Life Balance as a Beginner Dev
Tags: beginners, balance, life, timemanagement
Published: 2020-07-09 19:00:22

I recently went through a web development coding boot camp with <a href="https://vetswhocode.io/" target="_blank">Vets Who Code</a>.  If you were to look at my code it would be pretty obvious that I am new to coding.  With that being said, I realized early that there are so many things in my life trying to prevent me from learning to code and building on this new passion that I am growing to love.  Being a hands on husband and a father of 4, there are obstacles all over that hinder my time for learning.  

With my new world of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, GraphQL and so on, finding adequate time to build the knowledge of everything I have learned from this boot camp can be a struggle at times.  This has opened my eyes, my mind, and forced me to be creative when it comes to squeezing in time to do all that I can to help ease this learning process.  

<h2><strong>How busy am I?</strong></h2>

My day consists of  getting up about 3:15am and off to the ferry by 4:10am (being from the Seattle area). I have a one and a half hour commute to and from work (when traffic is good). Then I usually get to bed about 10pm if all goes as planned which usually it is closer to 10:30pm. This seems like a lot of time but when you add family into the mix along with over time at work, I rarely get any "me" time, let alone quality time to study which usually starts 16-18 hours into my day (thanks coffee).

<h2><strong>Where Do I Have Time?</strong></h2>

Figuring out where I can squeeze in my learning so that the quality is still beneficial, is kind of a magic trick.  I know that the most important time of the day is when I am at home and I need be online to do my assignments and projects.  So I start looking at other times of the day like work and commute.   

Thanks to the industry I currently work in, I am able to wear headphones while working.  So, at work I listen to podcasts like <a href="https://syntax.fm/" target="_blank">Syntax</a>, <a href="https://learntocodewith.me/" target="_blank">Learn To Code With Me</a>, <a href="https://devchat.tv/js-jabber/" target="_blank">JavaScript Jabber</a> to start. In a nine or ten hour day I can listen to eight plus hours of podcasts.  After listening for a while, I realized that this would only help me out so much because even taking notes here and there, I would not be able to follow their coding examples.

Then there are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/" target="_blank">YouTube</a> tutorials. If I was able to watch videos during my commute, I would have more time for my homework (which is needed from time to time when there are issues with something working - Gatsby...) and coding practice.  So, I downloaded the videos that I would watch on the ferry. 

<h2><strong>In Conclusion</strong></h2>

I know that everyone has a million excuses <strong>not</strong> to see something through.  But, as a father, a husband and someone that loves to help people in general, it is hard to pull myself from them to do something that is so enjoyable for me to do and can eat up 4-5 hours easily, especially during this learning phase. I cannot wait to get an opportunity to do this full time because I can only imagine the amount of things I will learn.  Most of these distractions are just life.  Some people are busier than others and most times people figure out what needs to be done or just find a way to work through it. 

The best part of this post is that it was done at work during a 10 hour shift on a Saturday, while helping out a coworker who was overwhelmed with his workload.
  
<strong>The trifecta....</strong>


<!--who constantly have school schedules and sports stuff-->

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