🫣 That feeling that haunted me at work

👋 Hi!

Today I want to talk about a feeling that followed me for years at work.

About 12 years ago I started as a data analyst in academia. I worked on genetics data, ran my own projects, and helped dozens of researchers with theirs. I even wrote some publications!

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It was exciting and I loved it. But as a junior analyst there was one thought that haunted me every single day:

If someone walks into my office and asks me to rerun the analysis with a slightly different parameter, chaos will follow. 😱

note: If this sounds familiar, please hit reply! I’d love to know I wasn’t the only one.

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​My work was messy

I was working mostly in R with a bit of Python. I knew very little about programming which made my code hard to read and even harder to trust.

Writing functions felt difficult so I copied and pasted a lot. Of course I would update most of the copies but forget one somewhere which created bugs I could not always detect.

I also had no idea how to check if my results were solid. My graphs looked nice, but when someone asked if I was sure about them, I felt uneasy.

Versioning was a disaster. I was terrified of losing work so I created files like result_2_final_really.png and script_version_4.R. I even sent those messy scripts by email to my boss who sometimes modified them while I was editing mine. 🤦‍♂️

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​Sounds familiar?

I doubt I was alone. My colleagues faced the same issues. And now that I give trainings, I see the same struggle everywhere.

You should not feel guilty about it!

Your priorities are probably statistics, meetings, writings, deadlines, publications, or whatever your job field demands. Becoming good at programming rarely sits at the top of the list.
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​(Well, unless you end up switching careers like I did and coding becomes the only thing you do for 5 years 😀)
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How I got out of it

It took time, but I eventually escaped that uncomfortable and unproductive loop.

I invested a few hours to learn the basic foundations of programming: writing functions, splitting files, commenting properly, using the right packages, auto formatting code... Those few hours paid off in weeks and the habits have served me for years.

Then I fixed reproducibility with Quarto. It lets you keep your code, your explanation, and your results in the same place like this. You click run and the whole analysis rebuilds from scratch. Change a parameter, press run, and everything updates reliably. The bonus is that the reports look great and people actually want to read them.

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The last breakthrough was learning git and GitHub. My work became safe online. Collaborators could propose changes without breaking anything. I could see exactly what happened yesterday, a month ago, or ten commits back. Pure relief.
​Don’t believe me? Here is a change I made in August 2019 on my Data To Viz website for example.

These three steps changed everything. I picked up more projects, helped more people, and delivered work I trusted. People really enjoyed working with me. Eventually someone in Australia found my GitHub profile and offered me a job. Honestly, a good GitHub profile is worth far more than a resume.

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Do it now

Programming might not be your main job. It might just be a tool you use. So it is easy to postpone learning it.

But every hour you invest in it now will save you days later. Your career is long and no AI tool will magically fix messy workflows. Invest in yourself.

You can learn everything for free online. But if you want something concise that teaches only what matters, I’ve packed it all into my Productive R Workflow project. It takes just a few hours to complete and already changed the way 600 people like you work.

Remember, the best day to start new habits is already behind you, so start today!

Yan
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PS: If your team is experiencing this, I’d be happy to come and sort it out. Reply to this email and let's chat.
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​PSS: Good news! Black Friday is coming next week. I skipped offers last year, but this time all three of my courses will be half price. Stay tuned!