How do you manage FOMO?

There's always new things happening in software development. Fear of missing out can apply to feelings around interesting movements, possibly falling behind a mainstream curve, or perhaps financial opportunities in tech.

But you're always going to be missing something, and it's not good to have anxiety over the unknown — any tips for mitigating FOMO?

Comments

[Bobo Brussels]

What's the opposite of FOMO? Excitement to be missing out?

Nothing seems more painful than being early to movements in software — Occasionally a small number of adopters come out "on top", but early adoption is rarely a game worth playing.

That's not absolutely true, but having that mindset is how I avoid caring too much about Web3, for example. I don't need to have my head in the sand either — I see it, I understand it (as much as anyone can), I just don't really want to be a part of it.

That doesn't mean you can't be an early adopter, just find opportunities where you are truly inspired and it clicks— and if it doesn't happen for you, don't fear that you're not a part.

[Andrew Bone]

Dominos UK ran a JOMO campaign a little while ago (Joy Of Missing Out).

[Bobo Brussels]

I like that

[Chapman]

Your response reminds me of something I once heard:
(paraphrasing)
"It's exciting to be a pioneer but be cautious, pioneers often got their wagons burned."

That's pretty solid advice.

[buphmin]

Joking Sarcasm Portion:

Scramble to learn anything/everything, work basically two jobs one being your actual the other the learning everything outside work, burnout, drink too much coffee, and finally grow into a senior developer where you realize it's not that important to know everything.

Real Talk Portion:

This is not an easy thing to handle, especially with the culture that has permeated through the industry. I struggled for years where I scrambled to learn new things, work on side projects and tried to find ways to advance. Ultimately I realized I was growing tired and needed to take a step back.

What really got things to click for me was an excellent talk "How I Managed to Cut my Hours in Half and Somehow Managed to Get More Done" by @jlengstorf about time management and work life balance. Each person needs to manage their time and focus on the important parts. Set aside and limit time for learning and make sure that the time you are spending focused on work is a good balance for YOU.

Another tip is understanding that really the two biggest skills you need as a developer is insight and the ability to learn. Technology comes and goes; frameworks today may not be useful tomorrow. Focus on developing your learning skills and learn to take in the big picture. Those will last your whole career.

[Jon Randy 🎖️]

Never had it. Best way is just follow your own path, learn whatever interests you - don't just follow the herd

[zakwillis]

Get into trading cryptocurrency (but not to risk more than you can afford to lose). It may sound strange but by doing this over time, you become indifferent to what is unlikely to be a one-off event.

Another observation from my experience of the contracting and job markets. Often - the more industrial significant technology is not going to go away quickly. So if a new version of SQL Server gets released it is going to take a good while to get adopted, and is unlikely to need you to know the latest version like yesterday.

Unfortunately, I do have conversations with agents who have zero understanding of the tech industry. One such discussion went like this.

From recruiter

One of our client is looking for a Senior Product Developer for a contract role in London
Experience in ASP>NETMVC/SQL/AWS is mandatory
Kindly let me know if you are interested in the role

ME Honest reply, indicating I have played around with Cloud tech and researched it but don't see it as an issue that I haven't formally used it. As a Solution Architect I have to research different technologies but wouldn't claim to be an expert in AWS.

Recruiter
Hi,
Thank you for replying
AWS is very much required for the role

Me thinking
Hmmm, do they really need this? After all, it is just a server/deployment target.

So this is kind of how FOMO can bite you. Because you haven't run around hysterically salivating over the latest release, we may miss out on some opportunities.

[Zikitel22]

Forget about FOMO is not real.
You would spend whole life learning new hyped stuff.

Like take for example Remix.

You see tons of articles, everyone is excited about it like its greatest thing since the slice bread. In reality

• its just another framework
• not production ready
• does not land you a job coz yeah no reasonable person would use it now

Points above might or might not change. If Remix ends up being next the revolution (highly doubt it) how long would it take for average dev to pick it up ? Few days ? 2 weeks ? Why do it prematurely.
Now substitute remix for any new tech

You just saved yourself 2 weeks of life no need to thank me.

[Davis Peixoto]

Stay in the industry for 10 to 15 years, then you'll realize that most innovations aren't innovations at all. They are old ideas/concepts with a few extra steps and basically no news or improvements. You will also realize that most real innovations take a lot of time to get their place and maturity, so you won't need to hurry at all. There is no real need to FOMO.

[Olivier Guimbal]

By realizing that even if there might sometime be an incentive to be the first, the bests are often not the firsts: Let those early adopters make the early mistakes, learn from them, and build with a better knownledge while they will be busy fixing their mistakes.

The example is a bit cheesy, but I believe every GAFAM has a begining that looked like this, somehow: They built on the knowledge earlier adopters mistakes.

[Alex Lohr]

By realizing that hypes rarely survive – but if they do, you can still catch up with the development now that it's matured, a few months later.

On the other hand, allow yourself to be swept up into interesting developments. It may not be as useful, but it's usually a lot of fun.

[George]

You don't.

I wrote about this in a blog post here: dev.to/primalskill/how-to-keep-up-...

You simply resist the urge of FOMO, but still keep up-to-date with software development.

Perfect example: I don't jump on web3, NFT development, etc. just yet (for various unpopular resons 😁) I'm only aware of what's been developed in that space.

[Michael Powe]

Any anti-ADHD drug. Head down over the keyboard will relieve you of any time for worrying.

More seriously, people who create something lasting are notoriously ignorant of everything else.

"That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth traveled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. "You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it." "To forget it!" "You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it....Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." -- A. C. Doyle, Sherlock Holmes