Whether you’re new to coding or working on expanding your skills as a developer, we’re all faced with the challenge of deciding when and how to fit learning into our busy day-to-day lives. But what would you say if we told you that all it takes is 15 minutes a day to learn something new about coding?
Well, after years of teaching students across the world to learn to code, that’s exactly what we’ve seen. But we don’t just want you to take our word for it, we want to show you. So to prove that all it takes is a short daily commitment, today we’re announcing the #15MinChallenge.
Starting today, we’re launching this month-long challenge and asking you to join us in taking part with just 15 minutes of your time each day. Treehouse teachers and members of the team are taking part and will offer guidance and support, as well as sharing progress on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the Blog. We’ll also be hosting weekly giveaways to reward participants and sharing helpful tips and tricks to keep you motivated along the way.
The Challenge
The challenge is simple: commit to spending 15 minutes a day for 30 days learning something new about coding and share your progress with the #15MinChallenge hashtag. Your specific learning goal is entirely up to you. For example, you might choose a broader learning goal, like Treehouse teacher, Dave McFarland, who is going to dig deeper into ES2015 and Functional Programming. Or choose a specific Treehouse course for the challenge to help sharpen your skills. You may even want to set a project as a goal and spend your time learning the necessary skills to problem-solve and build your project over the month.
As participants in the challenge, each day we’re all responsible for sharing our progress on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram (remember to use #15MinChallenge to be part of the conversation). By all of us actively sharing our involvement and progress, we’ll create a shared experience and community around this challenge to celebrate and support each other’s accomplishments.
Why should you take part?
- If you want to learn something new about coding (whether you’re a beginner or an expert), the challenge will help you achieve that goal.
- Introducing continuous learning into your daily routine is an effective way of ensuring you keep your coding skills fresh and up-to-date.
- After the first week, the 15 minutes will become a habit. Habitual learning has been proven to be an effective learning style for retaining what you learn.
- Choosing to learn in smaller but repetitive increments is known as spaced learning, which has been proven to help students avoid getting overwhelmed and also makes for deeper, more effective learning that lasts longer than crammed learning.
- With 1440 minutes in each day, we guarantee you can find the time.
- We promise it will be worth it. For such a small time commitment (only an hour and 45 minutes a week) you’ll experience a high reward.
- We’re all in this together.
Guidelines for the #15MinChallenge
All it takes is a few easy steps to take part:
- Set yourself a learning goal. What are you going to learn in your 15 minutes each day? (If you have questions or want help getting started, just tweet us and we’re happy to help!)
- Share your public commitment to the challenge on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and use the hashtag #15MinChallenge. Here are few examples:
- Today, I’m committing to the @treehouse #15MinChallenge to learn for 15 mins a day for a month!
- Today, I’m committing to the #15MinChallenge to learn how to build XX over the next month. 🙂
- I am committing to learning for 15 mins a day with @treehouse for the next month to better my coding skills! #15MinChallenge
- I am committing to the #15MinChallenge. All it takes is 15 mins a day to learn something new about coding!
- I’m going to learn X and build X as part of the @treehouse #15MinChallenge.
- Share daily updates on social media including #15MinChallenge and the incremental days of the challenge (e.g. #day1 #day2, etc.) to be part of the conversation.
- For #day2 of the #15MinChallenge I learned X!
- Today I learned X. Tomorrow I’ll spend 15 minutes on Y. #15MinChallenge
- I’m on #day3 of learning X. What are you learning with the #15MinChallenge?
- #day4 of the #15MinChallenge complete! [share a screenshot of your code]
- Today I learned X! #day10 #15MinChallenge [link to the course you completed]
- I’m learning X so I can build X. #15MinChallenge
- At the end of the challenge, share what you’ve created with the community.
BONUS: Keep an eye out each week for a new #15MinChallenge giveaway and take part for a chance to win some awesome prizes to help you through the challenge!
Over the next 30 days, we’ll also be sharing useful tips, articles, and boosts of encouragement to help you along with the month. We look forward to sharing this experience with you, and remember, we’re in this together so reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram anytime! 🙂