Three weeks ago, I set lofty goals for my journey to change up my career. The idea was 6 weeks to success, and putting it out there did a few things for me. It laid out a plan to follow, and also gave me something to keep me accountable. Three weeks later I’m checking in and happy with my progress.
For week one, the goal was simple: get a grasp of what I want to do and what the market looks like. I did that by doing informational interviews, reading books, and watching countless tutorials on a variety of topics. It was pretty great, and my whiteboard shows the excitement I had to take on EVERYTHING.
For week two, I started to narrow things down. Sure, if I had unlimited time and wealth, I would do everything for fun. But in reality, if I want success in a matter or weeks, it became time to prioritize. Where I am at is this:
- Focus on PMP / MySQL mastery
- Then, add in the extras that make you a well rounded developer
In execution, there will be a lot more detailed action items to accomplish what that means, but that is the sentiment in a nutshell. At some point soon I will update the whiteboard to reflect my revised principles, because it serves as a constant reminder to stay on target.
And now as week three comes to a close, I’ve been executing on the first bullet point above. Going back to the basics of what made me a great developer, brushing off the rust and at the same time learning new best practices. It’s been a lot of review, but I’m finally at the point of building. As any developer knows, you just want to get your hands in there and start writing code NOW. And there is definitely value to just starting in some instances, but the project manager in me knows, a little upfront planning goes a long way. So, I’ve done a lot of planning, and now comes the fun.
Speaking of fun, the first project I’m working on is called The Wolf, The Goat, and The Cabbage. How cool is that?!? You’ll see… very soon.
Digital D.Lo 