January Wrap: Personal Retrospective

The first month of 2023 went pretty well. It might be because I noted my thoughts, difficulties, and accomplishments in my notebook. This has helped me improve my confidence, make a better plan, and most importantly - I'm learning to put myself out there, and share my work with the world.

Task completed-

Created a react Table

If you read my last week's retrospective, you might know that I was working on a basic React project to create a Table with pagination and editable rows from scratch. The project is available on this link. This week I will work on adding testing to this project.

Worked on Creating two quests for Wilco Hackathon

Wilco organized a quest builder hackathon and I created two quests - Route to victory and Navigating the Unknown. During this time I not only got an opportunity to build something that others will solve and learn, but I also got a chance to interact with the Wilco team twice.

This was a good experience for me as I am interested in building products. I interacted with the team that is building something amazing and discussed my quest idea and also had a general discussion about the product itself.

Brainstorming on a new idea

I am planning to participate in Linode Hackathon and for that, I explored different services Linode offers and noted a few ideas I can build for this Hackathon. I have finalized an idea with a project name Zesto, a tool to help you improve your communication skill. I worked on creating the layout for a few pages on Figma

Worked on a freelance project

I got a small freelance opportunity through my network which I was able to complete in 5-6 hours so it wasn't a bad deal at all, and I got to learn a few new things related to React and React testing. If I get more opportunities till I get a job, I would be happy to work on that as it helps me financially and improves my tech and communication skills as well.

Participated in the Canva Mobile app design challenge

This task didn't take much time but it's something new I tried and took the courage to share it on Twitter so wanted to share it here. I will be able to recall it when I read this blog later, sometime in the future...

Some knowledge outside of tech

1. I wanted to understand what G20 is and why it is important for India so I watched a few videos, I liked this video by Abhi and Niyu. They explained that since this year G20 is organized by India, India has an opportunity to showcase its growth, culture, and products to important people from other countries attending G20. India as an organizer also has the advantage to invite countries that aren't part of G20, this will help India to strengthen its relationship with other countries as well.

I watched another interesting video from GrowtX, it was a panel discussion where many people shared their stories, how they did career transitions, discussed the choice they made, and how they overcame their struggles. After watching this video I told myself that it's okay if you make some choices that didn't lead to traditional career growth. All you need to do is try your best and enjoy the process.

Some more updates

• I also updated my Resume and made a cover letter. I applied to a few companies now need to apply to more n more...

I received my Skullcandy Headphones as a prize from Crio.do

What's on the plate for the next 2 weeks?

• I need to update my LinkedIn, it is a never-ending process but I will try to make significant progress till my next blog.

• Start working on Zesto. I'm planning to use React (setup with vite) and Nodejs. And also write a blog on dev.to regarding the idea and sharing the layouts.

• Participate in React 2playAMonth by creating two react projects in the month of Feb.

• Write a blog by end of Feb for the WeMakeDevs challenge.

That's it for this blog, Let's make sure February is a productive month too.