Do you know what it feels like to be completely done with a project? You know, that feeling of exhilaration, excitement, joy, and fulfillment? I love that feeling.
On Friday night, I finally finished a coding project that I had been working on for quite a while
(a nighttime hobby of mine is coding on projects which will allow me to become more efficient in my work and personal life).
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| A log jam in a river - photo courtesy of pixabay.com |
On Friday night I finally managed to clear the log jam that had been holding me back from completing the project. It was awesome. Once I managed to get past this particular road block that had been holding me back for several weeks, it opened up my coding creativity and I was able to finish the project. It even gave me some ideas to get me started on my next project.
In the days when logs were transported by river, if a serious log jam was encountered, the workers would use dynamite as a last resort to blow up the problem area and make a clear path for the rest of the materials to get through . This was, of course, a last resort as the dynamite could splinter the logs and leave them damaged and unusable.(reference)
Do you find that a certain project or area of your life is stuck? Finding the metaphorical log jam will help you to get clear and move forward in that project.
Do you find that a certain project or area of your life is stuck? Finding the metaphorical log jam will help you to get clear and move forward in that project.
Step one - Clearly identify the problem.
Identify where the log jam is. Hopefully, the problem you identify that is keeping you stuck won't require a piece of dynamite, but the first step to solving any issue is definitively identifying the problem area.
Step two - Determine the easiest solution.
After you have identified the log jam, you can more easily determine how to clear the problem. Is this something that you can work through? Or do you need to grab some metaphorical dynamite and clean up the situation? In the case of my coding project, I had a particularly tricky line of code that was holding me back. I was almost ready to grab the dynamite, blow up the whole project and start over. I kept searching google for the right answer, but had been unsuccessful. Finally, I typed in a string of words that led me to the right answer and that gave me the information I needed to write the code that would fix the problem (no dynamite necessary).
Step three - Finish the project
Ok, at the end of the day, what’s most important? Getting that one little thing to work exactly right? or finishing the entire project? It is a constant struggle for me to not get stuck in the log jam that I encounter. Whether it’s a little piece of code, or making sure that a particular sentence reads exactly right. Don’t let things become a log jam. Finish the project. You can always come back later and rework it if you want to.
Question: What is causing the log jam in your life? Leave a comment by clicking here.