I have been working in the industry for 8 years and am now considered a senior developer, also as a team lead.
Three years ago, my first child was born, and a few months ago, a second one arrived. While I don’t regret my decision to have kids at all, I do feel bad about how the lack of free time affects my career and how my knowledge falls behind the industry.
Before having kids, I used to spend a few hours a week on never-ending personal projects to learn new things. However, now I neither have the time nor the energy for that.
The only way that has worked for me is to read some tech books, which are often not about coding, and to read some blogs or subs like this.
However, I feel like this approach is too passive and is not providing the best outcome that I would expect.
Any tips there, perhaps from someone who was is similar situation?
It may complicate the money situation, but as a new parent my wife and I have found a lot of value in paying the extra price for stuff like grocery delivery. We also found value in getting a roomba.
The roomba keeps the main floor of our house clean enough that we can afford to go a few weeks without using a real vacuum if we need to.
The grocery delivery saves us on having to get the kid together, ensure the diaper bag’s packed, drive out to the store, find the stuff, drive back home. Or at least we can avoid locking down one of us with kid duty while the other runs out to shop. It’s not cheap, between fees and a tip we often end up paying ~20% more, but it’s a time vs money value decision. I find we’re valuing our time more than money a lot lately. It also allows us to re-up groceries or household goods on days one of us is working from home, while we’re working.
Granted, I’m in a very stable salaried position where I’m not constantly being picked apart on metrics or qualified productivity (I’m more sysadmin and automation than software dev). We’re also in the early stages of child rearing, not even 6 months in yet. Mileage may vary.
We do groceries via delivery, tho for us it’s more of a time saver to spend it with kids, instead of losing that 1-2h to go to the store. So, it’s not changing that much in terms of time for self improvement.