Here I’ll tell you my story how I completed 100 days of code, how I started, how I keep it going, and how I finally finished it.
Starting Point
About a year ago I actually heard a lot about the 100 days of code challenge, but I had never thought of doing it. The very sound of one hundred days felt so intimidating for me back then that I was not sure that I could actually finish it.
Then one day I read this article, and after reading so many inspiring stories from people doing 100 days of code on Twitter, I finally decided that the time for me to start was now or never. And I finally started doing my 100 days of code, about 100 days ago from when I am writing this article.
Managing and Planning my work
First things first, I planned on what coding I would do and I decide that I would contribute to the GitHub open-source community. I would spend each day coding for about 1 hour and I would try to keep it to that timeframe — because I have got my me-time too ;)
My main challenge for this was actually finding out what to do every single day. For that, I always prepared two kinds of notes on my phone:
The first type of note was a list of my progress in 100 days of code, each and every day. Not only that, but this note also served as my note on what to do the next day. I always planned on what I was going to do at night. Then the next day I would know what to work on, so I would not waste my time thinking of what to do when I should have been coding.
My second note is was list of what open source things I wanted to make, something like a bucket list or a wish list, but instead it is a code list.
Finding an idea for what to do was also a difficult task to do every day. That’s why I always spent my days reading Medium articles to find inspiration for what I should be exploring.
Since my expertise is in Android mobile application development, I started most of my repositories based on Android applications with Kotlin. Then after I started getting used to it, I finally started making repositories based on other things such as Serverless with go and nodejs, Flutter and Rust.
Nearing the day that I finished my 100 days of code, I also made another note which listed my leftover tasks that usually had something to do with refactoring.
Keeping myself going
100 days is quite a long time. You might wonder if there were actually days where I was thinking of quitting.
Yes, there actually were — there have been several days where I doubted myself. Was I actually doing the right thing or was I just wasting my time doing this thing?
But I always kept myself going because of everything I have learned. Living in this Technology Era as a Software Engineer, I must always strive to learn new things and never stop. The moment I stop learning is the moment I stop growing as a Software Engineer. And seeing the stories about how people are finishing 100 days of code and even 360 days of code made me feel challenged since there were so many people out there doing it. If they could do it and even do more, why couldn’t I finish it?
It’s very important to push yourself as much as you’re able. But don’t forget to limit yourself and give yourself a break sometimes. If you reach your limit, you can then call it a day and continue on tomorrow. There were also days when all I did was refactoring and making a new repository. It is always important to keep up, but do not forget to give yourself a break.
And also, the most important part of keeping myself going: Consistency.
Completing my 100 days of code
When I finally finished my 100 days of code, the first two things I felt were feelings of accomplishment and relief.
People may ask me why I did it. I didn’t gain things from it — no profit, no one is looking at my mediocre GitHub repositories, no forks or stars. But of course I learned a lot of things from a technical point of view. Also, most of the people that saw me doing this 100 days of code acknowledged me for being consistent and continuing to do it.
One thing I always believe is that people may betray you, but hard work will not betray you. Keep sharpening yourself. At the end of the day, you will see yourself reaping the good things that you have sown.
Feel free to check out my GitHub! I will be very thankful for any issue opened or any PR. I have produced several android components which are usable and tested.
So then, this ends my story on my first 100 days of code. Where is your story?