Adopt These 5 Techniques to Make Coding a Habit
The Secret Developer is a coder with experience. They’ve developed several techniques to make coding a habit that sticks for life.
However, that was not always the case. It took practice and concerted effort to git gud.
“It’s like going to the gym. You need to practice regularly and get better.
I know no software developer knows what the gym is for, but bear with the analogy and let us step through this process together.”
Here are 5 proven ways to make coding a habit
“If you can follow the way, you are closer to your coding dreams and being an awesome developer. Rather like me.”
Routine
You can short-circuit your brain’s reward center by adopting a cue-routine-reward system.
Here’s The Secret Developer’s routine for coding:
Cue: My alarm clock. This is a signal that it’s time to work! Yes, I don’t work or set my alarm at weekends, so that’s all good.
Routine: I check my email. I look at tech news. I then get down to some work. That’s where I code and try to solve problems and (first thing) learn something new!
Reward: Every hour I get up. I take a walk. I have a coffee. I reward myself for my work by keeping things fun and talking during those breaks. Over time, I’ve reduced those breaks to just standing up every hour.
“This is the main way I’ve become awesome. Rewarding myself to keep my motivation up and keep going. Through the rough and the smooth.”
Develop a feedback loop
One technique for making coding a habit is to focus on your weaknesses. Use what you learn to inform the next part of your learning journey.
You should be in a feedback loop of learning, and you’ll get the most benefit from focusing on what needs to be improved.
“That feedback loop? Self-paced instruction, feedback, assessment, and support. That’s mastery learning and if you work on your weakness and get some help you’ll be in the Zone of Proximal Development and at this point, you’ll focus quickly on improving.
That is: You’ll get better fast.
I’m such a great coder I no longer have any weaknesses. Yes, The Secret Developer is that awesome.”
Pique your interest
Work on what you love, rather than “being realistic”. When you’re interested in something you’ll boost your motivation. You’ll engage in the content.
“You’ll be prepared to wake at 5 am to get that coding done. To understand concepts and the underlying substructure of what needs to be achieved. To give your all.
This isn’t all about LeetCode. Right?”
Plan
If you want to get to your goals, you’ll need to know what they are. Set yourself targets in order to reach them.
“Here are some great coding goals for a beginner coder:
Build a project with a new framework.
Contribute to an open-source project.
Write a technical blog post about a particular topic.
Learn a new programming language.
This is about growing and improving as a programmer. If you keep improving and setting yourself challenging goals, you’ll get there. You will start to overcome challenges that you thought were insurmountable a few interactions ago. As software developers, we are moving forward in the world to try to make ourselves the best developers possible.”
Use Social Pressure
You’ve got some friends, right? Use them! If you get some people interested in your goals, perhaps friends or family, tell them about your new plans. They will make you accountable for your work and motivate you to stick to your routine. When people who care about you know what you’re trying to achieve they help you to keep on track.
“Aren’t we talking to software developers here? Because the answer to that would be no. At least The Secret Developer doesn’t need to bore people with their technical work.
That and using Twitter to talk about the progress I’m making in software development and solving difficult problems.”
Conclusion
If you want to get better you need to iteratively get better. To get great, you need to run through many iterations.
“If you want to be great, start now. What’s stopping you?
I’m already great, so that’s a fair excuse I’ll grant you.”