Learning Ruby on Rails is a means to an end, not an end unto itself. How do you know when you're done? When you've finished reading through a book? When you've launched a web app built with Rails? When a bug fix of yours is accepted into the Rails project? When you're hired for a job on the strength of your Rails experience?
Perhaps if you set yourself more measurable goals, it'll be easier for you to finish. I know this is the case for me.
This is a great point. I think goals can be an incredibly powerful motivator and can help with accountability - especially when shared.
I have been setting weekly goals (get through x amout of lessons and complete x amount of excercises). Daily goals are tougher due to work and an unpredictable schedule but so far for me it has been to do something RoR related each day.
I need to think more about long term, but in general I want to be able to prototype and have built a simple web app within 6 months.
I find keeping my eyes on the prize motivates me. I like watching interviews of people who've been successful its inspiring. ThisWeekInStartups has plenty of this. Keep long term benefits in mind, like having the freedom to do what you want, whatever that is. Combine that constant enticement with a regimented schedule and things begin coming together, at least for me they did. Plus once the ball gets rolling its hard to stop!
I like the idea of a regimented schedule. You are right, as soon as I begin to see progress and things start rolling it instantly becomes MUCH more fun.
For me, reading/watching inspiring stories helps briefly, but the initial impact quickly wears off.
I've recently also started learning RoR. For me, the best motivator is to have something in my head that I want to accomplish as soon as I finish the "learning" phase.
For this language, I have two projects - one as a "I just learned this, and I want to make my first app using RoR" project, and one as an actual product that will generate income. The first project is a pretty important part of my learning process, because I know that it's going to take a while to accomplish as I learn all the little things that I didn't pick up in the tutorial. However, hopefully that exercise will make the second project go smoother.
One particular problem for me is when I get to the part of the learning process where I have to deal with things I don't do well. I know that doing actual site layout takes me forever, as I'm a developer and not a designer, so I always end up dragging my feet at that part. If you find yourself quitting then, pay someone to do it for you. Seriously. Even if you're just making the project for fun. Consider that investment as part of the learning process... you'll be much better off having completed the whole project than if you abandon it in the middle.
I really like the idea of having 2 projects to work on. Also agree about reaching out to people so that you dont end up getting bogged down with areas outside of the "core" of your project/learning process.
I jump from project to project, but I stop doing things after I solve the problems I thought were interesting. After all uknowns become resolved knowns and there is no more technical challenge, I quit. I know you can't build a business without dedication of another kind that's why I work for someone else...
It cited real world scientific research and gave practical advice on how to set goal and to succeed at one's goal.
Disclaimer: I am only aware of such knowledge, not actually putting into practice said knowledge. Currently, my only implementation of scientific self improvement is spaced repetition, which simply exploit the fact that we retain more information learned over a long period of time.
1. It takes on average 66 days for a habit to be formed.[1]
2. The intensity need not be there to form the habit. After a habit is formed you can increase the intensity of the activity. Start small like reading 2 pages a day and add a page every two weeks. This is probably the most important step.
3. Willpower is at a maximum right after waking, so whatever you are trying to accomplish do it first thing in the morning.
4. Stop dieting. It will burn through your willpower.
Thanks. From the Article "Results showed that whilst the average time to form a habit was 66 days, more complex behaviours took longer, whilst an exercise habit took longer to form than a healthy eating or drinking habit". So learning RoR or any programming language might take longer.
Making incremental increases makes sense. I can see that helping with the issue of getting overwhelmed by details and frustration from getting ahead of yourself.
It's difficult, but that's why its valuable. Build your character, it'll serve you well.
Overlap your skills when learning new stuff: Eg it seems you're great at photography, so make a simple rails photo slideshow.
Start small, and build. Don't bite off more than you can chew: Eg don't try to learn anything more than the absolute minimum between each time you ship.
Learn to SHIP. Eg build a small site or open source project, and ship it! This will keep you motivated.
Find your intrinsic motivation. For me, it was when i had an awful soul sucking job and just HAD to do something to improve my lot in life.
Find friends to walk the journey with and keep each other accountable. Eg i started a book club.
Some really great stuff here. Thanks for your feedback. I like the idea of starting small - I can imagine getting ahead of myself and setting unrealistic expectations. Also, the idea of overlapping your skills is great. It would definitely help to see my progress in another area to remind me what I can do!
On the topic of discipline, yesterday I tried a new way to work.
I placed a few large boxes on my regular desk, and placed all my peripherals and monitor on an elevated plane (too cheap to get a standing table :D). Then, turned on some good dance music.
Funnily enough, I found that by dancing (in my own awkward way) to my favourite music I actually stayed on track with what I was working on instead of procrastinating by visiting HN or Reddit :)
You're right, you're not alone, I've had the same realization. These skills aren't obtained through sprints but through marathons.
I find accountability is my biggest motivator, so if you can gain it (via class or job) or fake it (study partner or collaborator) it will be easier to stay on the wagon.
You might also get some ideas or methods out of this post:
I jump between a few projects but my bigger problem is running out of money. Sometimes I have enough money saved that I can quit "real" work for a while and focus on projects, but usually I run out of money before I am anywhere near finished with any given project. Most areas I work in are also too obscure/risky/complex to obtain funding for.
"learning" something, i'm finding, is very hard to do outside of a school setting, so i've been trying to think of why that is. what i've found is this: in school, you're given assignments, little (or sometimes not-so-little) programs to write that do something. of course, the assignments are designed to illustrate a point, something you've learned recently. but it can serve the same purpose in real life. think of something (doesn't have to be a novel idea), then try to build the functionality of it. it'll be frustrating working through finding bugs and learning how to do xyz, but you'll find that you've learned to use your tools, even if the project doesn't ultimately get finished.
I don't think so. I spent around 2 weeks going through a serious of 10 or so lessons just to get familiar with the syntax and basic elements. I'm interested in web applications so the sooner I can begin building the basics the better (from a motivational and practical standpoint).
There are a ton of great Rails resources out there for beginners you don't need to know alot of Ruby to get started. I do think it will be worthwhile to revisit Ruby outside of the context of Rails after I make some progress and if I think it is necessary for what I am trying to do.
If you don't have this habit by the time you're a teenager, you're never going to get it.
Please, do your kids a favour: have them learn an instrument to an "expert" level by the time they're 13. Do not let them quit. If not an instrument, then something else.
If it's anything I see around me in my daily work, it's a bunch of people who never get shit done.
I don't agree with your first statement in the slightest.
"If you don't have this habit by the time you're a teenager, you're never going to get it."
Habits are learned patterns habituated by positive or negative feedback cycles throughout life. Habits range from social skills (are you the social butterfly or the quiet kid who keeps to himself), to health (exercise a lot and eat well or lounge around watching tv and eating Doritos), to work ethics and more.
We are all, as individuals, the collection of habits that we have learned over the years. A frequent topic here on HN is how you can go about hacking yourself to change your habits. A popular one is to force yourself to talk to random different strangers every day in order to 1) break the habit of being shy, and 2) learn the skills necessary to make friends with people easily. For many people, this is successful.
Being a teenager is only the first small part of a person's life. We continue to grow and mature and have new experiences all throughout our life. Those are much more important than the awkward and often painful childhoods we all endure. Even when we're on our death beds, we still learn new things.
I myself was an introverted kid. As a teenager, I was an arrogant s.o.b that thought I was better than most people around me. When I was 17, during that summer I played baritone in a drum corps and had such a set of experiences that even then I could viscerally feel the change in my outlook on life and on others. Throughout my 20s I began to get more perspective on life and bad habits I had growing up melted away.
Now here I am in my early thirties (31 at the time of writing this), and I can feel my perspective on life changing again. I stopped getting angry about things a couple years ago. Literally when everything seems to be breaking and failing around me, I just find it funny and keep working through it. That happened again a few weeks ago. I'm at a point now where if I am getting depressed, I can rationally sense where my emotional state is heading and most of the time do things to bring myself out of it early.
I'm able to recognize my bad and good habits and I'm able to make conscious choices now to change what I want to change. Its not easy, but I'm able to do it.
So I hope that for everyone else that I'm not unique, and that your statement is untrue. Else its a sad life that human beings are meant to lead.
I think for the majority of human beings, it is true. For people on this site, it may not be.
The point is really the following:
* Pick a long-term thing
* Finish it
* Do this a lot of times
* Get good at finishing
It's a really hard thing to learn post teenage years. I had the same problem but started fixing it in my mid-teens. I couldn't finish anything before then. But then I started a couple of music businesses which were very interesting to me and I learned to finish what I started.
Compared to my 10 year old daughter who can now zip through many long-term projects with appropriate levels of planning. At her age, I remember basically not finishing any school work. She started out the same but working on a lot of projects, she's learned to finish what she starts.
The natural state of a human being is to be stagnant. It's very few people who continuously try to improve themselves. Therefore, get the continuous improvement habit as early as possible.
Well, I can identify with that pattern. Though perhaps, i have been a lot slower at 29 with different levels of arrogance and shyness than you mention. But as far as i have noticed in others, it is not a very common trait. I have found that this trait does make us outside the normal distribution and my estimate* of the variance is around(2.5 sigma).
*- Just a biased one from my past encounters and relationships and what i remember of them.
I disagree. I play Piano on concert level and still have this problem in other fields. Learning an instrument between 7 and 15 doesn't automatically make you a more disciplined person.
Perhaps if you set yourself more measurable goals, it'll be easier for you to finish. I know this is the case for me.