From last week’s blog, I started and initiated a challenge – 42 days 6 weeks. Within the next 6 weeks, from 20th of May to 30th of June, I will be focusing on one project which is a website that tracks cashflow.

Stage 1: Planning phase

I used the first 2 days to plan out the week. Having a clear vision and purpose in the early stage can highly improve the effiency of the work flow, not only does it give clarity to the work I’m doing but it also motivates me to check off tasks from my list of todos.

design

Visualize

I like to visualize the outcome and structure of the website. I created this framwork structure that clearly displays the bare bone of my website. From this skeleton framework, it shows how many pages are there on the website, how are they linked and which section needs access to the database.

I’m a visual person 👀. Before starting any project, I need to have a broad image of the product in my head. What are the key functions, what does it look like and what special features that makes the application interesting. Creating this design framework above, simply makes me visualize the image of the product clearer. Fun fact, I used different colors to represent different sections: blue = navigation bar, turquoise = algorithms, yellow = sheets etc, so it will look less boring.

Be careful not to get stuck in the Planning Loop

Many people might want to have the perfect plan, however a perfect plan doesn’t exist in my case. Because I’m still a very inexperienced programmer who has been coding for the past 2 years only (sort of, took a few breaks in between).

Planning is important, but not the most important thing when needed to finish a project. I like to experiment with things. When I did some testing and researches on databases, it broadens my knowledge and view on them. Instead of planning every single step I much prefer experimenting and trying out new features.

Stage 2: Start building

After planning the broad looks and functions of the website, I began to code. First of all, I started adding components. A create new sheet page, login and signup pages for adding new users and a bit of styling to make the page more colorful. (Actually from the design framework above, all the rectangles which are filled in are finished, and the small squares on the top left are database. If I add those squares on specific component, it means they need access to the database.)

Today will be the end of 3rd day. I still have 4 days to go until the first week is over.

Here is my plan, so hear me out

Saturday, I will be adding a new component – tabs. This will allow the user to edit and add the name of each tab in the google spreadsheet to the platform. If there’s extra time, I hope to sync the tabs to the database.

Sunday, I will be taking a break. Hopefully able to go on a hike with my mates if the weather is good, preferably sunny and windy day (opitimal hiking weather).☀️💨

Taking a break is necessary, not only does it frees up your brain from all the clutter you have been stacking up from the week, but it is also good for your mental wellbeing.

So no work is getting done on Sunday. 😃

Monday & Tuesday, debugging time. When adding new features to my website I am pretty sure some unecessary issues and bugs will pop up. I like to leave myself a day or two just to check on the code to see if it runs smoothly.

I get stressed when things bugs are popping up, especially when the deadline is closing by. So leaving extra time to double check just makes me feel more relaxed on the other hand feeling stressful is an unpleasant feeling and I will do my best to avoid it.

Progress Update: Week 1 📊

I am really proud of what I did, part of it were already finished before hand such as the user authentication. I wouldn’t totally agree that it is cheating but I have a slight advantage. 😂

Planning Phase ✅

Design Framework Completed

User Authentication ✅

Login user
Signup user
User created auto syncs to Database

Create New Sheet ✅

Add New Sheet
Sheet created auto syncs to Database

END

Please subscibe to my weekly blog to get the latest updates.

Thanks for reading 👀. There will be a weekly blog every Friday, Stay Tuned.😉