I have this huge desire to learn programming but its stopped by me not being able to sit down and say “now its studying time” any advice is appreciated.
I have this huge desire to learn programming but its stopped by me not being able to sit down and say “now its studying time” any advice is appreciated.
Body doubling: Have someone sit with you to keep you on task. They don’t need to understand the task, just recognise when you get distracted.
Inspiration: Watch a video of someone doing a similar task. Not a tutorial, but someone having fun and showing off how they code.
Jump in: Open a development environment and start writing something. If you’re still learning, copy a small example and see if you can make it do something else.
Accountability: Tell someone what you are planning to do, and report back to them. Don’t set high goals, just aim for progress.
No distractions: Give your phone to someone else, or put it in an inconvenient place. Mindlessly scrolling is too easy if the phone is within reach.
Not all of these will work for you, but perhaps some of them will.
More difficult advice:
Get enough sleep. Programming is something that takes a lot of focus. If you are tired, you won’t learn as quickly, and you’ll make basic mistakes that are hard to track down and fix.
Every time I’ve done programming while tired, I’ve started the next day by reverting everything I just changed and doing it properly.
Don’t start the day with social media. Social media is an instant reward system. When you start the day on your phone, you condition your brain to crave instant rewards. Programming can take quite a while to get the reward feeling, and it’s not as strong as social media rewards.
Let yourself get bored. It hurts. No-one likes being bored. But boredom is often the precursor to creativity. With all the distractions of the internet, boredom can be hard to come by, but it is also the strongest motivator. When you are bored and have no other options, you’ll find that there are many mundane tasks you’d rather be doing.
Don’t worry if you can’t manage any of these. I’ve been trying for years and haven’t managed any of them consistently.