How I overcame tutorial purgatory in my freelance journey
From the time I started my freelance journey, I have held myself back for long because of how much I did not know. So I started looking for tutorials on the internet to get as much information as possible.
Whatever I was building was around the tutorials I came across and I used them as a support to build my project. All I had on my portfolio was a list of small projects which I learnt off some tutorials. This is how I fell into the deep hole of what they call a “tutorial purgatory”.
It was important to get out of it immediately, I was not building anything worthwhile and always doubting myself if I was ready enough for the real world scenario. I was not able to get out of this circle and always made excuses to watch another tutorial of the same subject.
So I decided to take up the 100DaysofCodeChallenge to start small and build something new every single day. This helped me gain my confidence back and not just rely on tutorials. So here are my two cents on how I overcame this problem.
#Start your own project from scratch. Use pencil and a paper to chalk out a plan, list the technology you will use, the features it will have, how it will look. Divide your project into smaller tasks. Write down actionable steps to complete your project. You can use interface design tools like Figma, Draw.io .
#Get out of your comfort zone. This is the reason why I fell into this hole, tutorials always felt safe and comfortable . Don’t give up until you have the answer. Search for articles(Medium), ask questions on forums(Stack Overflow), reach out to a senior, add comments on technical blogs to take your project forward. Code every single day and build a habit out of it. Resolving more issues will give your confidence a boost.
#Troubleshooting for the win. Get into the habit of reading your error messages. Try to explain your errors better and work on formulating clear questions. Retrace your steps to locate what change caused the error. Keep testing as you code to keep it clean.
#Don’t be too hard on yourself. Doesn’t mean you should give up on tutorials completely. Follow certain rules while reaching out for a tutorial- don't search for a tutorial on anything you already know, watch only one tutorial for a single topic, start applying what you have learnt immediately.
You can never know everything about a technology, nobody does, and you will always search things on the internet like everyone does. Don’t let that stop you from building stuff and take on new challenges.
