What Happens When EVERY Task is a Top Priority as a Software Engineer

Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

Hey folks, I'm going to talk about something that's come up over the past couple weeks, I'd say, with team members and general conversations and I think it's kind of interesting. It's geared a little bit more towards more senior developers and um the topic itself is not going to be only for like developers. You could probably apply this in different parts of life as well, but the context that it's come up in is for more senior folks that I've been working with and and chatting with. So the idea around this is that um how do you balance time when it seems like you have you know x number of super important things like your priority zero most important work and you have multiple of these things that are demanding your time and like how do you navigate this because you know if you're working on one you're literally not working on another.

Uh and apparently they're the most important things. So, I wanted to chat through this. Um, I even saw on like a podcast clip uh with Chris Williamson and Alex Hermoszi like literally this morning and it kind of made me think like it's it's relevant even outside of software engineering. Uh, but I'll put like a software engineering spin on it. when they were chatting through it um they were talking about it from the context of like like Alex Heroszi talks about like seasons in life right um where you're going through periods where you're focused on something you're trying to achieve something that might mean that you are uh neglecting some things you're hyperfocusing on another or you're going through a slump or whatever it is but like refers to them as like seasons And um the context they had was when like things aren't going well,

like how do you how do you still manage to like I don't want to say get happiness out of it, but like feel like you're making progress and and not just like kind of sink into oblivion when you have a lot of big things that are stacked up against you. And while it's not the exact same thing, I think the way that they were talking about it was very similar to sort of the advice that I was giving or chatting through with other folks. So the way they discussed it was like look, if you are trying to look at all these really big things, right? Uh it's really difficult if you're like okay I want to make some progress but like you can't you can't just pick one of those things and like finish it in a day to knock off your list because one

of those things might have like 10 things that like maybe you can't even do any of those 10 things within a day and so to chip away and make progress when you're thinking about these really big things like feels very very difficult. So they were saying basically like stop looking at it like a couple things right stop looking at it like the destination like only when you go finish those things like that's when you can be like ah yes like success like that's when it's done um that's when I can be happy that's when I'm successful when you know one of these things is all the way through or all these things are all the way through for that matter um because it's like it's going to be completely overwhelming Alex was saying and I like agree with this that when you watch like motivational

things um a lot of people will try to say like hey like you don't like don't try to have your uh I don't know like your mood or your your outlook like based on things around you like it should be internally driven and like all of this sounds really good and we want to aspire for that but like we also live in reality and I think that It's it's like normal to have at least some of that, right? So, it's totally like a normal response to be like, man, uh I'm not making like I don't feel like I'm making progress on this. Like, that kind of sucks. Or when you do finally achieve something to be like, heck yeah. Um so, it's not like those are bad things that you like want to completely eliminate.

um or sorry that it it makes sense to completely eliminate but like sure striving towards that I think is is helpful but um what it came down to was he was saying you know it's not just you know my like looking at things like my my win for the month or whatever. It's like truly looking at it like on a dayby-day basis. Just like make progress. And it doesn't have to be, you know, you reach some crazy milestone on a day and like that's the thing that's going to drive your your feeling of progression or happiness. It's uh you don't necessarily need that. But the reality is if every day you're making some progress, then when you do a bunch of those days strung together, you legitimately will have made a significant amount of progress and likely, you know, achieved some of those milestones that are very big that otherwise seemed completely overwhelming.

And it's like, this isn't rocket surgery, right? I'm not saying anything that's like uh revolutionary or groundbreaking. It's just like I think a good reminder that for us to make progress and achieve things, especially on work that's not like bite-size. It's not like, oh, you got assigned a bug fix and it's like a typo, so you just have to go like flip a couple characters and a pull request and boom, you're done. Or this log message is weird, so like just change it. Or there is no log message, so add the log message. Like not all work is like that. In fact, the more and more senior you get, the less and less you have of that, which is good. You get to work on more creative, more interesting things. That's a that's a good problem to have, I would say.

Um, but it reaches a point when you become more and more senior and you have more and more work like this stacked up that it starts to become like this feeling of overwhelm where you're like everything I'm doing feels like it's not solvable in a day. It might not be solvable in a week or a month. And I got 10 of these. So like what the heck am I doing like in my career? How do I make sure that uh you know that I'm making progress to truly deliver on these things? What's that going to look like for performance reviews? Like do I have the right stakeholders involved? Like it truly can become very overwhelming. But I think that the reality is going back to what I was saying from Alex and Chris's uh convers. I'm talking about them like they're they're buddies on like a firstname basis.

Oh, just Yeah. But you get what I'm saying. So from their conversation, it seemed like it's a very similar mindset to adopt I feel like uh because this is what I was telling people more recently. So when I had this come up to me, it was around not the exact same each time, but kind of like my approach or how do I recommend or what's my own strategy for having a bunch of stuff to work through that feels like it's all high priority. and it's got to get done but it all can't get done like right now. So I said that unless so for things that are have a hard deadline uh unfortunately I am a procrastinator. I don't like that about myself. Um I wish I could be better at that but I also like terrible excuse. I do work well under pressure. So, when I have like a really tight deadline, like I kind of go into like robot mode and just like, you know, I I can stay up all night.

I can grind through something. I don't know. It's just like if I need to, I can turn that on. And like I said, it's not like a preferred way to go about things, but I know that about myself. And I guess for there's obviously something about it where I am more motivated to do some work that way. And it's just weird cuz I in like when I'm not in that mode like right this moment I'm like I wish I didn't do that. So I have some things to improve on there. But if I have things with a deadline, right? And that deadline is coming up. The way that I frame this is that like regardless of my other priorities, I might have something that I truly think has a larger impact um or is more important, like personally it's more significant, whatever that happens to be.

And if I have something with a deadline that's fast approaching, uh often I have to prioritize that thing higher. And I have to because it has a deadline. because if it truly has a deadline that's not supposed to be missed and that's a maybe a key part is when I'm saying deadline here truly cannot be missed um then that becomes more and more urgent right there's I can't remember the is it the Eisenhower matrix about like what to focus on like basically um stuff that falls into that category of like there is a tight timeline for it it needs to get bumped up in priority um but the I don't know like my my evaluation personally of the importance of it doesn't change. It's just that I acknowledge work has to get done so I got to do it. Um again for me unfortunately I fall back to like procrastination on that.

So, uh, as I say this out loud, probably a good thing for me to do is if I have this reflection of priorities a little bit more frequently and I go, okay, but I know that deadlines coming up, like, can I get can I find ways to like more actively bring that up so I have more opportunities to catch myself like, hey, it's 2 weeks out. Like, you got time to like actually start this now. Okay, it's, you know, a week and a half out. You still haven't started. the more of these opportunities that I can almost like literally say out loud to myself, the more that it's like holding myself accountable to be like, you have all of these opportunities to not screw it up again where you're going to procrastinate. So, that's probably something I need to do a little bit better of.

But these ones become a bit more of a special case I would say with a lot of the work I do because yes I have things with deadlines but the reality is a lot of work that I have doesn't have a specific hard cut off a really hard deadline where it's like if I don't do it by like you know August 7th like then every everything's on fire everything falls apart. It's not like that. It's more like there's so much stuff to do and if I just don't make progress on things, there's so much other stuff that's not getting started. Like that is the bigger thing. And honestly, I feel like if I had more specific deadlines on stuff, it would probably make some of these conversations easier. At the same time, it would probably also have different types of stress because the stress that I have to incur now is a constant rep prioritization of like all of these things and this is sort of the one of the key points here.

All of these things that are high priority like not everything has the exact same priority and in fact you could argue that like literally everything must have a different priority. Because you literally can't be doing all of the things physically at the same time. You have to pick one. How did you pick one? If you had 10 things that you were like, I know all of these are a P 0 priority for me. You must pick one. So, there must be a difference in priority somehow. And I think that that exercise of going through and trying to figure that out is important. So when I go through this kind of stuff, my mindset is not like I have to go knock like basically ignore all of them and knock one of them out. I feel like I have to continuously make progress across all of them.

So when I'm rep prioritizing things, I have to also consider like when is the last time that I tangibly made progress on this? When's the last time I provided a stakeholder update? Like okay, it might be time to shift gears on this one. and I have to bump that priority up now because I really do have to make progress on it. Um, if I just had a really big update for folks like on a you know from stakeholders and I can say hey like we did reach a milestone cool that one can cool off a little bit. It's not like the priority drops but relative to the other everything is the highest priority items. it will cool off a little bit, but I constantly have to go through this and the like on the surface it seems like that's a pretty I don't know like consuming kind of activity where it's like if all of the time you're just like oh my god like everything's on fire, everything needs attention.

But so the answer to that is like kind of yes. But the learned thing here is that like the what I've had to kind of teach myself is like that just doesn't change. So you can either go about it like having this sort of constant anxiety, panic around, oh my god, I can't get anything done or you just literally accept that there is infinite work, right? The work doesn't stop. There's always going to be new things. There's always stuff to focus on. There's always going to be a new priority that comes up and starts to supersede some of the other things. It's just reality. And instead of going like, "Oh my god, I can't get through my work." I've just started telling myself, "You won't get through your work. It's like that's why you're working. You're in this role because you are constantly having to work through things.

So there is an infinite stream of work and you constantly have to prioritize." And it sounds like maybe obvious again, right? But this reminder of like it's not get like get through this whole list, check the box and then you'll get the next set of work. And I think that for some parts of our career and depending where you're working, it might be like that, right? Especially, you know, if you're listening to this and you end and you are more junior, you may find like if you're doing sprints or something, it's like you might have work that always just kind of slots into a sprint and like the worst case is like it spills over into the next one and then you like take on a little bit less new work so that you can still fit in within the sprint and wrap up your old stuff.

And when you have a lot of bite-sized things and you're used to it, when you start having more ambiguous tasks, that's where it starts to feel like a little like, oh, like got to go outside of the norm here. And then eventually, like I was saying, the more senior you be get, like the norm is that all of your stuff that you're working on is of a ridiculous scope in comparison. It doesn't happen overnight, though. But my I think what I've realized for myself is that even though I've been operating sort of at this level for a while, I probably still have some instincts that want me to feel like I need to have like everything bite-size so I can make tangible progress. And you know, especially over the last couple years, it's been a reminder to myself like you just have to make some progress on some of these things.

And in a day in a given day you might not feel like oh like I reached a milestone but every day you make some progress on them right you try and like some like I was telling someone else this that for the way that I see myself as an engineering manager my role I absolutely believe in trying to make sure that I can serve the team and that means that I will incur a lot of disruption. It's a really nice Lotus. Camera's facing the wrong way so you don't get to see it. Um, but like I it's not like the recommended pattern that I have for other people, but for me to feel like I'm being an effective engineering manager, if I have, you know, surprises that come up for me or like employees need help or whatever it happens to be, I look at that like if I can help by dropping what I'm doing to make sure that they're supported, I will do that.

So that might mean that on a given day I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to plan to get through X and maybe I'll reach a milestone, maybe not, but like I know I'm going to I know I'm like dedicating time into moving this forward." I might get an hour into the day and something comes up and I'm like, "Okay, like I have to support my team cuz to me that's the most important part." And like people can this is like one of those things where you can say like well I disagree with that or that's not what engineering manager should do or that's going to harm your career or anything like that. It's totally fine. I'm not saying that like I recommend this or this is the way to do it. I'm saying that this is like it's almost like a philosophy I have and like my belief system is that I believe that for me to do my role most effectively that's how I do it.

Um, if I look at feedback that I've gotten in my career from doing this for 13 years, it tells me that it is the right thing for my team. If I look at in terms of like at least in big tech like at Microsoft where it's like you're not getting promoted for the last 5 years they would argue the opposite probably because if I'm focused on just my team like this then they're saying well where's the organizational impact and I'm going and from my head I'm like it's through enabling my team so like you might not see me directly connected to it but that's how it's happening. So it ends up kind of biting me in the ass a little bit, but it's a philosophy I have and like I think that's just how I operate. So I don't uh I don't really see my value system changing around that.

So all of this to say that if you are feeling like overwhelmed with you have so many important things to do and none of them are things that you can like finish out in a day kind of thing. Um my my sort of approach to it is like if you have a a tight deadline for deliverable that's coming up that pushes priorities up on things because if you can't move the deadline you've got to deliver. Um it's also worth asking the question if there is a deadline can it be moved? Is it really a deadline? Is that just something we communicated and no one talked about? Ask. Right? Like there's nothing wrong with saying like, "Hey, is this truly a deadline? Can we move it? Can we get an extension?" Um, but that's only if you have other stuff going on. Like if you're just doing that because you literally weren't doing anything, that's a kind of a shitty way to approach stuff.

Um, otherwise, right, if you have open-ended things that you're trying to make progress on, my philosophy is that I try to make progress on, I'll pick one of them uh, in a day or maybe two of them in a day that I can try to make some progress on and I will rotate through them. So, uh, if as they're getting neglected, so to speak, that I'm like, I need to re, you know, shift that to the top of the list. And fundamentally it's like like I said there's infinite amount of work. So it's a it's a paradigm shift from being like I just want to get through this work so that I can like relax to there's a constant stream of it. So if you accept sooner that you're always going to be prioritizing things then like you kind of stop fighting it. You stop resenting it.

you stop fighting that you kind of just accept like this is how things go. So expect that you're constantly kind of like looking at the things that are on your plate and going, "Okay, which one of these can I make more progress on? Let's go do it." So anyway, hope that helps. It's a little bit um I don't know, kind of kind of generic, not super specific, but it's a topic that's come up a few times recently. And then uh when I was watching that podcast clip this morning, I was like, I wonder if there's something here to talk about that's you know you can you can take as a software engineer or apply it even outside. Um yeah, so hope that helps. If you found this helpful, share it with people. That helps me tremendously. I do appreciate that. That's really the only way the channel grows because as a vlog channel, it's hard to get eyeballs on things.

Um and then of course this channel is driven by your questions. So if you have any questions on software engineering or career development you want answered, leave them below in the comments. You can go to codecommute.com. You can submit your questions anonymously or you can send a message to dev leader on social media. That's my main YouTube channel and my handle that I use on all social platforms. So happy to try and answer your questions as best I can. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time.