Reminder to be nice to yourself right now if you're trying and failing to learn new things after work or practice; things aren't great right now and it's not your fault. I've had multiple people reach out to me the past year and ask how do I find energy and time to learn new tech, or practice by building things.
The economy is either directly, or indirectly negatively affecting you, affecting management, which in turn may make your life harder, which in turn increases cognitive load & decision making amount, which increases burn out and results in decreased energy levels and passion. This is not your fault.
For those directly affected, the past 18 months, I've seen juniors and seniors take 6 to a year+ to find a new job. Some even already have a job. Many have gone through that, gotten hired, then laid off quickly. This crushes any passion/energy you had to learn new tech or build things; 100% of your energy is going to survival mode, leaving you wasted end of day. I've had phone calls where I literally told the person 5 days in a row "Just get up out of bed, submit 1 job application, do 1 interview, the chill. Just make it through today. Heck, make it to 4pm". Some don't have support. This is not your fault.
For those indirectly affected, we either feel bad we can't help a lot of our colleagues and friends as much as we want, we feel guilty posted successes, and this in turn negatively affects your energy to devote to learning new things and building things. This also includes increased work loads, or more challenging work loads. This is why you're more tired than usual; the work is more intense than usual. This is not your fault.
Management & Leadership are affected. This in turn can negatively affect their ability to give clear direction, micromanage, or not give direction, or worse, misdirection. Some are forced to take on more responsibility which can negatively affect their ability to lead, which in turn, can make your job more difficult. How can they support you and your team, shield you and the team, and provide clear direction when they're barely holding it together? Who you report to is a huge indicator of job satisfaction, so if that slips even a little, it can make your days and weeks feel awful despite amazing co-workers. This is not your fault.
The effects this has had on the job industry for those still working includes increased contractors/consultants + short term positions, and an increase in technical debt without a reduction in the scope of work. Worse code, and more of it to deal with. Technical debt is rough on your health and soul. Many contractors and consultants are amazing, but not all. Even the good ones don't have skin in the game, so many come in, leave a mess in the code base, leave, and you're left to deal with it. Many employee devs, who aren't managers, are managing these contractors, raising concerns that go nowhere beyond a rotation of a fresh body from the contracting/consulting firm. The code continues to get worse, the productivity continues to tank because of on-boarding, and devs + employees + contractor/consultant are all frustrated, negating any desire to code after work. This is not your fault.
Bad economy, frustrated managers, everyone has an increased workload, the work has more technical debt and you have to take a large bite of, chew, and smile so you don't get laid off, while managing more work, in an environment that isn't as strategically and tactically stable, increasing how many decisions you have to make amongst an air of insecurity. These are not your fault.
That's why you don't have energy to learn new tech and build things outside of work hours.
Some good news, though. The economy is getting better. The past 6 months, I've seen recruiters being hired again, the job (not contracting) opportunities have increased in my social media/email inbox, and many devs are either getting more possible offers, getting the job, or looking for a new job despite having one. Every USA presidential election has a recession without fail after 3 to 6 months after it with everyone claiming we've "already been in a recession". However, each time, in 2002, and 2009, and I'm betting in summer of 2025, tech was leading the way in seeing a light of positive change. Companies are hiring now, but are taking their time, and super careful about who they choose. You should do the same.
k, so how do you find the time and energy to learn new things & build despite the above challenges?
First, recognize you can't fix the economy. It's not your fault. If you're still looking for a job/contract, keep going. Just focus on making it through the day, or even just the next hour. If you already have a job but want a new one, recognize how awesome you have it; finding a new job when you're already employed makes you SOOO much more attractive as a prospect. Do not let the go to your head; be critical of an opportunity; a lot of companies have shown their true culture during these hard times, and you'll see the signs if it's a place you definitely want to head into or not. I know it may be brutal where you are at, but just remind yourself, "I just need to make it to 2nd quarter of 2025". Do your best, forget the rest.
Second, for those devs who just don't jive with your manager, you have 2 choices. You can recognize for some of them, it's their leadership which is making both of your jobs harder, and just tough it out, or find a new team or job. It can be super hard to see the 1st; yes their human, but their job is support me, right? True, but that assumes 50 things like they have clear direction, they're allowed to make the right calls (which many aren't allowed right now), have shoestring budgets, a lot of work on their plate, multiple projects to juggle... interestingly a lot of that can magically get better in a 1 day when leadership/product/business changes direction. Is that going to happen? If you're willing to make the bet, it could pay off. If you know you won't be successful where you're at, good for you for recognizing that. Do your work, and saving the 10% remaining energy budget for finding new opportunities, fueled by knowing you'll feel MUCH better under a new boss.
Third, for those dealing with mounds of technical debt, to use a Fight Club analogy, you've already hit rock bottom... and yet you're still here. Fix 1 bug. Modify 2 unit tests. If you have none, and struggle to create some, because Jest won't install, because the package manager is out of date, because the Docker container doesn't give you sudo permissions... you can quickly just spiral into despair by being overwhelmed. Don't fight all of it. Everything is on fire; just tackle ONE small fire; put it out. Focus on the little wins. They might not seem like much in the grand disaster(s) you're managing right now, but they are seen. Despite disaster, you're helping. Remember what Mr. Rogers said around 9/11 when asked "What do we tell the children about what happened?" He responded "Look for the helpers." YOU'RE the helper, you got this.
Ok, now here are some techniques I've done to still find time/energy to continue to level up despite the above challenges (this isn't my 1st recession, so be happy you'll be ready for the next one as well btw). These are specifically to me so it's ok if they don't relate. The key here is the find your superpower, and use that to ensure something gets done and you're happy with it.
- work ideas
- help others
- left field
Given during burned out times, it's hard for me to turn back on the spark of passion to go build someting, I'll instead use the spark when it's still burning: while at work. Many ideas and leanings and fun things to build come from my job. Many are side of desk or after work things I do. For example, many of my issues at work I can automate or fix through simple scripts that eventually grow to be pretty thorough. An example is setting up my database, generating a daily list of PR's for the team to review, and a custom UI to monitor one of our daily batch jobs. All 3 were a problem I had at work, and they made my work day better. The key was, even while burnt out, I still had energy because I knew when done, they would make my day, and my co-workers day better. I learned a lot from doing them, used new, fun tech for all of them.
The help others is just my shtick. Sometimes when I'm exhausted and tired, I'll suddenly find a burst of energy when someone needs help. Rather than feel guilty that I don't have energy when times are good, I instead use that energy. I'll help answer questions on slack, make PR's for teams/projects I'm not even assigned/on, or build examples, and write extremely long and detailed replies. Those I help learn something, and I'll always learn something either through the person's context, reinforcing my knowledge of the the tech they're using which is probably the same as mine. More importantly, I'll sometimes get the same question multiple times, and use that as a springboard for new blog posts or example code/projects so when people ask, they have an extremely detailed and useful set of examples.
Finally, when I want to do something outside of work and am exhausted, I'll choose some tech out of left field I'm completely unfamiliar with. For example, if I want to learn some F#, but keep getting stuck with not knowing enough .NET runtime to get productive, I can switch to something like Postegres, and have no idea if I'm being productive, but not care because it's fun to do something just so different. Rekindling my love for the Lua programming language was the same when I discovered my kids Roblox game was coded in it, as well as various Factorio scripts. Sometimes something so different, but still tech/programming, somehow I just find boundless energy for and learn a ton.
Be kind to yourself, things are hard right now, and much of it is not your fault.
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