is this, we've got stuff, we all have, you know, requirements and responsibilities and stuff like that we have to deal with. But if you get to the end of all of your days and you're looking back and all you've ever done is you've like, you can check off the boxes of the projects that you've completed or the work that you've done or the, you know, the boss's demands that you met or however it is, then you've missed out on life. There's a lot more to it. And while we do want to do the best that we can with, you know, the time we have, we're focusing on our job, there's also a whole other life out there. And feel free to explore a little bit, do something different. Like I recommend often when we get into the new year about like have a resolution that's different. Try and step into something you haven't done. And we talk about career stuff all the time. We talk about things like, why don't you try to write a book or, you know, start a podcast or do a blog or things like that, which are all good. And they don't necessarily have to be work related. They could be things like you start a blog on gardening or something like that. But if you have a hobby, particularly if you have a hobby that you have not had time for it in a while, take some of this time to actually go back and enjoy that hobby a little bit. If you struggle with a hobby, take two or three things and say, maybe this is something I would like. Try some things you haven't done. You know, like go take a painting class or go to like a yoga class at one of the local places or go for a walk or things like that. You know, as Michael said, like sometimes just walking around town, if you've got a good walkable downtown and going through storefronts, maybe you'll find a neat little restaurant or, you know, some sort of specialty store that you like or a place to just go like chill and have a coffee or a drink or whatever it happens to be, or to listen to music or just to hang out and listen to the conversations or people watch. There's so much more to life than the work. And this is a good time to be like thinking through those things. So not only how can you be a better developer, it's really like, how can you be a better you? How can you do the things that you enjoy and that you were meant to do and make the most of those? As always, one of the best ways you can do that is to send us an email at info at developandorder.com and let us know. I would love to hear during this season, what is maybe a holiday ritual or habit or something like that? What are some of the things that you do at the end of the year that have just become a part of who you are, particularly if it has to do with like, you know, some certain types of recreation time or things you do that really help you when you get into the January and February push of like starting a new year or how you find a way to just like knock off all those items on your list to get done this year that you haven't gotten done yet. Also, you can send us into comments, you can do likes and all that kind of stuff wherever you find podcasts. You can go out to the developandorder.com or the YouTube channel DevelopandOr. You can check this out. You can leave us feedback there. You go out to the developandorder.com site and you can go, there's a contact us form. You can sign up for the newsletters. There's all kinds of stuff out there. Note to self, I should probably mention that we have newsletters more often. I mean, it's not, you get the really good stuff, but the newsletter helps you get an idea of like, where are we going next and things like that. It just goes out once a month. It's not, and it's like anything else that's an electronic newsletter. You can always hit delete if you don't like it, but you know, it's just something to like keep up and sometimes we do send special stuff out. It's just sort of like a, hey, this is going on or hey, here's something we came across. So all of that's available on the site. That being said, enjoy this week. Enjoy the next couple of days as it's coming out. You got the Thanksgiving holiday coming around and maybe the madness of Black Friday, depending on what you're doing. And then we'll be getting into December as we're starting to get through the end of 2024, which is just, again, mind boggling. But while your mind is boggled, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Noor Podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success.