Table of Contents
- Setting a New Benchmark for Myself
- My Most Productive Six Months Yet
- 2 Hackathon Wins
- Raised Money for Charity
- Became an Engineering Manager
- Collected More Than 25 Stars on My GitHub Repositories
- Beat My Own Record in Terms of Likes per Article
- One Article Made It Into the Top 7 of the Week
- Got Accepted into the Virtual Coffee Community
- To Sum It All Up
- Zero Luck, All Hard Work
- Share Your Wins and Achievements, and Set a New Benchmark Starting Now
Setting a New Benchmark for Myself
This short piece serves as a quick reminder of what my current benchmark looks like in terms of how much I should aim to do and achieve within a six-month period for it to feel successful.
Six months is a solid amount of time, you can accomplish a lot in that window. I'm not someone who tends to look back too often, but every now and then, it's important to check in with yourself to make sure you're still moving forward and not slipping backward. And slipping backward is never a good sign.
Some people might argue that just because you've been successful during a certain period, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll keep improving from there.
And that is true, there's no doubt about that. Sometimes things just go south, and we fail to achieve even half of what we set out to accomplish.
But that's the whole point!
Success doesn't teach us much, failure does. Failure is where the most important lessons come from. So set your standards high. If you fail, don't worry about it. Every failure is a lesson, and the more you fail, the more opportunities you have to learn and grow.
My Most Productive Six Months Yet
At the beginning of the year, I made a pact with myself that the first half of this year would be the most successful period of my life. Plans often don't work out, but this one worked like a charm.
Don't get me wrong though, I'm still not fully happy with myself, I feel like I could've done even better but still, it's good enough for now.
Here are the most important things that happened during that time:
2 Hackathon Wins
If I set out to do something, I want to succeed every way possible, whether it's industry work, writing code, writing articles, managing people, or presenting my work. I had already done all of that, but I had never participated in a hackathon.
As a long-time member of the DEV Community, I was well aware of the dev challenges and hackathons that occasionally pop up, especially after the merge with MLH. That felt like the perfect opportunity to finally go after that goal.
And boy did it turn out even better than I expected.
GitHub Copilot CLI Challenge Win: Metal Birds Watch`
This was my first-ever hackathon. Over 400 people took part, as it was a large event with great prizes for the winners, one of them being a ticket to the GitHub Universe conference, which is happening later this year in beautiful San Francisco.
As an aviation enthusiast, I poured my heart into this project. I could barely work on it, as my neck, shoulder, and arm were in constant pain, I was in complete agony. A few days earlier, I had spent a long time clearing snow from my driveway, which took a serious toll on my body. I was in terrible pain.
Here's me (the fool) trying to clear up the driveway:
But I pushed through it and finished the project anyway.
When I saw that I had taken first place, I literally shouted out of excitement. That project will always be special to me.
By the way, these are my initial sketches and outlines of the project. A lot of math was involved, and I'm glad I'm good at it. Sorry for my ugly handwriting, as I mentioned, my arm was killing me.
Notion MCP Challenge Win: NoteRunway
This one was special too. I built a large, complex, AI-powered tool that helps manage your Notion workspace. I've been a Notion user for six years now, and I wanted to give something back to this incredible team. It turned out far better than I expected.
And do you know the best part?
Because of that project, I got to meet Ivan Zhao himself, the founder of Notion. We talked about my project and many other interesting topics. How awesome is that?! Life is full of surprises, let me tell you that!
Raised Money for Charity
This was also a huge win. I regularly donate to charity, but this one was by far the largest contribution I've made. It came as a result of winning the GitHub Copilot CLI challenge (my first hackathon).
The prize included a Copilot Pro Plus subscription, which I already had. GitHub gave me a few alternative options instead, and I chose to donate it to charity, an easy decision.
Now the best part:
GitHub matched my contribution, bringing the total donation to a significant amount.
Once again, a huge thank you to GitHub for making that possible, you're awesome!
Became an Engineering Manager
As I mentioned above, if I set out to do something, I want to be the best at every part of it. I've been writing code for more than 10 years now, and I felt it was time to explore other dimensions of engineering. This role made the most sense to me, as I'm still closely involved in engineering, but now I also take on more responsibility and get to see things from a different perspective.
So far, I'm absolutely loving it!
Collected More Than 25 Stars on My GitHub Repositories
A number of people became interested in my work and started starring my repositories, which is always great to see.
Beat My Own Record in Terms of Likes per Article
One of my articles received significant engagement and became the most liked piece I've written so far. Many people also reached out to tell me they used it to train their LLMs or to build new skills around it.
Check out the article below:
One Article Made It Into the Top 7 of the Week
If you're not a technical writer on DEV.to, it's hard to appreciate how difficult it is to get an article into the weekly top 7, it really needs to stand out. This article made it there, which I was extremely happy about.
Check it out below:
Got Accepted into the Virtual Coffee Community
I've always wanted to be part of this community. I knew the people there were great and supportive. I got accepted, and I'm incredibly happy about it. It's always important to have good people around you.
You really are who you surround yourself with.
To Sum It All Up
- Won the GitHub Copilot CLI Challenge
- Won the Notion MCP Challenge
- Raised a significant amount of money for charity with GitHub
- Won a ticket to the GitHub Universe conference
- Met Ivan Zhao, the founder of Notion
- Became an Engineering Manager
- Built 4 new personal projects
- Collected 25+ GitHub stars
- Published 13 new articles
- Wrote my all-time most loved article
- Reached the Top 7 of the week with an article
- Joined a new community
Zero Luck, All Hard Work
I've seen a lot of people talk about the importance of luck, which I agree plays a role to some extent. But it often creates a mindset where people start relying on luck more than they should, and that's a big mistake, I hate that.
These things I just mentioned didn't happen because of luck. They came from pushing myself to the limit, at times even through severe physical pain (no exaggeration), and sacrificing a lot of my personal life along the way. My evenings, nights, and weekends were dedicated to all of this.
It's not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things, but I'd rather use that limited time than not do it at all.
Of course, this isn't for everyone, or maybe even for most people. I've even been called a few "funny" names because of it: weird, psycho, freak, nerd. But who gives a "fork"? I certainly don't.
Share Your Wins and Achievements, and Set a New Benchmark Starting Now
Now I'd love to hear about your new baseline and your new standards, share them, and let's talk about them.
Let's keep grinding!
If you want to follow my work or connect, you can find me here:
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