A whole herd of people are learning to program this year through free weekly lessons via email from Code Year. Some, like me, are interested in new lessons and approaches. Some people are starting from scratch. I have a word of advice to you, one I need to follow myself, as you get started on your Code Year.
Unplug.
Turn off Tweetdeck. Shut down IM. Turn off your email notifier. No one has liked your status in the last minute, so don’t check. Unplug.
Why? Because you’ll learn nothing in 20-30 second bursts between distractions. Learning to code, like many things in life, requires you to focus for extended periods of time. It requires to you really burrow in on details. This is probably a level of detail you may not be accustomed to. It’s probably concepts you aren’t familiar with. You need uninterrupted time to focus on the task at hand.
In short, you aren’t as good at multitasking as you think you are. So don’t do it. Unplug, focus, and really learn something.
Want an experiment in how distracted you are? Get into the environment you intend to work on your Code Year exercises in. Turn on the stuff you normally have on. I’ve got Spotify, an IM client and Tweetdeck on myself right now, plus my Google notifier and my phone handy. Turn all the stuff on that you’d normally have running.
Now read this. It’s a fantastic essay on how important solitude is to proper thinking. See how long you can go before you’re distracted.
Me? Two paragraphs. It took me over an hour to read that one essay because oops, got an email and now someone @ replied me on Twitter and awwww, cute baby on Facebook and here’s a text about getting dinner tonight. And on and on and on and on.
It was shocking to me how my social/work habits had ruined my ability to concentrate on a thing and read it. Really read it. At times, the urge to check email was physical. I could feel myself getting uncomfortable because what if I did get an email? What if? Well, I better check.
And so I’m making a change. At points in my day now, when I need to focus on something, I’m opting into a total digital blackout. Goodbye email notifier. So long Twitter. Shhhhh now Spotify. It’s thinking time. They’ll be there in an hour. And I’m not an on-call brain surgeon, so no one is going to die if I don’t get that text.
It’ll wait. It can all wait. It’s thinking time. Time to focus.