Future Proof Your Work, Your Professional Career Will Be Grateful For It

Dr Louisa Petchey, Senior Policy Officer at Public Health Wales, said:

“Human beings are not naturally good at thinking long-term, and our brains are hardwired to focus on short-term concerns or think that the future will be like the near past."

Sometimes it may look like what you are doing will not be used beyond a specific project and, sometimes, we don't pay too much attention to reusability and possibilities of expanding the tool you are working on. Sometimes you may even think that you actually "future proofed" your work just to discover a few years down the line that, for some reason, that tool just doesn't want to work anymore. Remember Y2K? Nobody in the 60s, 70s, 80s thought that using 2 digits for years was going to be a problem until you approached year 2000 ("00") and then calculations involving years could create a serious mess!

Creating "future proof" tools takes more planning, effort and work but, eventually, it will save time and make you more efficient down the line. It also shows your planning capability and that you work towards long term goals which is usually aligned with the way companies plan their strategy. In the end, it makes you and your work stand out from the crowd and improve your career prospects.

Even if the project looks like something small, make it easy to update. Make it easy for others to use it. Make it easy to expand. Make it easy for your future self!

Bottom line is; think and plan before you start working on something. Ask yourself: Will I use this in the future? Will someone else need to use this in the future? Is this project easy to update/expand? Will it work in the future? What will happen to this if I leave the company, would anybody else be able to use it?