In my previous post, I talked about the minimum workout I practise during those periods when my schedule is tight. In this one, I’m going to talk about the minimum practices I follow to keep my technical skills sharp.

I’ve divided my technical practices into two blocks.

Passive practices

Here I include practices related with consuming resources, when I don’t have to write or think in an active way.

  • Read articles/blogs: Once per day I have a look at Hacker News and my RSS feed. I usually do this during/after lunch for half an hour to one hour.

  • Listen to a podcast: If I’m working, I use the commuting time for this. Otherwise, I listen to a podcast while I go for a run. These days I’m mainly listening to Ruby Rogues

  • Watch a screencast: I’m currently watching one Ruby Tapa per working day and a Let’s code javascript episode twice per week. This changes depending on the languages I’m working on/learning

  • Big events: I go to a big conference/event at least twice per year.

  • Read a book: Bedtime is my perfec time to read for half an hour.

Active practices

This section includes practices like writing code or adding a blog post.

  • Code katas or similar: Three/four slots of one hour per week to write a code kata or solve small problems. Two resources I love are: Exercism and Codewars

  • Blog post: One article per week. As you can tell, this practice is very new for me. I’m still trying to create the habit.

  • Contribute to an open source project: Here, my target is at least one commit per week.

  • Community events: At least one event (talk, hands-on session, etc.) every two weeks.