Trying is progress even when you have no progress to show for it. So… since last Friday I’ve been trying to figure out dynamodb and how to get it to work in go using the official aws-go-sdk. I basically spent an entire day reading documentation and trying things that would error. On monday it was like… what did you do? I was like… trying to figure out how to insert something into dynamodb.

I think the same thing happens when I’m debugging. I’ll trace through all the code. Think about the problem and try to reproduce it etc. But then from the outside it looks like I’m doing nothing. And then suddenly I figure out the problem and the fix is one line. And it’s like… you spent days writing one line of code. I think it’s fine from a work perspective because most likely your manager is technical and would understand that. But for me… I still kinda feel like I don’t make progress or like… the day isn’t as satisfying when all I did was read documentation / trace code / think about the problem.

It’s like… all I wanna do is build. It also applies to progress that you don’t see. Like doing stretches pre/post workout. Stretches always feel kinda pointless to me… but then it’s like when you keep doing stretches without seeing progress… one day you’ll realize that your flexibility is way better than you remember.

It’s kinda like process over results. I just need to personally let it go. It’s like… I built so much cool shit once I figured out dynamodb… but then figuring out dynamodb was necessary. And even though I had nothing to show for the day… I guess I got more knowledgable.

tl;dr - just keep working and don’t worry about progress from the outside. effort = progress