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Tuesday’s Tip – Using Challenges to Build Habits

Using Challenges to Kickstart Learning Habits

If you’re struggling to figure out the best way up your skills as a developer, you already know that learning a new language or adopting a side project can help expand your skill set. But sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. Challenges are a great way to kickstart your way into making learning a new habit.

Whether you call it a daily challenge, a streak, or a code chain, the idea behind these challenges is to let you bounce around and try a few things. The two typical challenge lengths you’ll see are 30 days and 100 days, and that’s for specific reasons. With 30 days, the duration is handily a month long, so it has a nice feel to start at the beginning of the month and finish at or near the end. Furthermore, it’s often said that it takes 30 days to establish a new habit. As for the 100-day challenges? Those are a longer commitment that can be a good litmus test for whether or not you’re finding something interesting and engaging enough for you to stick with longer term. The quarterly length also allows for a good look back your progress and accomplishments.

Recommended 30-day and 100-day challenges

Below are some challenges that might help you get going on something:

My advice? If you’re looking to get your feet wet and try something new, a 30-day challenge is ideal for fast, light, exploratory projects. If you’ve found something really interesting and want to dive deeper, give yourself a 100-day challenge and see where it gets you. Happy coding!

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