The Things That Work In Every Era

Ask a hundred people which skill will matter next and you get a hundred answers. Most of them are the name of some software.

The problem is that software keeps changing. What is essential today, nobody asks about three years later.

So I am not going to name a tool. Here are four things that do not change when the tool changes.

One: staying on one thing

This is the rarest thing going right now.

Most people check their phone twenty times an hour. Somebody who can do one thing for two hours without stopping gets far more done in the same hours than everyone else.

This is not a gift you are born with. It is a habit. Put the phone in another room, that is all.

Two: making the call

Information is free now. Anybody can search and find out.

But picking one option out of ten, and knowing which source can be trusted, that is still hard. And that is the thing a client is actually buying from you.

A client does not ask you how many options exist. He asks what you say, which one will work.

Three: knowing how to talk

I have seen this many times. A boy who does good work does not get any, because he does not know how to talk.

"Sir, I need work" and "Sir, I have looked at your work and I think I can help here" are worlds apart.

Replying to messages, telling people on time, and when there is a problem, saying it up front instead of hiding it. That is worth no less than the skill itself.

Knowing the work is one thing. Getting the work is another. Nobody teaches the second one.

Four: teaching yourself

This is the most important one, and the one fewest people have.

Do not wait for a course every time something new appears. Search it, watch it, open it up, break it.

Everything I know I learned that way. I never took a course. And when something new shows up today, I still do the same thing.

For a person who can teach himself, the question of what is coming next stops mattering. Whatever comes, he will learn it.

So should you learn a tool or not

Learn one. You need a tool, otherwise what are you going to work with.

The point is only that you should not treat it as the destination. Learn AutoCAD, but knowing that the real thing is understanding the drawing, not memorising buttons.

One question

Then where do I start?
Pick one tool that has work in your area. Give it three months. Build twenty things. The four habits above will build themselves along the way, because they only build while you are working, not while you are reading.

One last thing

Tools will keep changing. These four do not.

That's it.