At the beginning of 2014, I felt my development job, although secure and comfortable, was going nowhere. There was so much I knew I didn’t know. I felt I could do so much better. I made a New Years’ resolution to take my career development seriously by consciously making time for learning and improving my skills.
I had heard of people in my position quitting their job, taking six months off work to concentrate on building their skills and prepping for FAANG interviews. That was a step too far for me. I considered putting in a flexible working request to move to four days per week. This would leave me a day to develop myself. I decided it would be better to have a trial first. I booked off the four Fridays in February as leave to see how I could use the time.
Each Friday I went to the free Google Campus co-working space in London or if it was full a nearby Starbucks with massive sofas. My idea was to create myself time in a relaxed environment that I associated with learning.
For those four Fridays, my topic was testing, concentrating on test-driven development. I watched video courses, worked through two books and practised using programming katas. In between, I applied what I was learning in my day job. This felt great and at the end of the month, I was finally making progress again.
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After my trial, I did not feel ready to give up a day a week of salary by moving to four days a week. What was working well was learning a bit and then applying what I learned. Could I just get up an hour earlier and do this at home before work? I saw a massive sofa in a furniture shop like the ones in Starbucks for £1,600. Could I buy that as my “learning sofa” to create a suitable environment at home?
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I did the sums in my head. £1,600 would buy eight hundred £2 teas in Starbucks. That was a tea a day, every working day for three years. Why not just sit in my local Starbucks on their sofa and treat the £2 as rent for the space for an hour with a free drink thrown in.
That is what I did, instead of leaving for work at 8:30, I started going to Starbucks at 7:30 each day. It was nearly always empty at that time with relaxing jazz playing. I gave myself a focused hour dedicated to self-improvement before going to work. As time went on, some days I also started to go for an hour on my way home from work and on weekend mornings too until I averaged ten hours per week.
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Ten hours a week is a working week per month. That is equivalent to three working months per year but of focused learning time, not meetings or distractions. I doubt taking six months off to study would have been as effective. Eight years later I am writing this at the same Starbucks. I have paid for the sofa several times over but building that simple routine and sticking to it transformed my career development.
Investing in learning meant I was ahead of the curve at work when it came to tools, techniques and technologies. I started to pick up the most interesting and impactful work which made my career so much more interesting and rewarding. The skill became choosing where to focus next to maintain the momentum.