1. Doing the Right Things vs. Doing Things Right
A foundational mental model stating that even with maximum effort and skill, a developer will fail to reach their goals if they focus on the wrong tasks.
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0:59 · 22 August 2023
How Not To FAIL At Software Development
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senior developer mental model 9 out of 10. doing things right versus doing the right things. A crucial mental model for developers, which can make the difference between a great career and a terrible one. This principle has been first introduced by Peter Drucker as a guide for managers. And it states that you can be the best at what you do, but if you do the wrong things, you will still fail to reach your goals.
An example is the frontend developer that he's about Kubernetes and jumps ahead to learn it. They push like crazy, they crow on the weekends and put hundreds of hours in mastering it. But in their daily job, they still work as a frontend dev. So they don't even get to practice what they learn. What's worse, in the following job interview, they get ask about frontend topics that they should be proficient at, task testing, performance, architecture.
But they have no idea. All their time was spent on Kubernetes stuff. Did they fail because they didn't have enough time or discipline? No, they failed because they were putting the right kind of effort in the wrong things. It is more important to do the right thing than to do things right.