while1malloc0@beehaw.orgtoExperienced Devs@programming.dev•How do you remain on track with toddlers onboard?English
10·
1 year agoI’m a staff engineer with a toddler and went through (am going through?) a similar thing. At the end of the day, I’m just tired and want to veg, not necessarily try to learn something new about programming. There were a few things that helped me though:
- The biggest thing was just to recalibrate my expectations. I talked with other dev parents who all said that, until the kids are able to play a bit more independently (eg 6 or so), you just have to accept that your self enrichment time is going to be limited.
- For my off hours learning, I stick to mainly portable skills. Ways of thinking about technical debt, etc. Things that are both widely applicable, and can be learned more passively.
- I try to carve out time to learn during work hours. I’m lucky in that the company I work for allows for a lot of independence, so my team actually instituted an “investment day” where we work on whatever we want, with the only goal being that you should try to do something that you’ll learn from.
Second that. Hachyderm was the community that got me into the fediverse and it’s remained extremely high quality as it’s grown. The mods are thoughtful and—as far as I can tell—transparent.