Inconsistent coding Traps

There are lots of ways for you to get stuck learning in software engineering. One of the most awful ones, in my experience, is distractions like the habit you have of staying up and watching an extra 2 episodes of a tv show that you didn’t even really want to watch in the first place.

As you have guessed, that is one of mine. But I’m not writing this so that you can stop your habits and become the ultimate robot that gets up at 5 am and sleeps 4 hours a night with a specialised frequency to active the brain ways necessary for optimal sleep. I am writing this to simply say “keep your work clean”. Just like when you’ve cooked a meal or created a mess in the kitchen the best practice is to tidy it as soon as you get a chance. You should try and do the same with your coding work.

What does that mean?

It means that your workspace needs to be clean for your next ideas. So you can get to working when you have the chance. I know this first hand. I would start a project get half way through, get distracted by something in my life, dedicate my full attention to the distraction and then when I return to my workspace. I would be lost, I would have no clue what I was trying to do and if it was even worth doing. So, maybe I would start a different project in another language because this other company is looking for workers in said language. As you can guess, lots of wasted time and an endless amount of repos of unfinished projects that are just not quite good enough to put on a portfolio.

1. CLEAN WORKSPACE

Focus on now

Another big way I got stuck was simply over-complicating my life. Thinking about 4 projects that I wanted to do at the same time and wondering when I would find the time to squeeze them in, whilst also living like a seemingly normal human. As expected, I would then procrastinate so I would not have to start and face loads of small challenges like how to deploy a backend, database, frontend. In the end, I would do nothing.

It’s import to focus, on the thing you can do now, set your limits. What I mean by this is not don’t think big. Big goals can help with direction of learning. But be realistic, If you are not capable of understanding basic javascript code, maybe dont jump straight into react.

Regardless of if you learn by reading the manual and need perfection to move on to the next step or if you just jump into things. I find creating a point of reference is useful for future times especially if the time you spend coding is inconsistent.

What does that mean?

It means that whether you’re working on a project or just learning through a tutorial/series of games make sure you compartmentalise your learning so you can come back to it easily and without much trouble.

The first time, I realised I had been freestyle learning was about 1 year into my journey. I was comfortable coding and solving problems, but now I had signed up to volunteer as a mentor to help someone else learn and I was nervous. So I thought, “okay, well. The best thing I can do for them is to show them a simple webapp and explain what html is, how it interacts with css and what the magic of javascript does”. I called it my vanilla-javascript folder and 1 year after that. I can still go to that folder and remind myself how it works.

I continue to do the same thing with projects. I have a PERN projects folder and it’s filled with complete MVPs of projects that just aren’t that cool. But, I can look back at the code easily and remind myself. ooooooooo that’s how I made that work!

2. BUILD A LASTING REPETOIRE WHILE LEARNING

Lastly, respect yourself

Throughout my inconsistency, I would come back and critque myself about the lack of work that I did, I would listen to other peoples criticisms about me and my “lack of progress” and I would reprimand myself over the words of people that knew nothing about me or my life.

I say this because respecting yourself, has a balance of understanding how to take your failures seriously and how not to take your failures seriously. Ask the question, “why didn’t I manage to do that?” and then through trial and error find out the cause. If you have someone you can trust ask them. Don’t just suffer for pains sake.

I have a lot more to say on this topic but, I will simply say “ value your time, think your own thoughts and you’ll succeed through inconsistency. In fact, inconsistency might even vanish completely”

3. Schedule your life in a way that you want to live it.