Keeping up the momentum

we are now just over half-way through May, and as such, this CSS Grid a Day challenge.

While this project has been tiring, it’s also been very rewarding, and while the original goal was to learn how to use CSS Grid, I’ve learned a couple of important themes.

Deadlines guide focus

Perfectionism and procastination are two traits that together really stymie progress.

When something I’m working on just isn’t coming together—whether it’s a personal project, or trying to learn something new—it’s far too easy to let myself off the hook, and tell myself I’ll do it later when there’s no external deadline.

Although arbitrary, self-imposed deadlines don’t actually matter, it provides me with enough motivation to push through.

Self-imposed deadlines also have no consequence by definition, and that has allowed me to be more ruthless with reducing scope in order to complete an entry—a luxury I can’t afford elsewhere.

Reinforce with repetition

In the past few months, I’ve spun up several Gatsby-based websites for different projects. On each subsequent project, I get more familiar with the development lifecycle, learn new techniques, and strengthen and reinforce my current understanding.

The same applies to design too. By trying to design something different each day, it provides a brand new opportunity to learn new design techniques, and reinforce what I’ve learned.

Looking forward

On the weekend, I’ll be traveling to Melbourne for the rest of the month for work.

This is going to disrupt my schedule, and it remains to be seen how it may affect the last 12 days of the CSS Grid project!

Nevertheless, I’m going to try my best to stick to my target of a Grid a Day—thank you for joining me on this project so far!