There's a special kind of anxiety that comes as a bonus when working in tech.
A new framework drops.
A new AI tool shows up.
Someone posts a thread about the "only AI stack you need in 2026".
Your inbox politely reminds you that 67 unread newsletters are waiting.
And, just like that, you get that nagging feeling of falling behind.
This is known as FOMO a.k.a. the fear of missing out. Not the marketing kind, with fake countdown timers and "act now" nonsense, but the developer/knowledge_worker kind.
The one where you feel like if you don't read everything, learn everything, and try everything, you'll somehow become obsolete overnight.
There is already more to know than any one person can ever realistically learn, and more new stuff pops up every day than most of us could absorb in a month.
So, the tip is: accept that you can't learn it all and instead discipline yourself to be intentional. What you'll find is that you'll become an expert in a few things vs. knowing a bit about everything (and, newsflash: LLMs do that better than you either way).
You should absolutely stay aware of what's happening around you. If a whole platform shift is happening, it helps to at least know that it's happening. But that doesn't mean you need to immediately become an expert in every shiny new thing that lands on Hacker News. Being aware is good. Being consumed by it, not so much.
Stop treating every incoming newsletter or link dump as urgent. Batch it. Put it on a schedule. Read it later, when you decide to. And when you do, don't open every single link like a caffeinated raccoon with ten browser tabs already screaming for mercy 🙈.
Instead, summarize, skim, filter.
Then, pick the two or three things that are actually relevant to your work or your curiosity right now.
Trying to follow everything across the current best model, AI tool, JS, Swift, Android, leadership, productivity, AI, databases, architecture, and whatever else is a guaranteed recipe for shallow overwhelm.
Narrowing your focus gives you something much more valuable: traction. You may never be "the best ~programmer~prompter in the world," but you can absolutely become exceptionally good in a smaller niche that matters to you. That's where confidence starts replacing FOMO.
However, don't become so narrowly specialized that you miss major shifts entirely. Being an amazing Lisp dev specializing in X, but totally neglecting the use of any AI coding aids is also not something you'd want to do blindly. You don't need to master every new platform on day one, but you should at least know what exists, what it's for, and why it matters. A few minutes of awareness can save you from being blindsided later. That's a very sane approach, and honestly, probably the right one.
So if you've been feeling behind lately, here's the reminder: you're probably not.
You're just living in an industry with an absurd rate of change, while also trying to do normal human things like work, think, rest, relationships, maybe even raising a family. The goal isn't to know everything. The goal is to know what matters for you, right now, and keep moving.
That's enough. More than enough, actually.
In case you're more of an audio type, you can listen to this discussion here.
Top comments (5)
The line that stuck with me is "LLMs do that better than you either way." That's not just a concession—it quietly reframes the whole FOMO problem.
For years, the anxiety was built on a premise that went mostly unexamined: that the goal was to hold as much knowledge as possible in your head, and falling behind meant your mental index was incomplete. But if an LLM can be the shallow-generalist for you, then your value shifts to something else entirely. Not breadth of awareness, but depth of judgment about which things to go deep on.
I've been thinking about this as the difference between a librarian and a writer. The librarian knows where everything is, has a rough sense of what's in every book, and can point you to resources. That's the LLM role now. The writer knows one story deeply enough to tell it well, and knows which story to tell next. That's still ours.
The hard part isn't accepting that you can't learn everything—most people get there eventually. The hard part is trusting that narrowing your focus won't backfire when the industry shifts under you. You touched on this with the Lisp example, but I think the real fear isn't missing a new framework. It's missing the signal that your specialty is becoming obsolete. And the cruel thing is that signal usually looks exactly like noise until it's too late.
How do you distinguish "I'm ignoring this because it's noise" from "I'm ignoring this because I'm in denial about where things are heading"? That's the line I keep redrawing and never quite trust.
Your comment is gold. It happened to me several times.
First time with Unity - not that Unity went away, but they demanded a special license if you create anything that's used in betting/gambling apps. The place where I worked at the time decided to not pay it -> dreams of building games with Unity went down the drain.
Then, it happened with Ionic framework. Got really, really good at it, even wrote a book on it. Then, well, the world moved forward to React Natives and Flutters of the world.
Finally, it happened with the management track. Had 50+ people, then one day - poof, it all went away. And there I was, thinking that I'll never write (prompt? 🙂) a since LOC in my life.
All this to say: the only constant thing in life is change, and to your point -> we should be constantly (monthly?, daily?) reviewing our beliefs and staying honest with ourselves. I guess it's because we're the easiest to fall into a pattern - especially when it's going good.
To not drag this one further, I guess that's why it's harder to stay on top of one's game for prolonged periods of time - and it's why we admire people (in any walks of life) that were able to withstand the test of time. I don't have the solution, not even by far, but am, as you hinted, trying...
Take care!
everyone posts their new tool pickup, nobody's sharing the 3-day debugging session that turned out to be a typo. once I noticed that, the FOMO mostly went away
And the thing is, those are the breakthroughs we remember for years after they happened. Still remember how I used to drive home from work and thinking about something I just couldn't solve at work - and then having an idea that, sure enough, worked when I came home and tried it.
I fear that this brave new world™ of LLMs is robbing us of that a bit. Guess that's why some folks are even forcing themselves to code (the old way 🙂) at least 1 day of the week.
Your comment also reminds me of the truth in this quote: It Takes 10 Years to Become An Overnight Success.
that commute thing is real. the background process runs better without interruption. I think we're going to feel the cost of losing that friction before we name it.