Coding is hard!
“The purpose of life, however, is not to get. The main purpose of life is to grow. And to give.” -Robin Sharma
This is the question that everyone who wants to learn to code asks: “Is it hard?” Every answer will be different depending on who you ask. It’s fun to learn how to code, especially if you’re enrolled in a bootcamp. You will meet other aspiring developers and have the opportunity to work with experienced instructors.
There will be times when you face setbacks, difficulties, and endless challenges as you learn a new skill or language. Sometimes we feel like all we are experiencing is struggle and hardship. However, programming is not without its challenges. Focusing on the task is something that almost everyone faces every day.
It is hard to focus
“Good performance is about the ability to focus and concentrate.” –Betty Buckley
According to a study by the Georgia Institute of Technology, software developers can resume work in between 10 and 15 minutes after an interruption. Programming requires concentration and focus, especially for newcomers to the field of software development. Coding Dojo bootcamps expect students to spend at most seventy hours per week in order to become self-sufficient developers.
It’s becoming harder to focus and stay focused in an environment where everything is competing for our attention. According to TIME, a New York-based weekly news magazine, Microsoft Corp. found that the average attention span of humans has dropped to twelve seconds since 2000. This is lower than the attention span of a goldfish.
Distractions can be a killer of productivity and negatively affect our performance. When we lose focus, we make twice as many mistakes than usual. We feel anxious, forgetful, and procrastinate as we feel like we’re just going along without accomplishing anything. Let’s first understand the external and internal factors that can cause us to lose our focus.
Social Media
Alyson Gausby is the Head of Research at Twitter Canada. She stated that “No matter what environment humans find themselves in, survival depends upon being able to concentrate on what’s most important-generally, what’s moving.” This skill has not changed, it’s just evolved online. We live in a world in which almost everyone is connected via social media. We have the perception that if we log-out of our social media accounts, we become disconnected from the rest of the world. It distracts us from our task and makes it difficult to focus.
Noise
Distraction can be caused by noise around us. It could be the message alert tone on our phone, or the sound of others talking behind us.
Lack of sleep
To be fully functional, our bodies need to get enough sleep. Dr. Philip Gehrman is an assistant professor of psychology at the Department of Psychiatry. He is also a member of Penn Sleep Center. “Studies show that people who get six hours of sleep instead of seven or eight feel like they have adapted to the lack of sleep — they have gotten used to it.” However, if you examine how they perform on tests of mental alertness or performance, you will see that they continue to fall. There is a point to sleep deprivation when our ability to recognize how impaired we are.
Stress
Although stress is an inevitable part of life, too much can lead to serious health problems. It can cause sleep loss and affect your decision-making.
Hunger
Our bodies need food to function properly, just like sleep. A full stomach is better than an empty stomach. We can give more and do better with a full stomach.
Fulfillment can lead to happiness over the long-term. Nothing is more satisfying than feeling satisfied with what you have accomplished in a day. Productivity is the foundation of fulfillment. Sometimes, however, we are distracted and finish less tasks than we should, which can lead to dissatisfaction, sometimes even regret.
How to fight distractions
“Focus can be a muscle. You can build it. Many people believe they aren’t focused enough, which can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can adopt a more realistic approach to building focus once you get rid of this false belief.” -Elie Venezky, author Hack Your Brain
Distractions are all around us, so it’s not surprising that our attention span has decreased over the years. Distractions, whether external or internal, can reduce productivity. There are many ways to avoid distractions.
Create a Good Study Environment
When there are so many things around you, it is difficult to concentrate. It is easier to focus on one thing.
