How to learn programming in less than a week (any language)
Fun fact: 9 out of 10 beginner devs watch videos or read posts about how to learn programming more quickly at least once . (That includes me)
Ok, so if you entered this post because of the amazing title let me tell you that you’ve just turned into a victim of the famous and lovely click-bait technique, sorry for that but that’s how it works :)
Now… let’s be honest
I’m not going to lie to you anymore, if you came here to learn a special technique that can teach you how to code better, faster & stronger you came to the right place and I’m going to give you the 3 secret steps to achieve that.
Well here’s the secret…
Step 1 — Forget about it (There’s no such a secret technique)
Did you notice that the fun fact only includes beginner devs? well, that’s because it’s true. When you are a beginner in such a fast growing environment as programming can be, you want to master everything and learn how to use everything so you can land your dream job as soon as possible, and that’s good no one blames you for that.
But there’s no such a secret technique that can actually teach you how to code in less time than others, there’s no magic trick that other more experienced developers do that they don’t want to share with you, they know that all depends on how hard you work on it to be good at it.
Step 2 — Build it (The actual secret technique does exist)
Ok I know, I told you that there will be no more lies, that was also a lie haha.
The secret technique is REAL but the thing that many beginners don’t know is that you have to build it.
What do I mean by building it?
Pretty simple, how do you think people become good at one thing?… you’re right, by practicing it a lot, and when I say a lot a mean a lot. You need to practice a lot in order to become good at anything, not just programming, and that’s where the building process starts.
Build a new mindset: BELIEVE IN YOURSELF… You’re trying to learn something completely new and want to do it fast, well then you need to be able to think in a new way, a way that allows you to be prepared for hours of hard work, reading a lot, and, you guessed it! practice a lot… that means instead of being on the tutorial hell (watching tutorials over and over) you need to actually start coding, the correct mindset is to believe in yourself and never give up, as hard as something could look to you, with time and dedication you’ll be able to build incredible things.
Build your time: Keep focus on something sometimes could be hard, so when you make the decision on learning something or practicing it to reinforce some knowledge, you need to be fully focused on that, keep all distractions away (your followers can wait a few minutes), mute your phone and put it away, don’t look at those juicy notifications saying that your crush likes your new photo (hope you have one notification like that ) tell others that you’re busy.
An easy way to do that is to have a schedule, that will allow you to manage your time a lot better and set clear and achievable goals to work on.
Build your own technique: You know yourself better than anybody (right?), start taking notes, read some documentation and at the same time apply that knowledge acquired into small practice projects, believe me, there’s nothing better to reinforce knowledge than apply it during learning, if you watch a tutorial about something try to implement or build it with new features that you want it to have (challenge yourself), so stop what you’re doing (Until you finish this beautiful article of course) and get your hands dirty, start coding, practicing from small to big and make those brain neurons do their work.
Step 3 — Enjoy it
This is the most important secret step, you need to enjoy what you’re doing by building things that you like or things that help you on your daily basis, implement new stuff that excites you and things that you can improve or implement in future projects, that way you can become really good in one or many specific things, and remember, if you build something useful for yourself others may find it useful too, and who knows, maybe one person that you showed your cool new app or website can turn into your next client or employer.
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.”
Conclusion
Being good at something requires time and dedication and the results would be equal to the love and effort you put into something — you can do it.
