Before the pandemic I was always on the move, and I would have told you always learning. I found myself at various events, talked to many different people, was always reading something, and my job changed frequently, even within the organisation I was in. I also wrote a lot, which helped me consolidate and clarify my thinking.
Then, the pandemic. Everything came to a halt and that included my own learning… I no longer had the breadth of experiences that made me feel like I was learning constantly, and some days I barely felt I could write a text message, let alone anything else.
At some point, I realised that I was stagnating – that I was executing a familiar playbook, and couldn’t list anything that I had learned recently – and tired of it. That I wanted to feel like I was learning and growing again, but that I would need to find a different way. The world had changed. My job had changed. I had changed.
It took some time and experimentation, but eventually I shifted to a more deliberate, outcome driven approach. This looked like:
- Signing up and paying for specific courses (like CoActive coach and leadership trainings), and blocking out the time to learn.
- Shifting away from habits and to more outcome driven personal projects (this was the difference between writing a book and blogging every week).
- Rethinking my organisational systems to be more goal oriented (my Trello board is now oriented around outcomes rather than habits).
Basically I stopped managing my learning the way I manage my fitness (a blend of habits and whims, which mostly works, but probably only because I genuinely enjoy working out) and started managing it how I would manage a large project. Identifying high level goals, defining supporting strategy, and then using that to confirm or deny. Less visible activity, but more outcomes. Less validation, more meaning.
I think prioritising professional dev is often hard because it’s IC work on top of your existing job, that you have to fit into your schedule. It’s also often a shift in mindset – from meetings to doing, or from coding to writing… The most important learning is important but not urgent, which means it can always be put off until tomorrow when you will have more energy – even if you know that’s not really true.
It’s much easier to just do things you’re committed to (aka conference talk driven development) and/or what you want and argue that something is better than nothing. Something probably is better than nothing, but it doesn’t mean your effort-impact actually makes sense. The less effort you have time or capacity to put in, the more the impact matters.
Essentially this change made me both the manager and the IC. Doesn’t everyone joke they are their own worst manager and difficult to manage IC? I am no different. Manager-Cate would set goals for Cate-the-IC that seemed like a cruel joke at the end of a long day or week. The only thing that I’ve found that helps (so far, suggestions welcome), is to split the activities:
- Carve out time to think deeply about what my next proximate objectives are (strategy). The end of year quiet and the year compass is a helpful exercise for this.
- With my manager hat on break down and prioritise the tasks.
- With my IC hat on, see what I can chip away at.
Do I feel like I have my professional dev on lock? No. There were things I wanted to do in 2025 that I didn’t figure out how to fit in. But at the same time, I can see that I accomplished more with this approach than I would have done without it. Such as:
- I read 12 non-fiction books this year.
- My Irish citizenship application is in (will give me freedom to work in the EU again).
- Jean and I shipped DRI your career.
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