I’ve completed more than a third of the #100DaysOfCode challenge by today.🥳
That’s great and I even didn’t realize the quarter on day 25.😅
Anyway I didn’t expect to happen so much within that time.

I wouldn’t say that I’ve made unexpectedly great progress in coding.
Which doesn’t mean that I didn’t make any development(😉) at all.
However I think I could have learned and applied more coding skills than I did so far within that time.
Which is good to know and which I will keep in mind.
But the reason, that I didn’t improve my programming skills as much as I could is that I’ve been working a lot on the documentation of my #100DaysOfCode (probably mostly🤔).
And I’ve spend quite some time to connect to other people in the developer community.

Achievements aka. Celebration of Successes🥳

Anyway, aside from coding skills I’ve achieved several other great results:

  • start a real world web development project, based on my own ideas, from scratch🥳🎉💃
  • start a blog and extend it with more at least one blog post per week👌🤩
  • open several threads in the Django Forum and got great help by Ken Whitesell and Adam Johnson🙏
  • meet and chatted with some really cool, impressive and inspiring people: @UtkarshCode & @LuiggiAnnes🤗
  • make some wireframes, serving as basis for the actual development
  • learn a lot about the journeys of impressively successful web development creators like Pieter Levels🙌👏

Challenges during the #100DaysOfCode challenge

This may all sound very pleasant and delightful.
But to be honest: I am actually writing these lines because I was questioning my coding journey and its meaning a lot within the past days.
I felt like making way to little progress although I am definitely spending more than only one hour daily, average on the 100 days of code challenge.
But I rarely spend more than 30 minutes to one hour of actual coding (to my sensation).
What takes much more time (than the coding itself) for me is the documentation, reaching out to people (trying to build a network) and trying to receive at least some feedback – and eventually building a reputation, traffic, followership hence a successfull business (or at least a side hustle) from coding.

Below I’ve listed some more problems and doubts which came to my mind within the past weeks and especially within the past days:

  • physical problems: hurting fingers, arms, schulder and neck (fortunately no constant headaches anymore)
  • many other interests and ideas which I would like to follow up I tend to bemoan the fact that one can only focus on a limited number of projects in life and that one can only become an expert in a limited amount of fields.
    However I don’t necessarily want to become an expert in many fields but I am motivated to implement projects in different areas (permaculture/agriculture👨‍🌾 -> real life community building and living space design🌳👩‍👩‍👦 (including real estate🏡), coding💻, …).
    I want to create projects and ways of living which change the world – the way we are interacting and living together.
    Hence I need more experience and expertise in delegation and funding. And I especially need a great team👨‍👨‍👧‍👧 (at least one).
  • doubts whether I can really be successful in web development Does it make sense to build a career in tech, while this field is predicted to become oversaturated with high skilled workers?
  • doubts whether I want to work like this in the long run (sitting in front of a computer for long time (lonely)) Sometimes I have the imagination that other fields of work would be more satisfactory, fun and socially interactive🤗
  • doubts whether I am developing the right skills to build successful businesses
  • doubts whether I want to to focus on building online businesses
  • fear that I won’t have the time or skills to build businesses in other fields which I like as well

Work Less: Reduce time spent on #100DaysOfCode

Luckily I could reduce the time which I spend on the #100DaysOfCode challenge easily, since I am spending rather three to fours hours on it per day (or even more🤔).
That way I could regain other conveniences or comforts.
By reducing my rate spent on the 100 days of code challenge (which for is actually more than only that), I could focus more on other topics, projects and business ideas.
I could even spend more time with family and friends and do other potentially fun stuff.
But I think there should be a balance between these different parts of life in the long run (since we are talking about a marathon and not a sprint).

Long Run: Marathon, not Sprint

In the best case business, family and life merge at some conceivable point in the future.
And I am not only talking about the popular work-life balance.
I am seeking for a real symbiosis between money-making, spending time with friends, family and the surrounding community while experiencing adventures at the same time.
In the end I am sure that I won’t achieve this desire by finding a high-paying job and work there part time.
Because my need is not about building my life around my work but rather about building my work around my life.
Thus my goal is to find a (part-time) job, which pays the bills reliably, while building a business which makes me financially independent (stressing again: long run(!) -> marathon🏃‍♀️, not sprint -> executive habits and persistance🔁, not exhaustion).

Keep it up! You’ve just started👍

Though I am swerving from the actual subject:
Yesterday I’ve realized that I had only tried and focused on developing my own coding project (hence to improve my web development skills) for one single month – only 33 days📅.
It’s somehow impressive for me to see that this might usually be the point where people (or at least I) would normally give up.😲
But since it’s only been about one month so far, I will definitely not give up now.
Side note: Actually I’ve already started the routine of learning to code daily one month before I’ve started the #100DaysOfCode – only without working on my own project. But let’s ignore this for now.

Why I do not work less

As I said before: I am spending more than one hour daily on the 100 days of code challenge, because my long term goal is not only to practice a little bit more but:

  • to start a web development project (based on my own idea)✔🥳
  • to deploy a web app (based on my own idea)
    • (which people really use)
    • (which helps people to build successful teams)
    • (which helps people to set a foot in the coding field)
    • (as a portfolio project to gain a job or a good client maybe)
  • build enough (fullstack) expertise and the ability to create web projects and make them successfull
    • ability to recognize and outsource parts of the (web) business building, which are out of my area of expertise
  • (maybe find a job in the coding sector)
  • to evolve skills which help me to build a successful business in the long run (must not necessarily be coding expertise)

Aiming High = Setting Sights High

Due to these goals I am not just spending one hour of coding daily.
Honestly I didn’t write a single line of code today, yet.
I didn’t even open the code editor after three hours (since I am creating this blogpost since I got up).

By all means I am not only enhancing my coding skills but my entrepreneurial capability and the related skills as well as my reputation and my range/purview/coverage.

Entrepreneurial Capability: Habitual Execution + Persistence

I hope that my efforts pay of in the long run.
Obviously this isn’t certain.
But I know that it may only come true, if I keep executing persistently.
Because the economic success relies on habitual execution of actions, which are related to the development of one’s own business.
And on the other hand the great, long term success depends on persistance.
Therefore it makes sense to stick to the enhancement of my project ideas, community, network and implementation of feedback.

Celebrating achievements: Thank you and keep it up

Anyhow I’ve had a talk with my girlfriend these days in which she reminded me, that I will profit if I improve the way I celebrate the completion of goals, intermediate goals and successes.🥰
Therefore I’ve just jumped at the chance to celebrate the completion of one third of the #100DaysOfCode challenge and the above mentioned results.🎉🥳

For all of you, who are currently doing the #100DaysOfCode or any other challenge: Keep it up!

And I think that this is a good moment to thank Alexander Kallaway for inventing the #100DaysOfCode and for defining some rules, which helped me to focus, improve and develop a promotional habbit.✌
And again: Thank you again Linda for recommending the #100DaysOfCode challenge and nudging me into it.🤗