Personal and Professional Development

[clonkertink]

My job comes with a lot of perks. One of those perks is professional and personal development hours. In short, my job offers a limited budget of time and money for me to learn new things - obviously they'll greenlight just about anything that makes me better at my job directly or helps me gain a useful certification, but they're also willing to cover small expenses for learning new life skills.

And I thought this might be a good topic for discussion. Are there courses or books you've read that you found particularly useful? Is there some basic equipment you'd recommend for someone starting out in your hobby? Is there a skill you've always wanted to learn but don't know where to start?

To get the ball rolling, here's one hearty recommendation:

Automate the Boring Stuff With Python

This was one of the first courses I took using my professional development time, and I cannot recommend it enough. I took the course on udemy, but if you prefer the low low price of free, the book is available online under creative commons license here. I found the video tutorials immensely helpful, though.

And I know, coding looks scary! But Automate the Boring Stuff really is designed for total beginners - people who have never written a single line of code before - and you'd be surprised just how powerful a few simple lines of code can be.

The course walks you through the basics of python code, and then teaches you some basic use-cases that can simplify the drudgery of a lot of office tasks. Any time I find myself in a task that will require a lot of copying and pasting, manual data entry, or otherwise monotonous computer tasks I dip back into Automate the Boring Stuff and see if I can find a way to get my computer to do it for me. 45 minutes of coding can save hours or even days of work, especially if it's a task you have to do often.