I spent most of 2020 in my office at home, programming, reading, and writing. It was a year of tremendous personal growth. This growth was accelerated by four decisions. These decisions positively impacted my entire year.
Let me share them with you.
I started at a new company just before the pandemic hit. It was a stressful decision. I didn’t know if it was the right one. The position was remote, required me to learn new technology, and involved collaboration with other programmers. I spent three weeks in a different city for training, praying that I hadn’t shot myself in the foot. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I made that year.
It was a novel experience. I got home after the training, excited to set up my office space. I had expected to work from a traditional office for at least the first five years of my career. Only two years in and I was already there.
Two weeks later a 21-day nationwide lockdown was announced. It lasted a few months. I remember programming with a sense of duty. Many people faced salary cuts, short time and retrenchment. I had the privilege of working in an industry that saw tremendous growth during this time. We worked 10-16 hours a day and occasionally worked through the night. We launched our product and then toned things down. The rest of the year wasn’t nearly as crazy as these first few months.
I thoroughly enjoy working from home. I love being at home and having flexibility with my time. My wife also works from home, so we get to have lunch together every day.
No, I don’t work in my pajamas. I sleep in my work clothes.
A technology stack is the combination of programming languages and software that you use to develop software. At university we used a Microsoft stack (C#, ASP.net, SQL Server) to build desktop applications and websites. At the new job they were using open source stuff (Angular, Laravel, MySQL) all running on Linux.
It was a huge learning curve. And I loved it. I got to add a ton of new tools and skills to my toolbelt. A big plus of learning all these open source technologies is that they’re free. Linux servers cost a fraction of the price of Microsoft Windows servers. This means all my current and future side-projects are much cheaper to run.
I still have so much to learn. However, I feel much more confident in my ability to do so after making such a big leap.
Code reviews are new to me. I have written tens of thousands of lines of code that no one else has ever seen. Now the team reviews my code and and rips it apart. They get to see my mistakes. It was uncomfortable at first but it has made me a better programmer.
Our team is really passionate about programming. This seeps into every standup, meeting and interaction. We’re all dedicated to improving our craft. We pulled an all-nighter during my three week training. We got pizza and programmed for 23 hours straight. It felt like a LAN party.
Everyone in our team programs for work and for fun. I learn things at work that I get to apply to my side-projects and vice-versa. We do the occasional show-and-tell and discuss what we’re working on in our free time. This is a huge source of motivation, inspiration and support.
Many businesses in South Africa are still paper-based, or operating on generic software like Excel. I see this as opportunity. I thought it would still be a few years before starting my own company. With the nationwide lockdown and remote work freeing up some of my time, I decided to give it a shot.
My wife created a 21-day workout challenge for the 21-day lockdown. My brother-in-law turned it into a competition. He evaluated each participant before and after and had prizes for the best results. Participants posted time-lapses of their workout sessions on a WhatsApp group for motivation.
My brother-in-law and his business partner are both biokineticists. They were fully booked before the lockdown was announced. Within a few days all their patients had cancelled. Business ground to a halt. During this time they found it difficult to interact with patients.
I had the idea for an interactive workout program builder. They had the need for interacting with patients. We had a video call and Rehabit was born. It’s a platform for building rehabilitation programs, distributing them to patients, and collecting and analysing feedback. That’s just the start.
Rehabit is much further along than we thought it would be by this time. It’s fully functional and already in use. From a technical perspective, it’s going really well. Our biggest challenge lies in marketing it. We’ve seen the value it adds. We now need to figure out how to communicate that to prospective clients.
I love programming, but I want people to love what I program (and pay me for it). Thus, marketing and business management are skills that I need. I didn’t think these aspects of a company would interest me as much as they do.
The goal is for Rehabit to be a profitable and sustainable business in 2021. Right now, it costs us next to nothing in capital to build, run and maintain. It costs time and effort, which I’m willing to trade in. Things are looking promising, and I’m excited.
I find it difficult to talk about myself. People rarely ask, and it seems rude to be like “Hey, let’s talk about me for a bit. This is how I’m doing and what I’m busy with”. I don’t mind listening. It’s easy to keep a conversation going by asking questions and letting the other person talk. This is probably why I don’t thrive on social media. Everyone is putting up neon arrow signs pointing at themselves. It doesn’t come naturally to me.
I find it difficult to share my ideas. I don’t have much ground to stand on. I’m young and inexperienced. What if I share my ideas now, only to realize how terrible they were a few years down the line? I shall tarnish my reputation!
I want to make cool things. I want random people on the internet to see and use the things I make. How is this going to happen if I can’t put myself out there? If I struggle to share things with friends and family, how could I ever face the criticism of internet citizens?
I created a Blogger account. It was quick, easy and free. I didn’t want to spend time, effort or money on the platform. I just wanted to focus on writing. I set a goal of publishing one post a month for the year. I only managed to publish eight posts. I discovered that I really enjoy writing. My mind gets like a pair of tangled earphones and writing helps to untangle it.
I took it a step further by building my own website and moving my blog posts to it. I have more control over the style and layout. It’s my corner of the internet and I can use it for more than just blogging. You can check it out at jedda.io. I chose the domain name because it’s my nickname, it’s short and easy to remember, and it’ll look cool on a t-shirt.
I write about things that I struggle with, things that I learn, and projects that I’m working on. It’ll mostly be programming-related, but not technical.
I picked Twitter as my social media poison. It has an amazing community of entrepreneurs, techies, nerds, founders and creators. People are doing amazing things. I’m following folks that are on a similar journey to what I am. Some are only a few steps in front of me, others are several lifetimes ahead. I also get to follow my internet heroes and get snippets of insight and wisdom that they share. There is an overwhelming amount of free and useful information out there.
Just make sure to curate your feed.
Most of the things I want to accomplish in 2021 started the year before, and will continue the year after. Here are just a few things that I’m really looking forward to.
Most people can write. Few can write well. The ability to write creative and engaging content, combined with the internet leverage is a powerful tool to have. It’s a skill that is basically free to obtain.
Writing helps me think clearly. The process lets me crystallize my thoughts and ideas, and make sense of them. It’s a great way to share what’s going on in my head. There are so many benefits that I would be foolish not to.
I used to read tons of books. Mostly fiction. Now I read articles, blogs, documentation, tutorials and code. My appetite for books has returned. Books are able to pack so much useful information between the covers. It’s like a private visit with the author. I have a reading list containing both fiction and non-fiction.
I haven’t made money on the internet yet. I’ve only programmed for a salary. Making one dollar means you can make more. It would be an exciting milestone to hit. I’m expecting to achieve that through Rehabit, but I’m constantly on the lookout for new opportunities.
I’ve been asking myself this question, and I’ll ask it to you too.
What can you do this year that will set you up for next year, and the decade to come?
