Tag: Challenge

Personal Challenge #2, Day 7

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.

Personal Challenge #2, Day 1

New Challenge, Every Second Accounted For..

Well, I decided to challenge myself again. Except, this time I’m preplanning my entire day, every second of it. In my previous challenge, filed under Personal Challenge, I did more talking than action, I didn’t construct a plan, I kind of just hoped that I would figure it out and stick to whatever I figured out (no wonder it didn’t work out, lol). The previous challenge, consisted of not watching TV, not playing video games, and not getting on social media. And thus, without a solid plan in place, of how I would spend my day, I fell into old habits almost immediately.

Now it’s different, I’ve constructed my entire day, from waking up in the morning, to going to sleep at night. I’m writing this post, after my first day of the challenge. Here is some of what I’ve gotten done.

First Day of Challenge:

  • Ran 30 minutes, right after I woke up.
  • Studied 6 hours, for my Math final (I did this in 2 hour blocks).
  • Studied 1.5 hours, for my Sociology Final.
  • Took my Math Final, passed!
  • Finished the remaining work for my SPCH Final.
  • Wrote a blog post.

I’m shocked at how productive, the past day has been. I know it’s still early in the challenge, but I stuck to every single written instruction I gave myself. I have finished off my entire plate, for the remaining days of the Winter semester, and I even had room to add a blog post.

Tomorrow, will be my second day of the challenge, and it will be centered around Android Development. I’m going to apply what I did today with Math, to my Android Course, and I should make some solid progress sticking to my plan. I have 6 hours of Android Development planned, with breaks in between, and code reviews after every 2 hour block.

Surprises from my First Day:

  • I didn’t feel fatigued the entire day from running in the morning.
  • I stuck to the schedule, even when I was grinding my teeth, around the 5th hour of Math.
  • I completed even more than I planned, because I over scheduled a few areas (like how long my Math Final would take).
  • I just started feeling tired, and it’s 9:50 pm.

Okay, well that about wraps up my first day. I will post a photo so anyone reading can see exactly how thoroughly I planned my day, and the next three days of the challenge. Not quite sure, if I will continue past these three days, but I can already tell that if I did commit to such a rigorous regiment, I would be miles ahead of my current self, even a week from today. Here’s my 3-day schedule. I had a problem scaling, but you can see the detail, even with the blur.

Personal Challenge (Complete):

The last days of the challenge..

The challenge, to cut out all video games, tv shows, and social media for a single week. The goal, to force myself into programming even when I would rather sit on the couch and watch a tv show or play a video game. Well, it has been the full week, here’s some of what I learned.

When it comes to social media, it’s a very little thing, but it can consume hours upon hours of my time. To stop wasting time scrolling through my feed, all I have to do is never log in (simple). This was extremely easy for me and I haven’t broke this part of the challenge once. However, it hasn’t been all forward progression, I woke up on Saturday, and felt like I had been hit with a sledge-hammer. I would have been better off if I had left the house completely, and forced myself only into continuing with my Android course. Instead, when it got a bit tougher, I turned back to tv shows and video games to numb my feelings of discomfort. 

Looking forward, I will be continuing with the absence of social media which for better or worse has shaved many hours off my total time wasted.  I will also be continuing watching limited amounts of tv. In regard to video games, I will take a similar approach to tv. The biggest reason for limiting, and not eliminating, is because I get a lot of enjoyment out of both of those, and I’m not as ready to give up those vices  quite yet. 

Overall, I think this challenge was an interesting experience and it helped expose problems, rather than fix anything. That is the first step in changing a behavior, identification. Moreover, I believe that this challenge could be improved by keeping a daily log of activities, this would allow you to see and calculate how much time was spent in each category. For better or worse, this method of documentation would be a much more effective resolution practice. Finally, I think challenging myself even for a short period, netted some fantastic results, but there is a lot to improve upon.

What did I really accomplish?

  • I have a better understanding of where I waste the most time
  • I was able to cut out ALL social media
  • I progressed more in my Android courses
  • I forced myself into thinking about my actions and how they could be better spent

Did I stick to the challenge 100%? 

No, but to be fair, if the problems I had were deeply rooted, it wouldn’t make sense to fix everything in one week. I would say I stuck to the challenge about 65-70% of the time.

Will I continue parts of this challenge and do a more effective one, later on? 

Yes, I believe that eliminating social media is a huge step forward, and next time I will focus on cutting out video games and tv shows,

You mentioned discomfort on Saturday, what do you think the cause of that discomfort was?

I’ve thought about this a lot, and the cause of that discomfort wasn’t due to being physically sick, but rather my brain sending signals of pain when I knew the course of my day would have been 10+ hours of learning.

How do you combat that feeling of pain, and move past it?

This is something I haven’t fully cracked myself. The only logical answer I would have is, completely take yourself out of the environment. Leave the house, go somewhere and return back ready to work or take your laptop with you and work anywhere with wifi.

Thanks for reading, and challenge yourself!

Personal Challenge (Halfway):

Mid-Week Update:

The challenge, to cut out all video games, tv shows, and social media for a single week. The goal, to force myself into programming even when I would rather sit on the couch while watching a tv show or playing a video game. Well, it has been a few days, and the results although lesser than what I had hoped for, are still positive. Before, diving into the results, I’d like to discuss some of the unforeseen difficulties, and how I coped to better fit my current situation.

Adapting to reality..

There were a few times, in the past couple of days, where I had to adapt my overall challenge to be more realistic. First off, I choose to make this challenge during the Thanksgiving break, which in hindsight was a poor decision. I found that choosing to isolate myself, over spending time with family was not worth it. Therefore, when family was around, I didn’t put in my headphones and go to work, instead I made that one of the exceptions. Exception one, if family is around then watching tv shows are okay.

Now, the results..

The main purpose of this challenge, as stated above, was to motivate myself into continuing my path with Android development. The primary method to continue my progress in Android development, finishing Udemy.com courses. I was able to finish a section of the course in the past few days, the topic of the section was integrating YouTube api to my app, and an overall introduction to the capability of utilizing api’s. I was also able to learn more about intents, interfaces for the View.OnClickListener, and apply those newly learned skills to my earlier apps. In this regard, I feel this challenge has been a success. Even though, I should have spent more time programming, I learned a fair amount. Also, I got some idea for what to continue doing, once the challenge ends.

Continuing what works..

Prior to this challenge, when I would be looking for something to do after school, I would turn to a video game or a tv show, even though I had enough energy to focus and put some time into programming. The problem, at some point in the past when I had all the motivation in the world, I was actually choosing programming over tv/games, but since then when the motivation has decreased, I’ve been choosing the opposite. Therefore, to be more consistent and constantly progressing at a rapid pace, I need to be utilizing my energy and focus better. This can be accomplished by turning on Udemy.com and finishing some of my course, immediately when I get back from school, and not waiting until it’s later in the evening and my focus has deteriorated. 

Okay, that wraps up the mid-week update. I will finish this challenge on Wednesday the 30th, and end it with a final post about what has taken place over the past week. Thanks for reading.

Personal Challenge (Overview):

Taking a week off of social media, video games, and tv shows.

The goal of this mini challenge is to see whether I fill that extra time effectively or whether I find some other outlet to waste time with. Of course, this is over the thanksgiving break so I’m not making it easy on myself. However, I believe that I will rise to the occasion and choose to program over staring at a wall.

This is the initial post, the first day of the mini challenge, I will do a second post on Sunday the 27th, and a third post on Wednesday the 30th. I haven’t calculated how much time I usually spend with tv shows, social media, or video games per week. Frankly, I’m a little scared what those numbers truly are. So why am I doing this?

Lately, I’ve seen a sharp decrease in how much progress I’ve been making with my Android development. Recently, I was accepted into an Android/Java coding bootcamp in downtown Portland. Since then I’ve dropped the ball in constantly improving as a developer. Therefore, extreme actions need to be taken to relight the fire. So what does NO social media, video games, or tv shows look like for me?

Video games:

  • Rocket League
  • World of Warcraft
  • Other Steam games

Social Media:

  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Facebook

TV Shows:

  • The Walking Dead
  • WestWorld
  • YouTube (this is the biggest time dump)

There we go. All of the items listed above, and any that I couldn’t think of, but fall into those categories are banned. Now, there are some exceptions to this rule that will involve watching videos, but they will strictly be centered around solving a programming problem or continuing my Android courses. Any missteps will be recorded. Here are some exceptions to the challenge.

Exceptions:

  • YouTube, if google and stack overflow don’t solve my programming issue first.
  • Udemy.com, is where the bulk of my time will stem from as I work through my Android Dev courses.

Okay, this should be an interesting week. I will post a mid challenge update on 11/27 (Sunday), to share what this experience has resulted in, good or bad. See you then!