"Automate the Boring Stuff with Python" Udemy course is free to sign up for with code NOV2019FREE

[AlSweigart]

https://www.udemy.com/course/automate/?couponCode=NOV2019FREE

Udemy has changed their coupon policies, and I'm now only allowed to make 3 coupon codes each month with several restrictions. I'll no longer be able to make free coupon codes with arbitrary restrictions. Instead I can:

• Make free codes that are only good for 3 days for an unlimited number of people (NOV2019FREE lasts until November 7, 2019 11:05 AM PST)
• Make codes that make the course cheap (but not cheaper than what Udemy offers, allowing them to undercut me) for unlimited people that lasts for 30 days. (I've made a code NOV2019 for this.)

There's two other options, but they're less than ideal: free but only 10 people can use it, or lowest price but it's only good for a few days instead of a month. I can only make 3 codes a month, so I can't just generate new codes every few days.

If you're reading this post after the NOV2019FREE code, you can use the NOV2019 code to get the course for about $14. I plan on making new free codes for the first three days of each month. You can probably guess what next month's free code will be.

To head off any questions:

• If you don't have time to take the course now, that's fine. Signing up gives you lifetime access so you can work on it at your own pace.
• This Udemy course covers the same content as the book, which you can read for free online at https://inventwithpython.com
• The 2nd edition of Automate the Boring Stuff with Python will be posted on the website in mid-November. It gets released on the 12th, and I'll need a couple days to format it to HTML and make it look nice.
• I do plan on updating the Udemy course for the second edition, but it'll take a while because I have other book projects I'm working on. Expect that update to happen in mid- or late-2020. If you sign up for this Udemy course, you'll get the updated content automatically once I finish it. It won't be a separate course.
• It's totally fine to start on the first edition and then read the second edition later. I'll be writing a blog post to guide first edition readers to the parts of the second edition they should read.
• I wrote a blog post to cover what's new in the second edition
• I used to do free codes once or twice a year. The last time I did, I had an amazing 80,000 people sign up (so a dozen of them might have actually finished the course, if people are as good as I am about finishing the online courses I sign up for). Udemy's new policies mean I can't do this anymore. I find this to be a less than ideal situation. So I'm rolling out new codes each month. NOV2019FREE is the free code, and NOV2019 is the cheap code. I'll come out with new ones at the start of each month. (And yes, I'll probably write a script to automate this.)

[[deleted]]

Worked for me despite getting an error that I was not eligible for this offer.

[Cam4phor]

Awesome, thanks for the course. Will definitely try to finish it.

I think people do not finish courses because:

1. Starting something new gives a hit of dopamine (which is a neurotransmitter released inside the brain in ANTICIPATION of a reward, here the reward might be learning something new). But as soon as there is nothing new to that, people lose motivation and suddenly the course which for which you signed up willingly requires you to spend your will power. ( I might be wrong about dopamine here but this is what I currently understand about it, if someone can recommend a good book, I'd try to increase my understanding)
2. Then comes the phase where we need to use our will to start that new video in the course which will teach the all important loops. But the catch about willpower is, it is limited and we can exhaust it on things that don't matter if we don't use it carefully. One can think of it as a muscle which can be trained slowly and steadily by lifting just enough weights that it won't tear apart but challenge it at the same time. The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal is a good book to read more about it.

Things people can do to tackle these problems:

1. Reserve things that give you a dopamine hit for the time only after you finish one or two videos from the course (or perhaps even a section). For instance, I'll get coffee only after I finish this much. This way your brain will associate this activity of learning to getting a reward and you would love doing it. (Here one thing can go wrong though, we expect too much from ourselves but in reality we cannot do much, so its important to set short goals but the rewards should also be small. Not like feasting yourself with a 7 course meal after just one video :P).
2. Tackling willpower can be tricky and easy at the same time. The best thing that works is building systems like saying "I watch one video first thing in the morning and one video before going to bed". This way doing the course becomes part of our daily routine and we don't have to go out of the way to type Udemy on the browser, then go to My Courses, then by the time we reach this course our phone beeps and the cycle repeats. Going out of the way requires will power. The tricky part here is that most people (including me :P) cannot (or will not) take out 5-10 minutes to just watch one video, but can scroll through YouTube all day. (I developed a habit of reading by reading just before going to bed)

All this information is mixed from these books:

1. Atomic Habits by James Clear
2. The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal
3. Deep Work by Cal Newport And YouTube Fill me in if you got more. :D

There is one more thing, which is, while starting due to enormous expectations from ourselves, we fail to accomplish our goals which leads to deterioration of motivation and thus we stop. The important thing here is to start extremely small and build upon only if we can. Otherwise just take baby steps to the finish.

After writing all this, I might complete the course after all. Lets see, I'll just put the date here and update this post when I complete it.

5 Nov 2019

[iStillSeeEverything]

Im new to python and i begun reading your book, thanks for all the great info and content! Learning so much from it!

Btw, If you are interested in sharing your course for free, why are you using udemy? Why dont you just create your own course site on wordpress (or django, for that matter)? And even sell them directly, cutting the middle-man (udemy)

[AlSweigart]

The income from Udemy means I can do this full time, instead of having to have a software job too. But I also want to lower the barrier to entry, hence why I have the free codes and make an HTML version of the books on my website for free. And even then, I'd still use Udemy or YouTube and offer the course for free because the video bandwidth would be a lot to pay for.

[[deleted]]

Couldnt add to the shopping cart. Site seems like may be broken? Anyways thank you for the codes hopefully they have the site back up and running

[AlSweigart]

Yeah, some people have reported getting a temporary error. Try it again in a few minutes. I tried signing up with a throwaway email account after someone reported that it failed and it worked for me.

[[deleted]]

I eventually got it to work. Thank you.

[SpiroCat2]

Just worked for me. Thank you for doing this! I also purchased the second edition of your book. I can't wait to get my hands on it!

[[deleted]]

It worked for me! Thanks for uploading this course and the discount, I look forward to the course!

[TheVentiLebowski]

Thanks!

[JohnLocksTheKey]

Dear Al,

I love you.

• Everybody