STAYING UP TO DATE
It's hard for IT guys to stay up to date because everything moves pretty fast. Having kids and a lot to do around the house makes this even harder than just searching for motivation when being bored.
Of course, participating in trainings is always a good method to improve on new stuff but that doesn't cover all the important topics. Reading news sites mostly is just scratching at the top of the iceberg.
As I ealier mentioned, I'm usually listening to podcasts while driving to work and back home. Sometimes the podcasts topics are driving me to sink into my thoughts regarding current projects or stuff I wanna do. Thats's exactly why I value the coding blocks podcast that much besides that it dives deep into the programmers world.
And there's another thing that helps me keeping up to date: The coding blocks slack. I don't have time to read all the messages but sometimes it's really nice to have someone to talk to if no colleague is around or just chit chatting about random stuff. From time to time there's a nice hint or a recommendable page posted in there and the community is really friendly.
This is not supposed to be an advertisement but I really got into that guys and their awesome work.
Additionaly, I read across articles of dev.to to get into new things and let idea shaping happen.