Day 30 - Projects List Page And The End Of 30 Projects In 30 Days
Tags: codenewbie, beginners
Published: 2020-10-13 19:53:52

I am not gonna lie, this challenge was tough. Some times over the last 30 days, things got hairy. But here I am, on the last day!

![whew](https://media.giphy.com/media/26FxsQwgJyU4me9ig/giphy.gif)

For the 30th day, I completed a list page that references all the [projects](https://josno.github.io/challenge-page/) I built over the past month.


## What I Learned From The Last 30 Days

### Coding every day reminded me of what I don't know.
This isn't to harp on imposter syndrome, but rather, this experience helped to prioritize the skills I needed to hone and focus on. For example, I discovered the BEM naming convention and I look forward to applying it to HTML and CSS. Let me know if there is another naming convention I should look into!

### I got over my perfectionism complex.
Over the past six months, I started and restarted multiple projects but never finished them. I would get caught in the details and feel overwhelmed (INFP struggles) and my projects would go unfinished. The timing and limitations of this challenge actually *motivated* me to finish my projects and ship them, regardless of how pretty or well-coded they are. Most importantly, I learned to focus on functionality and calculate a realistic scope for each project.

### I looked for help when I needed it.
I found a wonderful community with [Frontendmentor.io](www.frontendmentor.io) and was able to get feedback on my projects through their Slack channel. I also got some feedback on my project here on Dev.to and I am happy to see how I was able to help some of you as well!

### One/two/three days is not enough to build an MVP.
I started building a full stack app and realized that it needed more focus past the 30 days. Though I completed some component projects for this app that applied to this challenge, I don't think it was a good time to run parallel with building a full MVP. 

### I learned to take care of myself.
This challenge was the perfect setting for establishing a routine with programming. My life has changed quite a bit over the past year and I had been struggling with adapting to the big changes in my life. During the past months, all I was doing were job applications, coding challenges for companies and practicing algorithms. It was stressful! 

Since I purposely stopped doing interviews during this time, I was able to take more control of my schedule to build a routine of working out, being creative and having fun! I also realized how important it is to take time to do nothing!

## What Now?
There are quite a few things to take on after this challenge. During the first week of this challenge, I was in the middle of an interview process with a company (didn't get it) and I realized that I would not be able to do this challenge if I kept interviewing so I paused my job search. Now that the challenge is finished, I will be picking up job applications again.

It was nice to practice HTML and CSS, I feel like I got well-practiced in setting up webpages. But it would be more beneficial for my goals as a developer to pursue a challenge that builds robust and complex applications. I have a half built MVP from this challenge that I would like to complete and perhaps rollover to an MVP challenge! I am considering elongating the development time and creating MVPs instead of smaller components. 

## Should You Try It?
If you have hung on to this post until the end, I would like to encourage you to give this challenge a shot! I was a longtime lurker on Dev and wrote my first post regarding this challenge. Now I have written 31 posts, in addition to having built some things! Most of all I learned a lot about myself and my dev potential with a better sense of direction in my programming skills.

Check out [Florin Pop's list](https://github.com/florinpop17/app-ideas) of projects and his own [100 projects in 100 days](https://www.florin-pop.com/blog/built-100-projects-in-100-days/) challenge which inspired me. [Frontend Mentor](www.frontendmentor.oi) has some seriously beautiful projects to put on your portfolio as well.

Stay tuned for what type of challenge I come up with next!