Every second accounted for, 7 days later. What did I learn, achieve, and what will I continue to do/change..
The challenge revealed a way to achieve maximum efficiency. Through planning out every second of my day, I found that after a couple of days, I had done more than weeks of slowly inching forward. Planning is key, and having my entire day scheduled gave me something to fall back on when things get tough.
This is how I planned out my day, after I woke up I would immediately challenge myself to get out and run. Then, I would start working on Android Development until lunch, and I would go back to Android Development with 30 min breaks after each 2 hour session. The breaks were probably the most important part, and I had to rough tune along the way to account for over scheduling and under scheduling.
The reason behind having multiple breaks thrown into my day, was to first give my brain a breather and also make it easier to follow through (less stressful). Breaks also helped when I was around the 5th or 6th hour of Android Development for the day, and I was feeing hungry. I would look up at the clock every 10 minutes and having that break coming up, I felt like I didn’t need to cheat, and it made it easy to continue until the dinner bell rang.
When things got tough, and I wanted to stop, the schedule I spent so much time setting up gave me support to fall back on, and that helped me a lot during the challenge. However, the scheduling didn’t always go as planned. There were multiple times where I would be really energized to code, but I scheduled to long of a break. Out of sheer, wanting to stick to my plan, I didn’t come back until the exact minute, but I could see how that could be an area to improve on.
The biggest mistake I made, was changing my schedule too lightly. Of course, situations will arise where moving around time slots will be necessary, but not shortening or stretching activities. A proper reason to change something around mid day, would be when some unforeseen obstacle pops up. An example, I had to run up to my college financial aid department, to fill out some paperwork, and the time I gave that entire process was much less than the actual time it took. That’s not the biggest issue, all I had to do was move the time slots around to make up for that overlap. Here is a rough look at what my days would consist of.
Typical Plan (General Outline w/o specific time slots):
- Wake up -> Run -> Shower
- Grab a snack -> Start 2 hr Android Development session
- 30 min break -> 30 min Code Review
- 15 min break -> Start 2 hr Android Development session
- 30 min break -> 30 min Code Review
And so on…
Reflecting back on the past 7 days, I can tell you that it was not all smooth sailing. The challenge did require some pain, but the pain was worth it. Everyday, I stuck to my 6-8 hr planned Android Development I felt empowered. When I looked back at the week and I had run 8.5 miles from start to finish, I felt accomplished. Having a detailed plan of attack, with every second accounted for, afforded me the opportunity to make tweaks and follow my progress a lot better. I also, got my hands dirty in a whole slew of stuff like Navigation Drawers, interfacing, apis, SQL/PHP, and using built in SQLite to create a database inside the app rather than using XAMPP with SQL/PHP to host a server that would house my database then using GET requests to query the database. Transitions are fun.
I’m in the middle of moving back home to Portland, Oregon so I don’t think I’ll be able to continue this challenge until I get reestablished up there. However, I do want to continue pushing myself in this manner. It’s only been a week, but I could tell after the first 2 days that doing this everyday multiplied by a couple of months would be lightyears ahead of my current knowledge.
John Sonmez (Simple Programmer), said “Find what will get you to your goals 100% and do that. People have told me that if I can run 20 miles, I can run a marathon (26 miles). However, if I can run 30 miles then 26 miles will be easy, and that’s how I 100% get to my goal of running a marathon.” This spoke a lot to me, and is partly why I decided to do this challenge. I was seeking a way to 100% reach my goal and take hope out of the equation. My goal is to become a working software developer, and this is how I get there.
