So today I tried something new for boosting my skills fast. Woke up thinking about that Testaruda method everyone’s buzzing about. Decided to test it myself, see if it’s real or just hype. Grabbed my notebook and dove straight in.
Started With The Basics
First, I picked a single skill to focus on: Python scripting. Sounds boring? Yeah, but I needed it for automating these damn spreadsheet reports drowning my work. Instead of just watching tutorials like before, I fired up VS Code immediately and typed. Screw perfection – just wrote garbage code that barely ran. Did this every morning before breakfast. No exceptions.
Forced Awkward Experiments
Second day felt stuck. Remembered Testaruda’s “break the pattern” tip. Took my trashy script and deliberately broke it three ways:
- Changed variable names to emojis 😒 – completely unreadable
- Deleted random chunks of code
- Swapped logic blocks upside down
Felt stupid fixing my own sabotage. But weirdly, after untangling that mess, the structure actually made sense. Like breaking a Lego set to see how bricks connect.
The Uncomfortable Spotlight
Here’s where pride died. Decided to stream my coding live to 5 developer friends on Discord. No prep. Just shared screen and mumbled while wrestling with errors. They roasted my inefficient loops in real-time. One guy literally typed “WHY” when I used 10 lines for what could be one. Burned my ego bad. But next session? Instantly caught myself trying complicated crap and simplified.
Scrapping Pretty Progress
Big mistake happened Thursday. Wasted 3 hours polishing my ugly-but-working script into “production-ready” beauty. Then read Testaruda’s note: “Polished code = parked learning”. Trashed the fancy version immediately. Kept the janky V1 that did the job. Felt physically painful deleting that work. But it freed me to start the next challenge instead of admiring yesterday’s work.
Teaching My Cat Variables
Final push today. Grabbed my disinterested tabby cat and explained Python dictionaries using tuna cans as examples. “See Mittens? This dictionary holds ‘locations’ – living room couch equals full can!”. She blinked slowly. I felt like an idiot. But articulating concepts out loud exposed gaps – kept stammering on “key-value pairs” until I actually got it.
What Actually Stuck
Surprised myself. In five chaotic days:
- Automated my entire monthly report process (3 hours saved weekly)
- Wrote cleaner code after public humiliation
- Stopped over-engineering solutions
- Can actually explain dictionaries without sweating
Biggest takeaway? Learning ain’t pretty. It’s messy, embarrassing, and feels inefficient as hell. But forcing action beats planning. Still annoyed at my friends though. Bastards enjoyed roasting me way too much.
