Today, Iām going share with you the one activity you can do each day that will make you a 10X software engineer by the end of 2025.
In the wake of AI coding tools and an incredibly competitive and talented market, itās important to not become stagnant.
Most people fail to stand out or make progress because they get comfortable, they get complacent, theyāre happy where they are.
They donāt really want to invest to get to that next level.
And they get distracted very easily.
Most people cannot sit quietly with no distractions and work on a truly difficult task for at least 2-3 hours. Their progress in anything will be slow.
So if you hadnāt guessed by now today, weāre going to be talking about the concept of deep work.
And we will cover the following:
So if you really want to make a difference for yourself in 2025 then keep reading.
Deep Work was the term coined by Cal Newport in the book with the same name.
Times deep work as tasked with significant cognitive engagement. These are tasks that are very, very difficult to complete whilst distracted. They need a full attention and our full focus.
Deep work task also tend to be highly valuable in the long run. They are tasks that tend to have a compound effect and a lot more value further down the line.
Compare this to what he calls āshallow workā which are work and tasks that we can complete with little focus and no cognitive strain. These tend to be tasks that are repetitive or replicable, such as responding to emails and communications, pulling reports and data entry.
Shallow work tasks tend to deal with things in the short term, but rarely add any significant value in the long run.
2 hours of deep work every day, no matter what.
Doing this over 5 years now. It changed my life. pic.twitter.com/wIU0gjmPXT
ā Pat Walls (@thepatwalls)
February 24, 2024
Despite the memes building high quality and durable software is not an easy task.
Software applications can become hugely complex over time.
The landscape of technology is always changing.
And the areas in which developers need to become experts continues to grow over time.
We need big batches of time in order to build, learn and understand.
If we canāt dedicate big batches of time in these areas, what weāre able to build and support is going to diminish.
Dedicating two to three hours of deep work is the difference between being able to learn that new language, pass that AWS exam or build that new application or side project you always been wanting to do.
Itās impossible to develop a deep understanding of anything complex if all you can do is spend half an hour in here and there.
You need time to be able to get in the zone, get in the flow and avoid the distractions, especially when you hit a particularly difficult part of the task.
The topic and area on everybodyās mind right now is AI.
What is the impact and relevancy of deep work when AI coding tools and LLMS can produce programs and code much faster than a human can?
There are a couple of parts to this.
AI as it stands currently augment peopleās current abilities.
If you already know how to code then it can take away some of the tedious parts of the process. You can use it to go faster. You can use it to spin up boilerplate. You can use it to help solve problems youāve struggled to solve before.
If you donāt know how to code already then it gives you the ability to build some things with minimal technical knowledge. It allows you to gain understanding of what some code might be doing. It lets you self serve in certain situations.
People who can code can go faster and save time and people who donāt know how to code (but know what they want and know how to ask) can ask without having to understand what, why or how.
But that which is easily gained is also easily lost.
There is no skill transfer and knowledge is easily lost.
This is where AI can be a great help.
Weāve all seen how much better these AI have become for knowledge collection and searching.
Models with access to the Internet and private models that are trained on specialised, high quality data are becoming much better than using simply Googling stuff.
As engineers, it can be incredibly distracting to turn yourself away from the task at hand to go and look something up in the documentation.
AI can be incredibly useful to search for the missing knowledge that we need in order to get through a blocker.
And if weāre still struggling to understand something, we can try and use AI to explain it to us.
A personalised teacher that can respond one-to-one with us in the way that we fancy.
There are still issues with correctness but itās getting better over time.
I try and stick to the model of trust but verify.
If Iām learning something new I can ask AI to help explain it to me but if Iām not sure of the quality of the answer I can always verify by either implementing what it says or by going the traditional route.
Thereās only three things you need to do in order to start implementing deep work into your daily routine starting from now.
BHAG stands for big hairy audacious goal.
This will look different to different people but some examples might be:
The key is to pick something that you are genuinely invested in wanting to do but also feels scary.
Fear can be changed into excitement with the right mindset and it indicates the chance to accomplish something truly worthwhile and potentially life changing.
Once you know what your BHAG is itās time to break it down into areas, steps, stages, whatever technique you use to tackle a big problem.
Iād recommend brain dumping all the things you know that you need in order to tackle this big thing. Throw it onto a digital canvas and donāt filter.
Once everything is down then start to find a logical order of things and eliminate anything thatās non essential.
Then start to form milestones. I tend to set monthly, weekly and daily milestones.
These can change as we learn and go but it at least gives us a way to track things in a very simple and effective way.
Set aside 2-3 hours each day to dedicate to your daily activity that moves you closer to accomplishing the overall goal.
This might be building, studying or a combination of both.
If you got the BHAG right then there will be difficult work ahead.
And thatās the point.
Your 2-3 hours of dedicated deep work will be necessary in order to break through the difficulty.
Protect this time and remove all distractions.
Itās easier to make it a habit if you can make it the same time everyday that fits in with your routine.
Youāll be a different person by the end of the year.
Hopefully youād take this message and implement some time each day for doing deep work.
Iād highly recommend buying the book Deep Work and reading it for yourself.
Being able to focus and tackle a difficult task each and every day will make the difference in the long run. Youāll retain knowledge and develop skills that set you apart from the rest.
Thanks again š
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