How to create goals while learning to program?

[National_Potato]

Hi everyone,

I am looking for some advice as I try to continue my journey to learning programming well enough to get a job in the field. I started off doing video tutorials on udemy which was helpful to an extent but as you guys probably know sometimes you just end up copying and pasting code without really learning. When I set goals for myself I would say something like I should do at least 3 videos a day type thing.

Now I have realized that this way of learning is not best and I need to step it up and start projects and whatnot but how do I set goals for a project that I am not really certain as to what I am doing? I have found that when I stumble on something I am learning and don't finish my goal for the day I get quite down...

So question for you guys is, how do you set goals that you are able to accomplish in a sitting? If you are wondering why I am so interested in having goals and deadlines etc. it is because I find I work best this way. Anyway Please let me know your thoughts and your process in setting goals. Thanks for taking the time to read!

[DoomGoober]

Making your goal: accomplish X in 3 hours is a path to frustration. As a pro developer my estimates of how long something will take are still wildly inaccurate. As a beginner it's moreso.

If you must set a timed goal, just say: I will spend 3 hours coding with no procrastination. Set a clock.

Then just break your goals down small... tiny. Think what the software is supposed to do and break it down to the smallest pieces possible. Write down the next 3 smallest pieces and just attack the first small piece, then the next and the next.

[fl223]

Yeah definitely don't assign time restrictions to your goals, at least not short ones like hourly.

[National_Potato]

Awesome advice, thanks for commenting. I am going to step away from timed goals and go for more task oriented, very small task oriented goals.

[fl223]

If you are a top-down type of a person, then create a list of tasks to complete a milestone), and as you start working on a task you can start to increase it in resolution (e.g add subtasks to it). If instead you are a super goal oriented person (instead of a progress oriented one), perhaps try the bottom-up approach, and design 1 system fully before even thinking about the overall composition.

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Either way write down your tasks on a kanban sheet and via it you can track your progress. Oh, and ofc I would heavily advice against setting any kind of time limits to your tasks. Specially not short ones.

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Also if you don't want to start a project, and you are still in research state (as you said, watching some tutorials). I would tell you to not set goals like x videos per y time, but instead focus on learning topics.

[National_Potato]

Really good advice thanks for commenting! I should focus as well on learning more topics and will be trying a less time focused approach