Define "stay on of your game" first :) Does it mean "keep or increase your value for your company"? If that's the case: learn to understand the business. Try t

Define "stay on of your game" first :) Does it mean "keep or increase your value for your company"? If that's the case: learn to understand the business. Try to walk in your CEO's shoes when making decisions. It'll make your way better. You might learn a new technology and want to apply, but does it play well with your current infrastructure? is it cheap to maintain? will the company be dependent on your existence to fix things? No technology, programming language or framework would be more valuable than understanding the business. If it means "know about the latest buzzwords and newest programming languages and frameworks" then I don't know, reading HN to spot the trends maybe? :) By the way, a golden rule of the so-called battle-hardened professionals is to let someone else fight the battles and learn from their results. In other words, don't be the first to deploy the new buzzword in production :)