My 70-day Streak on GitHub

First off, I know this is by no means a record, something special or even significant. But I want to share my small streak story and how it helped me get an ABC (Always Be Coding) habit.

Read more about ABC, and why it's so important.

How It Started

I had not thought about doing a long streak, and I was not intending to do one either when I started out. It just happened. I had committed some code a couple of days in a row without thinking too much about it. I soon realized I had a small streak. I though it might be cool to get a couple of weeks in – just for fun.

After three weeks, I was hooked. It was addicting to see the streak continue to grow. It was most of the time not too hard to code something that could be committed every day. Most days, it was a breeze. Some days, it wasn’t.

How I Kept It Going

Like I mentioned, it often was quite easy to keep going. Most days. Some days, I almost forgot to commit, only saved by some random internal reminder at the very end of the day. Some days, I dreaded the fact that I had to code. Some days, I knew in advance that I would require some planning; the days that were basically packed with “mandatory” things. I could often do some testing and submit an issue, I usually had time for that at some point during the day.

But the thing that really held me going on was a commitment I made. After I had decided that I wanted a decent streak, I made a commitment to myself that I would sit down and code every single day. This strong internal promise I had made to myself was what I needed to do this. It helped me remind myself, it told me when I didn’t really feel like coding that I had promised. So I kept going.

For some people, sticking with stuff is easy. If that’s you, great! Myself, I need a little push sometimes. It’s important for most people to have something to drive yourself to do what you want. A strong internal promise and commitment might be what you need.

How the Streak Ended

It was actually by accident, but a happy one. The 71^st day was the first day of my Christmas vacation and I spent it at work and then on a plane. It was a really busy day, and I just forgot to do anything about GitHub. Turned out, I really needed two weeks off without any work getting done.

I got back to normal life after the vacation with a much higher energy level. Plus, it felt really great to just completely relax.

I recommend you try going for a streak. Pick a project or two and keep the commits going. There are many obvious benefits of doing that (ABC, momentum for your projects, learning, etc.).

Further Reading

Some tips to keep your GitHub streak going: http://natashatherobot.com/streak-github-mistakes/

An impressive and entertaining GitHub streak story: https://ryanseys.com/blog/177-days-of-github/