Do you often find yourself wanting to start a project or learn a new skill that you end up procrastinating over and over? Me too! (If you said no, I really can’t relate to you.)
When it comes to things I would like to improve on, expand on or simply learn anew in my life, I can easily think of quite a few areas… (including but not limited to: expanding my daily cooking repertoire, working out more consistently, refraining from sitting on my feet, etc.). I won’t delve too deeply into all of them, but one of the biggest areas I’ve wanted to improve on has got to be programming.
For the longest time, I’ve been telling myself to get started on a personal project or finishing a tutorial that I paid for. (Yeah. Paid for.) But I just haven’t had the discipline to start.
A year or two ago, I stumbled across the 100 days of code challenge. My initial thought was that it:
A) Much like a cardio workout, was going to be a pain in all areas of my body and
B) Was going to be good for me.
At first I got quite intimidated and started finding ways to talk myself out of the challenge. I had a few things going on at the time and didn’t have the energy, or the time, or “It’s raining and I’d rather watch something on Netflix”. But you know, it’s been 2+ years now and I still haven’t started. Literally 700+ days have passed and I still haven’t committed to the challenge – so I thought, why not start now.
I invite you, whoever you are, whatever you do – expert or novice, full-time or hobby-programmer and everything in between, to embark on this 100 day journey with me.
One of the ideas behind the 100-day challenge is to establish a certain routine in your life. If you stick to something diligently for as long as 100 days, chances are you will keep at it and make it part of your everyday life.
Coding on my own has been really intimidating to me, and has always been something I have felt that I wanted to do, but didn’t know where to start. Which in retrospect was probably more an excuse than anything else.
I don’t really expect to be anywhere close to “a good programmer” at the end of 100 days – I don’t even expect to be well-versed in Javascript by then. I just hope to establish a coding routine in my everyday life and maybe, just maybe be more prepared to venture an inch outside of my comfort zone. It’s all about getting started, right?
For the next 100 days, I will be dedicating at least an hour a day learning the basics of frontend programming. I’m super excited to document my progress and hardships along the way, and I do hope you choose to embark on this adventure with me! The more the merrier, as they say!
If you are reading this a few days or weeks or months after, don’t worry! Start on your own day one, if you tag me (@this.ashley on Instagram) and use the hashtag #100dayswithashley I’ll be right beside you cheering you on, I promise!
Official rule for the 100-day challenge:
Code for a minimum of one hour per day for 100 days.
That’s pretty much it, the official challenge offers a few more “rules” that can be found here – but the most important part of the challenge is just the daily hour of code.
I’ll be keeping my Instagram stories updated daily as a proof of commitment to the challenge – again, feel free to tag me if you are doing the challenge with me, so I can keep up with your progress as well! I will also be checking back in here whenever I have a reflection or a noteworthy status update to make.
Some suggestions to get you started:
See a more detailed resource list on Pink’s blog post.
I’ll be starting my very own 100 days of code on Monday the 2nd of March – feel free to join me, tag along and let’s make our 100 days into a daily habit. If nothing else, you are welcome to just follow me as I embark on this journey, that’s fine too.
Hope to see you on the other side!
I am going to join you!