Battling Procrastination as a Code Newbie
Battling Procrastination While Learning to Code
Procrastination is actually the act of putting off or keeping aside doing things that you are supposed to do at that instance of time. It is the act of delaying things that need your immediate action. Procrastination has nothing to do with laziness , though laziness can also instigate procrastination. In other words, it is the action of postponing or delaying tasks until another day, either due to lots of tasks on hand and not being able to prioritise things in the right order or it could be an act of negligence due to several reasons that are detailed in this story. Read until the very end to understand how I went through a stage of procrastination in my early coding journey, but later on, survived completely by learning to fight the challenges that I faced while trying to balance a hectic lifestyle, career and personal life along with the difficult task of learning to code.
Newbies in programming experience procrastination while learning new coding languages and many learners are demotivated from further learning or completing their projects due to this reason and here, I am going to expatiate my story of facing and fighting coding procrastination while learning my first few programming languages as a complete beginner.
I encountered two different faces of procrastination : the Worrywart and the Workaholic, and the Workaholic.
Worrywart
The Worrywart is a person who would excessively worry and fuss about insignificant matters and keep thinking about unfortunate and unforeseen things that may happen due to his or her actions. Though it is a fact that a Computer Science degree or any University degree in Software Engineering or Data Science is not so important in order to learn Programming Languages, I would still worry about my not having a background in Computer Science or any Engineering degree in this field and I kept musing that I may not be successful in coding due to my background weakness, as I considered it as part of my weakness, thought it was not true. I also kept worrying about my post- learning phase, (even before starting to code) that “ What if I don’t secure a job without a degree in CS ?”. Such thoughts would serve as the leading agent to stop pursuing a coding career, right in the midst of my learning phase.
I would just watch experienced Engineers build complex projects and quit coding several times in a row, after comparing their background and skills with mine. I would put up my hand and say, forget it, I would never be able to build like them, it would take me ages to achieve that level of expertise. Aside from worrying about not having a CS degree, another worrisome thought was the fear and lack of confidence in confronting challenges.
Coding is a challenging field and sometimes it could be too intimidating to solve an endless plethora of complex code algorithms that test your brain and patience beyond the ultimate limits. When I would see other programmers and mentors coding away projects within minutes, I would think that I may not be able to finish my projects, consequently, keeping aside my work, and trying to learn more concepts before coming back to that project again. This in turn, would delay my learning cycle even further, without my realising that the real learning process of concepts is actually about doing it and making the project happen!! That’s the attitude of a worrywart who tends to dwell unduly on challenges and difficulties rather than focus on himself/herself on how best to improve oneself. So, my continuous musings that I am not from a computer science background, was the main culprit that stopped me in my learning track of something challenging .
Workaholic
The Workaholic is a person who works compulsively and excessively to an unhealthy extent and finds it hard to stop himself/herself. I was a workaholic when I started to code in JavaScript, and although I loved the algorithm part of solving projects, I just hated the part that involved remembering the syntaxes. Being the workaholic that I was, I would try to learn JavaScript from multiple sources, for long hours without even a small break. I would watch tutorials, learn concepts from eBooks, websites, audio books, etc., code for several hours, start with a project, then then, in my eagerness to learn many programming languages fast, I would also try to balance with my personal chores, lifestyle, gym, swimming, meditation, other academic teaching job, etc, to the point of reaching a stage of zero energy.
I had to give up watching movies or Television soaps because of my time spent on coding projects. I love to sleep late, but, to adjust time for a healthy nap, I would go to bed early and wake up early, in order to finish my chores fast and sit down to code. Sometimes, I would curse myself for giving up my cosy life , just to learn code or do some long projects, and end up keeping aside my projects for another day, when I was feeling more energetic. When I realised that keeping aside my work for several days, was leading me to lose my interest and burning passion to code, I started being more careful with my time keeping and schedules. Keep reading until the very end to understand how I learnt to cope up and fight back the urge to procrastinate. That’s when I started keeping aside my coding work and tried doing some other work like e-commerce sales etc., but later on, I realised that I must also resume my learning process . In general, as we all know, Programmers need to learn many coding languages and especially while learning their first coding language, they find the learning process very stressful and tiring.
I chose JavaScript as my first programming language , after which I learnt Nodejs . When the learning gets tougher along the way, as a newbie, I used to start putting things away as pending tasks. The pending tasks would get accumulated until a phase of “stop everything! “ was reached. The workaholic inside me pushed me into procrastination mode several times, though I didn’t succumb to it completely.
Coding involves strict discipline and I had to sacrifice a lot of my personal time and enjoyment and it added to the stress of not being able to do my regular day-to-day work and chores. Workaholism is the issue of attempting to get everything done and then, when stuck up in the huge rigmarole of not being able to accomplish any task at all, I was catapulted into the overwhelming world of Lackadaisicalness, as far as coding was concerned.
Fighting the Worrywart in me
I started understanding the importance of practising projects persistently and making conscious efforts to improve my skills rather than fussing over unimportant issues. I became better at being a self-taught learner through a series of strategic thinking and planning.(More about this on how to become better at being a self-taught learner, in a separate blog post later 😀! )
Fighting the Workaholic in me
I realised that it is not good to be a workaholic when it comes to learning coding even though I love to code. I decided to balance my lifestyle by keeping enough time for the learning period while also not ignoring my personal lifestyle. Finding the right balance is the key!
Taking control of daily lifestyle
I started taking short breaks while doing projects and tutorials and also started making timetables and todo schedules to complete various activities and chores that also include coding projects and tutorials. I also stopped ignoring my sports and recreation activities such as swimming, jogging, yoga, meditation etc., because recreation and sports are very important to boost positive energy which in turn would help to focus more on doing coding challenges.
Finding tactics to beat the learning process
I realised that the learning process became lethargic due to my over-obsessiveness of the learning process and then I started taking it one at a time by slowing down a bit to take control of myself . I started reversing the process, that is, doing the project first, and then, while doing the project, I would reference the syntaxes and learn in bits while doing in steps. I also started finding study groups and it was totally fun to learn within a group of aspiring learners who are trying to learn the same topic. Sharing is caring, so sharing study tips and teaching others to code is also fun stuff while learning to code!
The importance of recreational activities
I also resumed my recreational activities along with my coding work while not forgetting to keep a balance in my personal lifestyle, by learning the art of moderation in all activities. If I got stressed building a project, I would stop doing it, take a short break, and resume it after refreshing my mind with a bit of meditation, gym, swimming, yoga etc., and I would keep timetables for all my daily activities.
The importance of To-do Lists
Keeping a to-do list became very important to balance my life while learning to code. I would also keep a to-do list for scheduling my learning routine. I would also make note of what I learnt, what was left to learn, what projects I should build in that particular week or month and what should be my goal after learning for that particular month.
Conclusion
To conclude, I was able to fight back the procrastination that I faced due to the Worrywart and Workaholic tendencies in me, this in turn, made me a better learner and I started finding it easier to learn coding. I am neither a Workaholic nor a Worrywart anymore and I have learnt through my coding journey, how to balance work with learning, other daily core activities, personal chores, and personal recreational activities as well , in order to maintain a balanced, healthy lifestyle. So, I realised in the process that difficulties in handling things tempt us to put things away or keep shoving things aside, until we get more comfortable with coming back to it at a later time. Also, it was an important revelation that no matter how much passion one has in learning something, it is important to keep a balance in your life or else too much of a workaholic and worrywart attitude can lead to worrisome phases and in turn lead to procrastination.
Success ! Goodbye to my Worrywart and Workaholic attitudes.
Do you also face similar challenges while learning to code? Do you procrastinate in your coding journey? I shared my experience while learning to code and how I overcame the resistance to study and fought procrastination, so, please forgive me if you do not agree with me or if you did not have a similar experience as every one has unique experiences in learning journeys. Do mention your honest thoughts in the comments below.