2023 in review: The year of Growth

Published on March 15, 2024

rewind.pngImage by me

Introduction

In 2023, I set a simple goal for myself: to enhance my coding skills. To kickstart this journey, I decided to embark on a coding streak, popularly known on Twitter as #100DaysOfCode. I began this challenge in early January and consistently kept at it. Once, while learning with a friend at a library, he encountered difficulty building a card component with hover animation - specifically, a card with a swipe-up animation upon hover.

Taking this as a personal challenge, I decided to tackle it myself. After a few attempts, I successfully replicated the animation. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I learned from this small project. Inspired by this experience, I decided to make it a daily habit to build one component as a part of my learning routine.

Learning the Basics

For me, building components proved easier compared to constructing complete projects. My strategy involved drawing inspiration from interfaces I interacted with daily and replicating some of their UI components. Initially, I sought inspiration from websites, mobile apps, and operating systems.

I found this process intriguing, realizing that I could learn significantly by creating small components. Typically, I could build more than one component a day, depending on my schedule. Some components required numerous hacks and tricks to replicate, leading me to appreciate the efforts of developers behind everyday interfaces.

Alongside coding, I also delved into design. Occasionally, I redesigned components in Figma to gain insight into the design process. Engaging in this activity over time bridged my understanding of both design and coding.

image screenshot of the components folder

Eventually, I began to see them as similar processes with slight distinctions: design defines how information is presented, while coding is the implementation of design to facilitate user interaction and experience. Moreover, I constantly scoured the internet to learn additional tricks and hacks for building UI components.

This endeavor taught me extensively about HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript. Gradually, I began to grasp Javascript concepts, and my proficiency in CSS soared. Engaging in this practice for more than seven months not only sharpened my problem-solving skills but also deepened my understanding of the web and interface design.

Personal Development

During this time I was very focused on my personal development with interest in these areas such as public speaking, time & stress management, health and mindfulness. I was very shy at public speaking, and sometimes thinking about the idea of speaking in front of people makes my body shake and face sweaty.

I was the keynote speaker for the GDSC Info session the previous year2022, where I gave a talk about the importance of the community. For the first 4 minutes I struggled with my talk, this became a sign that I needed to improve my public speaking, so I made it a plan to involve myself in public speaking activities.

I was very good at communicating with friends and family but most times bad at engaging with new people, and I know the detriment to my career that poor communication had on me.

My plan was to engage in more public speaking, community meetups and other conferences to ace my communication. This was helpful, I discovered my weaknesses and started working on improving them. Vinh Giang’s Youtube channel taught me how to use my vocals, tonation, and hand gestures effectively. It also helped me communicate more clearly by reducing clutter.

Facing my fears

The previous year2022, I was invited by my department to teach a group of students C++ programming. I used two weeks to teach them topics such as variables, data types, loops, functions and solved a lot of questions together with them.

Around this time of the year the result of the student had been released and the group I taught passed with flying colors, most of them had “A”. This boosted my confidence to engage in more teaching session as a way of improving my public speaking and also impacting people.

Due to this success, I accepted an invitation as a guest to facilitate a weekly coding jam, where I did a live coding session with the community. I built one of the unsplash components with them. This was my first live coding session and at some point of the session my css decided not to work as expected and I had to debug it live, it was hell.

image Coding jam setup & livestream screenshot

Finally I was able to resolve the bug (the problem was from the display property {display: relative}). This experience taught me how to handle tough situations in real time.

I also made a conscious effort to engage in writing a daily journal. At the end of the year I was able to document half of my diary with memories and saw a significant improvement in my written communication. On top of everything, I went to 4 events, increased my network, and went ahead to turn some new connections into clients.

My Health

At this point in life, my health was very important to me. During my 100 days of coding I got a severe malaria that made me very weak, I almost gave up on my coding streak. Up to this point I became very conscious about my health, knowing that without good health I wouldn’t be able to achieve anything in life. I decided to exercise 3x a week and walk early in the morning.

I made it a conscious effort to eating more healthy food and also frequently standing up from my desk every hour. I became vigilant on my stress management, paid more attention to my thought process and listened to interesting podcasts from the following Jim Rohn, Sadhguru, The futur and Jim Kwik

Freelance

As part of my effort to improve my personal brand, I redesigned my portfolio from scratch. My freelancing career took off this year, and I engaged in numerous intro calls with clients. I was able to secure a couple of contracts by offering my services in both design and development.

image screenshot of my portfolio design in figma

During this time, I learned more about negotiation, time management (meeting deadlines), and fostering good clients relationship.

Ending the year

Towards the end of the year, my friend Sadiq had a speaking session at the Africa Bticoin Conference in Ghana, and he invited me along. The conference turned out to be quite enlightening. I had the opportunity to meet a plethora of fascinating individuals who were deeply involved in creating innovative projects with Bitcoin. Sadiq, being a Bitcoin core contributor, delivered a captivating talk on mempool estimators, which left a lasting impression on me.

Prior to his session, I had no knowledge about mempool estimators. However, thanks to his informative talk, I grasped the basic concept behind it, sparking a desire within me to delve deeper into the world of Bitcoin. Inspired by his talk, I sought some advice on public speaking from him (my boy had a standing ovation, he must get some tips for me). That event truly opened my eyes to the tangible impact of Bitcoin.

image Bitcoin Africa conference 2023 & Independence square Accra

Since Sadiq had never been to Ghana before, he asked if I could show him around. Unfortunately, I had an interview scheduled for the next day, so we had to postpone our tour for a couple of days. On the appointed day, I picked him up from his hotel in the morning.

Our excursion began with a trip to Labadi Beach, followed by exploration of the nearby market, indulging in some local delicacies, enjoying a horseback ride, and a visit to the Osu Castle. We even squeezed in some shopping amidst all the excitement. It was an incredibly enjoyable experience for both of us.

Lessons learnt

There are a lot of things 2023 taught me, but the following are the most profound:

Thanks for reading.