Recently, my friend and colleague Phil Lalonde made a post in which he joked that no one starts off the new year planning to downskill. Which is true, at face value! It got me thinking though, “What if I do try and downskill? Can I make that valuable? What would downskilling even mean?”
Let’s Talk T-Shaped
When I started this article I didn’t realize that the idea of a T-Shaped Developer was particularly contentious. The idea is fairly straightforward, a developer who has a wide breadth of knowledge, with a specific field of knowledge where the developer “specializes”. However Matt Eland wrote an article called “The Myth of the T-Shaped Developer” in which he essentially argued that it shouldn’t be the end-goal. Instead, Matt argued, a developer will naturally become T-shaped by the time they’re a senior developer, but should strive to further that, and become specialists in many areas. Comb-shaped, if you will.
For myself, I’ve only been a full-time Software Engineer for 8 months so I’m probably most accurately described as “ellipsis shaped”, but I like to think I have some areas where I have a bit of depth of knowledge. Still, in my opinion, striving to become more T-Shaped will always be a net positive in your career, regardless of what the actual outcome looks like.
Back to the Prompt: Downskilling
Upskilling is simply learning new skills. So what is downskilling? Would it be “forgetting skills”? As far as I can tell, no one particularly wants to do it, so no one has defined it in any meaningful way. So instead, here’s my totally arbitrary definition:
Downskilling is deliberately choosing to use the tool you’re less skilled with.
– Me, 2023
If I take this definition then I immediately see a way that I can make this valuable. With the idea of a T-Shaped person in mind, I’m expanding the top of the T. I might be able to get a script written in Python in 5 minutes to download a file off the internet, but my bash scripting ability is terrible so I’d probably spend the first five minutes trying to remember how to get started. If I want to downskill myself, I’d use the tool I’m less useful with, and try that instead.
If upskilling is learning new skills entirely, downskilling is making the conscious effort to use the things you’re bad at.
Being Worse at Your Job
So now for the key bit: choosing to downskill at your job. Deliberately choosing the path that will be harder for you, and may take extra time. It seems like a terrible idea since the real world has deadlines, and deadlines need to be met. However, I think that looking at it that way is shortsighted. The nice thing about making an effort to do things the hard way, is you’re only going to allow yourself to do that when you have the space to do so. If I have a deadline looming this afternoon, I’m not going to even think about whipping out a new tool instead of using what I’m comfortable with. However, if there’s no difference between me completing a task in 4 hours versus 8, then by doing it the hard way I will naturally make it easier for myself next time. The next time I may have no choice but to use the tool I’m worse with, so why not learn on my own terms?
Essentially, it’s trading time now for time later, and I think that’s valuable.
New Year’s Themes
The YouTuber CGP Grey made a video about New Year’s resolutions in which he proposed the idea of a “Theme for the Year” rather than a single resolution. The idea is that you constantly make small decisions to keep yourself in line with that theme, rather than commit to a singular resolution which will probably be failed within the first month.
I think the idea of using themes in this way is awesome, and I really recommend watching that video. Since I saw it I had been thinking about what my theme should be for 2023, and Phil’s post gave me the idea: I’m going to be bad at things.
Whether that be starting up a blog without regard for the fact my writing skills need improvement, or whether that be trying to downskill myself at work: I’ll consistently make decisions to challenge myself to do the harder thing. If I do that for an entire year, I am confident I will be a better Software Engineer, better communicator, and better employee.
To honour that, 2023 is officially the year I will be worse at my job. 2023 is the “Year of Being Kinda Bad at Things”