New year, same goals

Since my last post where I talked about my short to mid-term goals, I haven’t really made any progress. But, with the new year here, I finally found some time (and the motivation) to dig into setting up a GitHub Actions workflow for automating deployments in my project. Managed to set it up so that tests run whenever there’s a commit or a PR waiting to merge into the stage branch.

Now, when it comes to frameworks, let’s just say I haven’t made any headway. I tried getting into a React.js course, but my excitement for it faded after a while.

So, to fix this slump, I decided to come up with a plan. The main issue? I struggle with self-discipline and rely too much on having the motivation to keep going. Here’s where I usually lose that motivation:

1. Tutorials and courses that start from square one, assuming the reader has zero knowledge of programming. Gets me bored just thinking about having to go through stuff I already know.
2. Even when they assume some basic knowledge, they tend to move at a snail’s pace, explaining every tiny detail. That, too, makes me lose interest.
3. I’d rather spend my free time gaming than continue programming.

So, here’s the plan to turn things around. The solution to the first two issues is pretty straightforward. There’s this public GitHub repo loaded with app ideas ranked by difficulty (beginner, intermediate, and advanced).

I’m gonna build each of those ideas first in a language/framework I’m already comfortable with (for clarity). Then, I’ll replicate it in the ones I’m aiming to learn, like Node.js + React.js.

For the third issue, I’m committing 30 minutes of my free time to this. If, by some miracle, I catch a good flow, I might extend it a bit (but keeping an eye on not burning out).

Let’s see how this goes.