As software developers, it is a known fact that our industry moves incredibly fast.

From the jokes about ‘a new day, a new javascript framework’ to the weird world of crypto, there is a seemingly infinite amount to learn.

So what do we do when we get stuck?

Slow Down

This is advice and wisdom I need again and again. Why? Because I believe, for most of us, our natural instinct when we are ‘stuck’ is to speed up.

Why though? We become so focused and determined to move through this invisible wall that we don’t back up, take stock, and look to see if there is a way around, a button to open the door, or some knowledge that could have been useful.

For instance, it’s not uncommon to see, or be, the person who feels so desperate to get out of a stuck situation that when someone doesn’t respond immediately and help us through it, we get angry, confused, and feel helpless.

Why slowing down was/is the answer for me?

One of the greatest realizations for me was this:

My problems are not everyone else’s problems and demanding they respond to me shows I need a level of maturity I am not at yet.

Once I started realizing this, I could think more clearly about how to move forward.

How to slow down

One of the ways that has been helpful for me to think through this is the idea of ‘self-talk’ vs ’listening-to-self’.

Listening to yourself is what we all do day to day. Often times this goes hand in hand about how we feel about something. So let’s just work with our getting stuck thought process.

When I get stuck, often I hear/feel things like this:

• This is holding me back
• If I don’t get through this I’m a failure
• If I was good at software development I would have figured this out already
• I can’t ask for help. That shows I don’t know what I am doing and that I can’t problem solve no my own.
• I hear guilt inducing thoughts about my abilities as a developer
• I look at everyone else doing all the things I hope to do and experience some level of imposter syndrome or just despair.

These things above are serious. They are real feelings experienced by a ton of us daily. They also happen to mostly come as a result of listening to what is happening rather than ’taking counsel with myself’ and reorienting myself to what is reality.

Examples of how to slow down (in no particular order)

• Go to sleep - So many people stay up late and wake up early in vain. If you get better sleep and more of it, although you will feel like it is ‘unproductive’, you will learn and grow much better than if you run yourself into the ground trying to cram. You may be able to sustain an unhealthy pace for a while and you may have a larger capacity to do this than others, but it is still stupid and foolish to do so. I am stupid and foolish more than I would care to admit but when I get good sleep, everything works out better.

• Spend no more than 30min to an hour a day learning something new. This may be harder than going to sleep. The discipline it takes to limit yourself is excruciating. But it is incredibly freeing. Using something like egghead.io. Their courses are short, dense, and your time spent learning is well spent.

• Spend the remainder of the time building and implementing what you learned previously.

• Go for a walk - I know this doesn’t solve everything but it helps to step away. Fresh air and Vitamin D is so good for you sometimes you are better after 10-15 min outside.

• Narrow your focus - What are you trying to learn in this singular moment? I tweeted this the other day: ‘Every now and then I read the does really intentionally. Accordingly, every now and then I actually understand some things.’ The point here is that focusing is really hard for me. But when I take the time and slowly read and internalize what I read in the documentation, I understand how to use something. Often, I feel as if having 29870 tabs open on my browser will, by process of osmosis, make me understand everything I am seeking to understand. That’s not how it works.

• Communities - If there is a technology you want to learn, there is most likely a community for it. From reddit, slack, discord, forums, and a host of other things, you can find the community for the thing you are working on. Look for a link to the community on the tech companies website. If they don’t have one, often times you can just email someone at the company or tag them on twitter and ask, and they will send you an invite.

• Listen to good music - This is personal preference. For me, I listen to either epic music, lofi music, instrumental Christmas music (don’t judge, check out Mannheim Steamroller), or above all, my wife’s piano playing.

• Be intentional about planning time to hang out with friends in a non-coding, non-work capacity.

• Stop and go build something different. Do something that you know how to do and just build something with it.

Being the Tortoise

Being the tortoise goes against most of our natural instincts.

To quote again, the Judith Shulevitz article, slowing down puts us into this place of dealing with ’the eternal inner murmur of the soul.’

But this is the place we also start moving into growth and understanding. It is how we find rest. It is how we wake up and do good work that we can then rest from again.

Being the tortoise is an active choice. To quote Michael Chan and Dave Geddes from this episode of the React Podcast,

It’s something people say all the time right, ‘slow and steady wins the race’, but it really is true.

This quote was in the context of entrepreneurship and how to ship something, but it is also applicable to learning something new in tech and moving beyond those ‘stuck’ points.

The irony of ironies in all of this is that if you choose to move slow, because everyone else is so frantically trying to figure things out and move fast, you will become a sage in the developer community.

Somehow, slow growth that feels like I am sacrificing productivity, will end up making me more productive.

Here’s to being a tortoise 🍹