intro
I've started trying to code again a number of times, but every new attempt has seemed to fizzle out like the one before. The first few times, I didn't even notice I'd stopped - one day I just hadn't opened the laptop, and then days, weeks, months passed before I even knew it.
But over these last two months, I've finally landed on a way to make the habit stick. I'm reading technical books as soon as the alarm goes off, watching tutorials on my commute, and writing code whenever I get the chance. I've managed to swap the doom-scrolling, the cheap dopamine hits, and the late night revenge bedtime procrastination for the things I've always actually wanted to be doing.
But this didn't happen overnight, and it certainly didn't happen in the last two months. What changed, and why it stuck this time, is what I'll be getting into throughout this post - and the ones that follow.
background and the gap
I've always loved computers, and I still remember the first time I started delving into code. The excitement of writing Basic scripts in notepad. Creating text-based terminal games and accidentally writing myself executables that opened the calculator app 100 times. This passion never quite seemed to spill over into my education until I got to picking out which degree to do at University. After very nearly picking Law (...), I switched instead to choosing my Computer Science degree, graduating in 2023.
This was almost three years ago now, and up until a few months ago I hadn't really written any code, or bothered learning anything new. And if I'm brutally honest with myself, throughout my entire degree I never really got myself to a point where I actually felt like a programmer. Rather, someone who could complete what was needed to pass the curriculum, but with no skills or understanding to explore the things I wanted to build myself.
Somehow, my passion for computing had been pushed all the way to the back of my mind, right up until December of last year, aged 25, when it finally hit me that if I don't make the change in the here and now, I wouldn't ever get to where I wanted to be. Nothing changes if nothing changes, and I'd grown tired of making excuses for myself, that I'd start when work is less stressful, or that I'll get to it when I have more time.
the how
Two years ago, I first read Atomic habits - cliche I know - and it kickstarted a real desire to understand the way people tick. What makes us keep habits, and why it can be so unbelievably hard to kick the habits you actively know are bad for you. Between then and now, I've read, watched, and logged everything I could about habits and how I actively interacted with my own. How I felt, what I did and where I was all in the lead up to the habits I wanted, and those I didn't. How could I simultaneously keep fit again and kick the sweet treats? Drop the video games and pick up a book instead?
Over the course of about a year, I had managed to get myself into a position where I was tracking habits and shaping the life I actually genuinely wanted. In this time I had tried and failed a few times at picking up my programming again. I certainly wanted to, and I gave it some good efforts, especially utilising great resources like The Odin Project. But as is evident throughout all my failed attempts, I have a habit of trying to do too much too soon, burning out, and eventually writing my last line of code without even realising it.
The key is to start so unbelievably small, you barely feel like you're doing anything. If it doesn't feel like hard work, it's easier to do on the days you have excuses. You can't rely on motivation alone when starting out a new habit, it requires the discipline to do it on the days you don't want to. You need to have such a clear goal of who you want to be and what sort of habits that person would have, that doing the opposite becomes a clear violation of who you're trying to become.
Along the way, I grew a deeper understanding of my own habits. But understanding them doesn't automatically make it easier to make or break them, you still need to put the work in. The truth is, redirecting your life onto the path you want to take isn't glamourous. Even now, there are days I just don't want to put in the work, open the laptop, go for the run, but I've made it clear enough to myself who I'm trying to become that not doing it feels worse than doing it. I'll write more about the specifics of how I built this up in a future post.
the process
So, taking what I'd learned through habit formation, I finally decided it was time to focus my energy back to programming.
My interests are broad, and if I'd allowed myself I would have ended up with a wide but incredibly shallow pool of knowledge. Instead, I decided to start focusing on web development and AI as these are my main interests currently and I love the creative work you can inject into web dev (eventually I do want to dabble in game dev, but you really need to keep things simple when you start any new habit!).
I started tracking how I spent my time to see whether I was actually putting in the work. As a person, I'm competitive and I love data, so seeing the minutes, hours spent towards my goal both motivated and incentivised me to keep pushing. Using the app 'Timelines', I created 2 main categories that would go on to be the focus of how my week has gone. These are "Learning - Skills & Knowledge" and "Building - Projects & Problems", if I'm on The Odin Project, learning about a React hook, or reading The Pragmatic Programmer - that's learning, and whenever I started writing a line of code I'd switch over to building. As you can see below, these contributed towards my combined goal 'Deep Work', which I have managed to consistently stick to over the last two months.
And the point of all this isn't about being perfect. Almost immediately, I had a week where I only spent 1.5 hours on this, and I can tell you I was unbelievably close to not picking it back up again. But I stayed the course, and now my discipline drives my motivation, because I have shaped my life to be someone that loves to learn (I'll speak more on this in later posts).
This is also all alongside working a full 9-5 office job. I'm lucky enough where some areas of my learning can seep into my work hours. As an AI strategy consultant, putting in the additional hours to understand concepts in AI and software development and technology benefit both my learning and my work.
going forward
Since beginning to write this, I have now added "Writing - Blogs & Articles" into my list of timelines. I wanted to double down on this learning habit I'm trying to form and so to keep myself accountable this is where I've ended up, in front of you. Learning by teaching is known to be one of the best methods to deepen your understanding in any topic, so what better place to try this than a platform driven by developers, all experts in their own domains. It's this scrutiny that will ensure when I write about something going forwards, I have to actually know what I'm talking about - otherwise I'm sure someone will swiftly tell me...
conclusion
Whether you're someone like me who has spent far too long not spending time on the things you enjoy, or someone who's been in the game for years and has experienced this all ten times over, I hope my experience so far has resonated with you. Over the remainder of the year, I will be posting twice a month to develop both my writing habit, and my knowledge base. There will be no fixed format, or topic, but this public commitment should ensure I stick to it.
If you've got this far - thanks
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