Take the 100DaysOfCode Challenge. Its the fastest way to form a coding habit.
One is that before each round, you can do some planning listing what specifically you want to achieve in this run, what technologies you want to explore, what projects you want to build. Another is that you are preventing the burnout which happens when our brain doesnt know if and when the mental and emotional strain will be over.
the benefits of joining the 100DaysOfCode community
Think of rounds as modules you use in code. They separate your learning into blocks, bringing clarity.
Was there a trigger to the habit? In other words, what daily actions caused you to remember to start your coding session for the day?
As of writing this, nearly 3,000 people have risen to the challenge.
The 100DaysOfCode challenge started out as a set of rules to help people commit to learning to code consistently. And with time, it has attracted a community of like-minded people.
Even if youre coding consistently on your own, joining the challenge will help you find new friends. Friends who like you are passionate about tech, personal growth, and getting the most out of life.
Ive noticed that there are two ways people compare their journeys with one another. One of them is healthy, and the other one is toxic.
With that in mind, we recently launched the 100DaysOfCode website with a bunch of tools for taking the challenge.
Some days people have time for this, other days they dont. There must be a way to simplify the process, I thought. Ive added a streamlined way of logging progress, where you just note which day you are on, and briefly describe what you worked on.
If you have friends who you think might be interested in taking this challenge, share this story with them.
Every time you feel like you are not good enough, remind yourself that you are. No matter how many times you will have to do it. It will work wonders in your life.
Working on projects rather than tutorials (you can do some tutorials until youve got the basics down, but dont wait too long to start building projects)
Our community publishes stories worth reading on development, design, and data science.
If you dont give up, no matter how slow you are moving, you will eventually reach your goals.
The two main rules* of the challenge to ensure your success are:
Instead I wanted to self-direct my learning, choose the tech I want to be learning, and then consistently make progress on it every day.
Ive created the100DaysOfCode YouTube playlistwhere all the videos Ive made about it so far are gathered. We plan to create more content around learning to code and changing habits). Some of them are clarifying the purpose, the rules of the challenge. Others provide strategies and advice on how to be successful in it.
Both types of progress logging are available for you to choose from on the repo.
Self-Taught Web Dev. Created & 100DaysOfCode . Change your habits/life:
You commit to coding for minimum 1 hour every day for the next 100 days.
From a quick cheer to a standing ovation, clap to show how much you enjoyed this story.
Think of work. You feel the most burnt out when we see no end of work in sight.
And then we are getting to the root belief: Im just not good enough.
The 100DaysOfCode community can help you reach your dream without having to give up, and without having to go through unnecessary difficulties along your way.
After people would finish their challenge, a lot of them, seeing the positive effects, wanted to return to repeat it.
The main goal behind the challenge is tohelp you become consistentin your learning.
The thing is, you are good enough and there is no better time to learn than now. Tomorrow will be one day late 🙂
Anna said it was a good idea, and added: But why stop at 3 months? You should make it an even 100 days! It just sounds better! 🙂
Here are some of the most effective and useful improvements we made.
Still another benefit is having the ability to compare your rounds, which gives clues to whats working for you and what is not as effective.
Some questions to use in your analysis:
Take up the challenge and join the 100DaysOfCode family!
I am always reminded of this quote, when I think about learning or doing something worthwhile but scary:
One of those days, I was sitting in a restaurant with my wife Anna sharing my frustrations with her. I suggested that maybe I should make a public commitment to learning for at least an hour every day, and I thought I would go for 3 months.
When I came home that day, I quickly wrote some rules that I thought would help me make the commitment as effective as possible. I submitted this challenge to the freeCodeCamp Medium publication, and to my happiness and joy, they published it.
You can read more about the rules, and a general FAQ, on the official challenge website:
I didnt expect for so many people to want to try the challenge out for themselves. But since then, thousands of people have committed 100DaysOfCode. Both the challenge and the community around just kept evolving.
We adopted a new format to add the day youre on onto the daily progress tweet:R3D25 which meansRound3Day25.
Having thoughts like these are, in my experience, one of the top reasons why people quit learning to code (or quit pursuing an worthy goal, for that matter).
These are all serious-enough reasons to quit. Or at least thats what you might tell yourself.
You dont know about their self-doubts. You dont know about the roadblocks they encounter, and the anxiety they feel. You might assume that they just dont have any problems and everythings smooth sailing.
A lot of people have written about their 100DaysOfCode experiences and the lessons learnt in the process. These are listed on the official site under the Resources section. If you have already written an article about the challenge or are looking to write one reach out to me on Twitter and I would love to include it on the website!
Click here to tweet out your commitment!
First lets talk about the toxic way, which is much more common. It is to idealize other peoples experience by looking at their progress, and then to use your idealized version of them to talk yourself down.
As of today, there are at more than 300 members on our Slack channel. We created a couple of months ago, and it has been growing consistently. Its a place for the 100DaysOfCode community to socialize, and get help and feedback.
What time of day did you feel the most productive?
The second, healthy way of checking in on your progress is to share your frustrations, learning experiences, and victories with the like-minded people who are also on the same path as you. By sharing these, you grow to understand:Its not just me.
These people are enthusiastic about self-improvement. They love learning. And most importantly, they help each other along the way.
There are many more, but the main benefit of the challenge is having the environment that makes it more difficult to quit and easier to stay on track.
If you have a project you are working on, and want to get some help from the community, you can ask for it in the Slack, where its easier to follow comments and replies than it is on Twitter.
There is an inside joke that was born out of this format: On the second day of the second round R2D2 people post a picture or a gif of the beloved R2D2 Star Wars robot in their daily progress tweet.
Look at what types of resources youve gotten the most benefit from
why people give up on learning to code, and how you can prevent this
* Note that everybodys situation is different. You can adjust the rules for your challenge to fit your life and responsibilities.
An idea was born for treating these multiple runs as Rounds of the 100DaysOfCode challenge. The benefits of the mental model of rounds are numerous.
The slack has channels that were made for specific purposes, keeping the needs of the community in mind: get-help, get-feedback, share-resources, discuss-anything, discuss-tools, etc.
If thats so important, why do people give up on learning to code?
There are plenty other benefits to joining the 100DaysOfCode family, like:
Weve recognized that Twitter sometimes is not enough for the needs of the community growing around the challenge. So we added more ways to stay in touch.
It will also help you navigate all the bumps and turns along the path. It will provide support and advice to make sure you continue moving in the right direction and dont give up.
The idea of 100DaysOfCode originally came from personal frustration with my inability to consistently learn to code after work. I would find other less-involved activities to spend my time on, like binge-watching TV series.
After youve finished a challenge, its good to take a short break, maybe for one or two weeks. I strongly recommend using that time to pause and reflect on what went well and what went wrong. You can look at your original plan and the outcomes and think of ways you can improve your process in the next round.
Ive noticed that the original progress logging format I made was sometimes too demanding. It featured: the day, what has been done, a link to the project, and a section to describe emotional state that day.
Becoming friends with other aspiring developers
And you can help more people see this here on Medium by clicking the clapping hands ( ? ) below. Dont hold back you can clap more than once on Medium. ? Help people discover the challenge and change their lives!
If youre excited about committing to the challenge, you can do it right now.
Having real projects to show and talk about during job interviews
One thing to remember is that our beliefs are just thoughts that weve been running over and over in our heads for a long period of time. A thought can be changed, and any beliefs that might be holding you back can also be changed with time. You can start today. And the best part: you have the whole 100DaysOfCode community cheering for you, and we are always here to help!
You commit to encouraging at least 2 other people who are taking the challenge each day, using Twitter.
and brand new ways to interact with the 100DaysOfCode community
But you know from experience that you yourself feel these emotions, and have these struggles as you are learning. If you do this, you may wrongly conclude: Its so easy for them and so hard for me! I must not be cut out for coding. Or Im too old. I should have started when I was X years old, otherwise why bother starting at all.
The challenge also experienced a spike in growth whenwe encouraged everyone to commit to it in the beginning of year 2017. We wanted coding to be their new habit for the year.
You can find theup-to-dateinvite links to join these channelshere.
some improvements weve made to the challenge rules over the past years, and new tools for completing it
That way there is no pressure on following the format and the focus is on the coding and socializing with the community. You can see an example of a rapid loghere.
Let me know what your questions are and I would love to create video responses to those questions which will help other people discovering the challenge and going through similar experiences.
Weve also added a Discord channel because there is an opportunity to talk/video call to work together with someone on a project.
That thought alone removes so many mental blocks and a lot of resistance to growth. Once you understand that on a deep level, you will always be able to return yourself to a productive state. You will have the antidote to failure the ability to be resilient in the face of difficulties and not to quit no matter what!
Self-Taught Web Dev. Created 100DaysOfCode Change your habits/life:
Sometimes people are discouraged after talking to real developers who claim the learning path they took was the only correct one. Sometimes people dont know what technologies to learn and in what sequence, or which resources to trust with their limited time. Often, life gets in the way with all the responsibilities, urgent situations and unexpected developments.
The problem is that in a lot of situations, we tend to think less of ourselves and more of others. Its kind of like judging what someone elses life is like by looking at what they share on Instagram. Youre getting a highlight reel of their best experiences.
Overall, learning to code in itself is tough. There will be plenty of times when you feel like youve had enough. Or youll feel like your progress is way too slow, or youre hopelessly stuck.
But if you connect with others on the same path you can share the ups and downs of the journey, and together move past all these roadblocks.
The opportunity to get serious about learning to code, and really commit to it