DEV Community

30MP
30MP

Posted on • Originally published at 30minuteproject.com on

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!

Speedy emails, satisfied customers

Postmark Image

Are delayed transactional emails costing you user satisfaction? Postmark delivers your emails almost instantly, keeping your customers happy and connected.

Sign up

Top comments (0)

Billboard image

The Next Generation Developer Platform

Coherence is the first Platform-as-a-Service you can control. Unlike "black-box" platforms that are opinionated about the infra you can deploy, Coherence is powered by CNC, the open-source IaC framework, which offers limitless customization.

Learn more

👋 Kindness is contagious

Please leave a ❤️ or a friendly comment on this post if you found it helpful!

Okay