I’ve been doing Uber Eats for a couple of weeks now. The money is very good for someone that’s not well-established in a career in Australia and the work is easy. But to make enough to pay the bills and save for University I have been doing pretty big shifts. When combined with my dance teaching classes at night, my total amount of weekly work hours skyrocketed: 63hs last week and 45 in the week ending today. I also have a girlfriend that I will lose if I don’t consistently dedicate time to her.
And the challenge is presented: How to find enough hours to become a good enough programmer to get into the industry?. This is what I’ll find out this week. I won’t shoot for the stars just yet. I haven’t done any coding for 19 days now so I’ll ease back into it. I still need to work around 50hs this week and I definitely can’t code late at night. It requires a sharp morning brain for any meaningful work to get done. So I made a schedule that seems realistic:

I’m aiming for seven hours this week. This time will be divided between studying for my first Microsoft Certification: I have enough money to pay for certification tests, so there are no more excuses. I have to go for it. So that’s it! Plain and simple. 7 hours of coding, no distractions, no bullshit.
In the past month I’ve been reading Steve Job’s Biography by Walter Isaacson and I want to implement a few principles I learned from his inspiring journey:
. Simplicity: Keep things simple, from design, to UX, to goals, everything. I have to remember that when my mind starts telling me to do anything other than Angular.
. Product, product, product: Basically the end goal of anyone in our industry should be to design amazing things for our users. It’s something so important that can serve as a compass for me at all times when making design choices.
. High standards: Self-explanatory, but paying attention to the smallest detail, not compromising on anything in the pursuit of awesomeness.
I’m excited! Ready to start tomorrow morning. Can’t wait to write code again.