Staying Fresh
I recently took a hiatus from doing any personal software development, and for good reason as well. Over the past month, I was feeling a little bit tired of what I was doing; starting to feel "burnt out", if you will. This is a huge problem, because if you don't love what you do, you're in the wrong field of work. Software Development is a constant learning process for me, and is my number one passion in life, and getting tired of it would mean losing a huge portion of what I love, and what makes me who I am.
The reason I was starting to get out was due to something that happens every day, do every developer. Your current knowledge becomes outdated. Working with the same technology over and over, you begin to write cookie-cutter code; code that can be duplicated time and time again. It's no longer unique. It's no longer you. This stems from me forgetting to do something that is fundamental to any developer on a daily, if not hourly basis. I forgot to keep learning. Projects that were partially completed just hung in the ether, never seeing the light of day, constantly being reassured that, "Yes, yes, I will work on you tomorrow!"
After a brief hiatus to the casual, personal programming I know and love, I've opted to do two things that will keep me learning for at least the next several years:
- I've registered to go back to school. I'll be heading to University as a part time student to further my credentials and learn new things
- I've made it a goal to write one new, interesting piece of software every week. This can be as simple as a script, or as complex as a website; the project doesn't matter. At the end of every week, I want to be able to point to a piece of code and say, "I learned that this week."
With these two goals hanging over my shoulders, I'm diving back into the world of development with new resolution and determination.