Communication is a Superpower
Hey everyone! 👋
It’s been a while since I last wrote. My daughter just started first grade at a new school and work has picked up in activity. I skipped writing in July because I wasn’t happy with the content I pulled together, so I threw it out and decided I’d try again in August. So here we are!
But before we get to the post, I thought I’d share some thoughts around how I hope to keep blogging for the forseeable future.
Sustainable Writing
I’ve been thinking about writing lately, and my relationship to it. I write a ton at work, and I am asking myself lately, “Is it crazy that I am also trying to write on a blog?” I definitely feel burned out sometimes and don’t want to continue, but I think it’s important to share my thoughts more widely instead of them being boxed up in my work wiki and Slack chats.
Previously I had been trying to polish each post to a point where I felt really proud of each one, but I don’t really think that is sustainable. That level of attention is exhausting, and it causes me to just not even want to write, thinking I am going to have to dump so much effort into it. So starting today, I am instead going to focus on simply publishing. When I have an idea that feels worth writing about, I will write it, and publish it. I still have some friction to work out (such as how I want to build the social sharing images each time), but the post I am sharing with you this evening only took a few hours to put together.
I may also start reducing the overall reading length. I’ve been aiming for ~10-15 minutes, but it may make sense to reduce it to 5-10. We’ll see.
Communication is a Superpower
While writing does feel tedious at times, I lean into it anyway because it is such an effective form of communication. Lately, good communication has been top of mind for me, because of how much collaboration I have been doing at work. I recently found myself in a small group that was collaborating on a set of requirements for an integration we are working to build, and we were making a ton of progress. I attribute this to how effective we were at communicating. With each of us playing a specific role in our collaboration session, and all of us aiming for the same goal, we made quick work of the task in front of us and were able to move on. It felt really good.
In contrast, I have also been having to work with some challenging characters that really stretch my communication abilities. I am having to bring everything I’ve got to some of these new relationships, to help bridge the gap left by their… inadequate… communication skills.
So yeah, communication is a superpower. It permeates so much of your day-to-day as a software engineer, especially as your scope and impact increases, and you are called to collaborate more and more across the organization. So I recommend that you work on your communication skills… the work will pay off.
And if you’re not already convinced, my latest blog post shares many more reasons why communication skills are a critical tool in your toolbelt as a software engineer.
Communication is a Superpower ~ chadxz.dev
Why communication should be a core skill software engineers focus on.
If you enjoy the article or not, do let me know what you think! You can send me a note @chadmcelligott, reply to this email, or join the conversation on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Peace ✌️,
~Chad