Month: August 2022

Consistency is the key to real success. The only way to make true, lasting progress is through daily consistency. It’s ok to miss a day or two for special circumstances, but you must MUST MUST get back on the wagon as soon as possible. Otherwise, a day turns into two. And two turns into three. And that becomes a week. And then it’s harder the get going again than it was to start in the first place. The hardest day of practice is the day after the one you missed.

Continue reading “Five Minutes a Day Beats an Hour Per Week”

There is a quote I keep posted over my desk for inspiration: “An excellent life is NEVER convenient.”

Continue reading “This is Hard, and That’s Good!”

We’ve talked about practice and breaking it into single units of learning. Now let’s up the game a little more. Not only should that one unit be educational, you should learn it so well that you have it mastered before you move on to the next step.

Continue reading “Nail it Once”

Last time we discussed committing to a single unit of practice whatever that unit is. One of the big reasons for doing that is to maximize the learning at each step. Let’s dig into how we can maximize the learning for a given unit.

Continue reading “Break it Down”

Last time we discussed the importance of structuring your practice to maximize your growth. In that post I mentioned that you should do something every day for fifteen minutes. While that is a good start, usually a timer is not the best way to mark your progress.

Continue reading “You Don’t Need a Timer”

We’ve discussed the importance of practice and the skills to focus on when practicing. Now let’s go into depth about making that practice time really useful. If I practice curling a 5 lb weight for ten minutes a day, that’s not enough of a challenge for me to grow. On the other hand, trying to curl 100 lbs would only hurt my back, my shoulder, and my pride, as I couldn’t lift it at all. There is an effective range between the two where I find I’m challenging myself enough to grow, but not so much that it’s completely beyond my abilities. How do we find that “sweet spot” in developing software?

Continue reading “Practice Hard Stuff”

You’ve determined that you need a mentor. You’ve chosen a good mentor who is willing to take you on as a protégé. So what do you do now? What can you expect to happen? What do the two parties bring to the table? How do things progress? What’s it all look like?

Continue reading “What do you do with a Mentor?”

So we’ve discussed why you need a mentor, and where to find a good mentor. But how do you ask someone to be your mentor? The way you approach someone to be your mentor can make or break the relationship entirely. It’s not unlike what you need to do to ask someone to enter a romantic relationship. You don’t just go up and say, “Will you be my boyfriend/girlfriend?” unless you already have some sort of relationship built up. It’s the same with a mentor.

Continue reading “How to Approach a Mentor”

Last time we learned about why having a good mentor is so critical to streamlining your success. That, of course, begs the question: how do I find a good mentor?

Continue reading “Finding a Mentor”