Importance of Focus, Work/Life Balance and some Tips.

Photo by Evan Dennis

I’ll start with some specifics about me. I’m 53 years old (as of 2018) and have been a professional developer since 1990. For all intents and purposes, that was back in the pre-object-oriented days. Sure there were a few practicing OO back then, but the majority were not. Back in 1998 I started my web development journey. I got good. I mean real good. There was a time when I was considered the best at the company I work for. A short time… maybe 5 to 7 years. Believe me, I’m not bragging. You’ll see that in just a bit.

I got to the point where I could do just about anything with HTML, javascript and just a smidgen of CSS. Once I had a department ask me to redo their Flash (remember Flash?) site in HTML. They had all kinds of shapes popping in and out on mouseover and other various movements happening with elements on the page.

Oh how I had SO much fun remaking that. It took a few weeks and admittedly, it wasn’t quite as good as the Flash site, but I was very proud of it. I thought, “Wow! I’m really good at this.” Pffff. I had a rude awakening later.

Then I did a couple of high-profile sites for our HR department and they turned out really well. I built my own CMS from the ground up (’cause that’s the way you did it back then). And people were like, “That’s awesome!”

BTW, I rarely did this in a vacuum. Usually I had another developer working with me, but those developers were typically heads-down, I-gotta-get-this-done type developers. I was more of a, this-is-awesome-I-gotta-try-it or this-sounds-like-fun-I-think-I’ll-waste-tons-of-time-figuring-it-out, kind of developer. “Ohhh.. a shiny object!”. That was me.

Anyway, my career went pretty good from there. Remember the people that said, “That’s awesome”? Well, a bunch more started saying, “Can you do this for me? And that? And this other thing?” I could ‘do anything’ and did and people thought highly of me because of it. This was the beginning of the end.

At one time I counted and found that I was responsible for more than 50 sites and applications. Many of them using myriad tools. Things like: HTML, javascript, CSS, ASP.Net, VB, VB.Net, c#, Winforms, console, SQL, Oracle, batch, IIS, Apache, Java, Sharepoint, .Net framework (versions 1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.5, 2, 2.1, 2.4, 3, 3.5, 4, ad infinitum), MVC, Entity Framework, Angular (1.x and 2), TFS, github, etc…

I woke up one day and realized, “I’m barely okay at any of these. I’m not an expert, good or even mediocre at any one of them (asp.net was probably my strongest). I needed to focus more. Get good at just a handful. The problem? I couldn’t. I was always buried maintaining all the past work I’d done. Sure, most of them were rock-solid, but with 50+, something always needed either fixing or upgrading. I couldn’t focus.

Meanwhile, all these 20 somethings were coming in and passing me up like I was standing still. They were able to focus and get really good at a particular skill or small set of skills. Many times I’d counsel these youngsters to keep it that way if they could. A few times I even said, “If you find yourself getting spread thin and not able to focus, you NEED to move on. You’re young and/or haven’t started a family. You can take a chance and do it. Trust me, it’s in your best interest.”

It was at that time that I started trying to carve out time to specialize. At first it was javascript. I could see the writing in the sky (not ‘on the wall’ that has negative connotations). Javascript was becoming king. More and more tools were coming out making developing for javascript thrilling, fun and enjoyable. And then there was Node. You could run javascript on a freakin’ server and do pretty much anything with it. Even more with various NPM packages.

So for a little while I would spend a half hour to an hour every night trying to learn it. It didn’t last. I started getting burned out. Always completely exhausted and unable to focus on anything day and night. I then noticed something that I should’ve noticed a long time ago. My four boys were not getting any quality time from me and hadn’t for quite some time. So I stopped. I just put my ‘nose to the grind stone’ (look it up if you don’t understand the reference. it’s a good one to know) and did my job and tried to spend more time with my kids.

All this time these 20-somethings just kept passing me up, left and right. I became more and more depressed about work. I wanted so badly to focus and get really good at something. I didn’t see myself as adding any real value to the company, even though I really was. We call it ‘keeping the wheels on the bus’ syndrome and there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s good work. Someone famous once said, “There is no work beneath you, except sloppy or incomplete work” — paraphrased. Also, I didn’t feel like I was adding value at home.

I then did something REALLY stupid, even though later you’ll see it might be working out. A new position opened up in our brand new Internet of Things department. I thought, “you know what? I’m going to apply for that and see if I can get it.” Mind you, they were using some technologies that I’d just barely heard of (AWS, lambdas, grunt, Jenkins, xcode, node, elastic search, etc…). I was SO happy when they hired me. I thought, FINALLY… I can offload all my past work and focus on something. Boy was I wrong.

I started working for the IoT department with the understanding that I’d work 90% for them and 10% on my old stuff until it could get transitioned to someone else. Most of you can probably guess what happened. That someone else never came along and still hasn’t to this day and yes I’m STILL doing some work on my old stuff.

My IoT work suffered for it, but the management there was and has been very understanding. They know all too well that the wheels must remain on the bus.

Meanwhile, I started thinking about the work/life balance again and how to fix it so that I could interact with my kids in a meaningful way and still be able to focus on learning some skill(s). Something occurred to me to try. I plopped my laptop down on the dining room table and began to learn. The important ingredient here though is that I had every expectation that my kids would interrupt that learning and want to ask questions, ask for money, talk about the latest game they were playing or something cool that happened at school or gasp… even about their girlfriends. I had determined that while I wanted to learn a new skill and get really good at it, my kids needed me and I needed them. They were FAR more important than the latest technological kid on the block. I mentally prepared myself for the fact that they would interrupt and I had to be okay with that.

You know what? I’ve had some of the best conversations, laughs and generally good relationship building experiences I’ve ever had at that table lately. The important thing is they know they’re loved and I know that I’m loved.

So… how are things on the IoT and learning front?

I recently went to my boss and said, “I need to get rid of this old stuff, can we please come up with a plan to transfer it to someone else?” He said, “Sure, let’s do it. Tim, I want you to be successful because it’s good for the company, it’s good for me and it’s good for you.” I don’t usually cry, but wow I was close then.

We came up with a plan and for the past couple months, I’ve been successfully implementing it. The old department still hasn’t hired an employee to replace me, but they did get a contractor. At first, I was worried about this because when that contract was up I felt I’d have to do it all over again. However, my boss and I sat down with their management and drew a line in some fairly firm sand saying something akin to, “Tim does knowledge transfers to the contractor. If that contractor leaves and no one else knows the stuff, that’s your problem. So you need to pass that knowledge on amongst yourselves. Tim can NOT be doing these transfers in perpetuity.”

I’ve got one more knowledge transfer to do next week and I’m done.

Lately, just knowing that, has given me more energy (at work and home) and more enthusiasm about learning. Not just about learning React (BTW, that’s my new learning path and I’ll explain why in the next article), but about learning the handful of technologies in our IoT department too.

Who knows what the future holds, but I seem to be on the right trajectory.

If you’re new at this or a veteran… I don’t usually give advice, but please listen to these points. They should be immutable.

• Faith and family first. Always. No matter what.
  That doesn’t mean you blow off work because of them. God made us to work. It’s one of our primary functions in life. Witness for Him. Part of that witness, part of telling others about Him is doing our very best at work. Faith and family first is non-negotiable, but should NEVER be an excuse.
• Focus. No matter what.
  Focus in your faith (be sure to read/study the bible and pray regularly)
  Focus on your family (make yourself available)
  Focus on your health (without it, things tend to fall apart).
  Focus on your work (I love the pomodoro technique. It just works for me, but find SOME way of focusing).
  Focus on your learning, but not at the expense of any of the above. Find some way to balance it.
  Focus in all these areas is essential to quality of life.

These may seem like no-brainers to some, but I’m guessing I’m not the only one out there that’s had this type of journey.

Of course, things aren’t perfect and sometimes life gets in the way of itself, but I know I’m headed in the right general direction. Because of these changes, I’ve been more alert, attentive, sharper and yes… focused.

Things, ideas, concepts (whatever) at work seem to make more sense, more quickly because my mind is less cluttered, less distracted, less tired.

A less immutable piece of advice, hm… can something be a little bit or a pretty much completely immutable?, I digress. A piece of advice that you’ll want to think and pray about before taking is this: If you get to a place where you’re spread too thin to learn something, anything well, work towards a change. It may take a while, but it’s probably going to be a good move.

If you find yourself unable to change things and are required to remain a generalist, you can still try to be the best generalist around. People will probably sit up and take notice. Just knowing that you’re truly doing your best can give you wonderful peace of mind and help you think more clearly and focused. I’m thinking I’ve said that word a bit to often :).

Written by Timothy LeForge who lives and works near Grand Rapids Michigan and loves trying out new technologies and teaching others whatever he can teach.
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