The Conscientious Developer | Tech Lifestyle + IT career

In this blog, I want to share with you the concept of the “Conscientious developer”.

A conscientious developer is someone who can make certain decisions in life to succeed in their career and future. So, the qualities of a conscientious developer are:
Number one, who is aware of themselves, their strengths and weaknesses,
Number two, who are aware of their respective industry,
Number three, who is aware of the closest things to them and their growth in terms of short time and long time? That is they have a low-time preference.

Low-time versus High-time preferences

Now, there are key differences to understand whether a person will fall under the category of a low-time preference versus a high-time preference. A high-time preference person would say that “I want this car now”, “I want this vacation now”, “I want this raise now”, and “I want this promotion right now”.

An example I would like to share here is a question from a student who asked “How do I ensure job security for more than 30 years in this industry?” then my first thought that popped up was that “You don’t have to work and you don’t need to work for 30 to 40 years in an industry”. So, those are the people with high-time preference.

Because guess what, if you feel that you have that much amount of time, you better start planning today to acquire the required skills and eventually get to a point where you become financially self-sufficient. Your goal shouldn’t be to keep working for the rest of your life. Rather your goal should be to work for enough time to pay the bills and one day achieve financial freedom.

Now, people who have a low-time preference will follow this goal to achieve financial freedom with their career and take the micro-actions required daily. They work in their job while keeping the big picture in mind. That’s where they’re headed and that is a fundamental feature of a conscientious developer. So, there’s a certain level of consciousness that’s required to put energy towards financial freedom and accordingly make certain decisions in your life.

Examples of the Unconscious developer

From my corporate work experience, an example of an unconscious developer I have noticed, are those employees who have poor time management habits. They would spend around 15 minutes every hour for coffee breaks, around two hours for lunch breaks, and then stay up until 7 or 8 PM working late to make up for the time they lost.

Not only that, but after they leave the building, they would just keep answering emails past 8 PM. As you can see, it wasn’t productive at all. The time they wasted on small breaks impacted their lives in such a way that they had to sacrifice their time. And in my opinion, this is not a healthy lifestyle.

Here’s how I managed my time in the same workspace. I treat my job as sacred. When I go for working from 9 to 5, I go on to work from 9 to 5. I would get my work done in this time frame. I was hyper-productive and hyper-efficient. And, when I leave the building, I turn off the work mode and spend my time with my family, friends, and self-development. So, I am not the type of person who would answer emails after 8 PM, instead, I would make sure that I answer them early in the morning.

So, as you can notice that’s the difference between the people who have a low-time preference versus a high-time preference. And this is also a key difference that makes a conscientious developer stand out.

Another example of an unconscious developer is someone who is an extremely workaholic person. They are someone who is only focused on their work from 9 AM till 10 PM, who works like an animal. They are someone who even works on the weekends. They’re always working for this particular company, or this job, or this role. That’s all they do and they do it well.

But my concern over here is “Are they investing their time in growing themselves?” “Are they investing time in developing their skills like Personal development or exercise or taking care of their health, or taking care of their family?” because guess what, these are very important components in life. They won’t be able to grow in their personal life and sometimes in their professional life as well.

Action items for Conscientious developer

The smartest way to get promoted to a better role is to acquire the additional skills required and switch jobs. Because when you stay in that same role, do the best you can, and work harder than everybody else, it’s still going to be harder for you to promote to that position than it would be if you were to jump towards another company for a better role.

Now, the key takeaway over here is that, make certain conscious decisions in life with a low-time preference. This includes daily activities that are important for your personal development such as going to the gym, or, meditation for one hour in the morning, reading books every day for one hour, or spending one hour extra with your family. The more you are conscious of these types of decisions, the more you will start to find time like by waking up one hour early in the morning.

So, give it a try, to make conscious decisions. I’m a living example of being a conscious person. I wake up early in the morning and hit the gym, or read books. I also make sure I wrap up my work at a particular time and spend time with my family and friends. I have read a lot of biographies and to be honest, I see a trend of morning rituals among many successful people.

Consciousness in Tech

Now, you may ask “How do conscious decisions help you grow professionally or financially?”

For your professional career, specifically in tech, you can start to take conscious decisions by avoiding certain pitfalls. Number one, you can get lost in a role where you’re not growing. So, you switch your job roles over here to avoid this mistake. Number two, you can also get lost in a role where you’re required to keep learning. Now, constantly learning things that are not going to develop you as a person.

For example, if you’re just learning how a UI feature keeps changing from framework to framework, you may waste so much valuable time which could be used elsewhere. You can avoid this mistake by making sure you save time from constantly learning the same concepts across different technologies or frameworks and start spending on topics that are new to you. So, if you don’t know the back-end then start learning about micro-services, learn how to deploy them on AWS, or learn about the databases and how data is managed in relational or non-relational databases. Redefine yourself!

Consciousness in the Financial Future

Now, let’s go over the role of consciousness in your financial future.

To be honest, you are responsible for your financial future. So, don’t depend on a financial advisor. Do your research, and do the study. Spend a certain amount of time through conscious decisions regularly every week on this. Start learning about real estate, stocks, equities, bonds, “How banking infrastructure works?”, “What are international markets?” Learn as much as you can about finance and be knowledgeable.

And mark my words, this is going to have a compounding effect over your lifespan. Because you will keep learning more things along the way which will help you better navigate this industry and you will be able to make wiser decisions. So redefine yourself!

You have now gained important ideas on time management, personal growth, and financial freedom. So make sure you apply these ideas as a conscientious developer.

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