Happy New Year everyone!!
This is the right time to reflect on your previous year and start a new beginning. Make new resolutions that can improve your life, career, and knowledge. Following are 5 resolutions I think will make you a better developer at the end of the year and they have the potential to improve your career and life.
#1 – Try before you cry
Every day, in a developer’s life, there are hundreds of issues. But before looking for a solution, we jump to a conclusion. For example, another team checked in some changes and now my code is not working because of them; there was some deployment overnight and now the application is not running; someone changed the app settings; some specific functionality is not working etc. The list goes on and on and on.
Stop complaining about everything. First, look for the real issue. This might not be the reason you believe. Do some research before you drop that email blaming somebody. Even better, find the resolution for the issue if you can and suggest the change. That will definitely ring a bell to your leadership during the appraisal cycle.
#2 – Do what no one does
Many times, a company looks for resources to work on some tool or technology. No one seems to be interested in working on those tools or technologies thinking it's too challenging or not good for their future. But who knows the future?
Be the first to jump on to work on something new. It might be a terrible tool but you are one of the few who knows how it works. It draws the attention of your manager. It gives you an advantage of being compared with a small group of people in your company rather than the crowd. It might be possible that some good company is looking for a resource well-versed in that tool and there are a very few experts in the market. That can give you a very good opportunity.
Never miss the opportunity to be unique!!
#3 – Think Business
In this rat race, it is easy to think for one sprint. Let’s develop some crap code to get the user stories done for this sprint. But that may have cost you big time last year. Don’t repeat the same mistake again this year.
Try to understand the complete feature or business before working on any user stories. Otherwise, the possibilities are that you will have to undo your sprint one code on sprint 10 and work late nights to fix the design issue. Understand the business first, then start designing your code to complete the requirement.
#4 – Switch bad with the good
Are you planning to reduce your smoking or reduce your sugar intake this year? Let me give you a plan. The time that you used in smoking or going for a coffee break last year, can be replaced with some time in reading. If you can utilize those 30 minutes of two breaks a day in learning, you will develop a healthy habit with a better use of time.
Let me tell you a story about a very good friend of mine. He adopted this habit last year. At the beginning of this year, he is nominated as a C# Corner MVP. It is amazing to see how much he is able to achieve by just devoting 30 minutes of his time daily. (Kudos to you bro!!!)
#5 – Pass the knowledge
Don’t aim to create dependency in a project. It will kill your time like anything. If there is some issue on a weekend and you are the only one who knows how to fix it, then your weekend will be ruined for sure. This will stop you from learning a new thing as you are busy working on the same thing over and over again. Once you get the knowledge, pass it on to someone who can maintain it, and move on to learn new things. It will prepare you for the upcoming opportunity without even spending additional time.
Please let me know what you think of this list. Don’t forget to mention the items that I missed, in the comments below.