Lazy Person Summary:

I wanna learn how to program in Ruby on Rails, using the self-study program One Month Rails, and I’m lazy, so I want to invite others to join me so we all stay on track. Start April 1st. Finish April 30th.

Costs $100 to join the group + $75 to buy One Month Rails. Signup for both at bottom.

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I’m about 10 years behind on web development, and want to learn again.

Obviously I can easily get stuff outsourced or hire people to do all this for me, but I WANT to learn.  I find it enjoyable, and it’s a huge advantage to at least know the basics (especially when talking with engineers and freelancers).

For this reason I want to learn to program Ruby On Rails.

So I have enrolled in a $99 online course called One Month Rails.

However…..I, Neville Medhora, am a super-lazy bastard.  Here’s me on a normal day:

Like…..so lazy there’s NO WAY I’ll stick to learning this everyday.  So for this reason I am inviting YOU to come join me in learning Ruby On Rails in the month of April 2015!

You see, I’ve pondered a lot about why if you enroll in college, you almost ALWAYS finish the class….however if you enroll in an online course, you almost NEVER finish it.

I think it has to do with several factors why you would FOR SURE finish a college class:

Social Pressure = Your friends, your professor, your parents….all expect you to finish a class.

Financial Pressure = You paid money for this damn thing, so you better finish it.

Super Clear Goals = There’s super-specific dates and times when you begin the class, take tests through the semester, and when you finish the class.  This keeps you on track.  Even if you fall behind, you’ll at some point make up for it by cramming before a big test or the end of class.

I want to emulate these three factors for myself so I have pressure behind me to finish this 30 day goal…..that’s why I’m inviting other people to join me!

So join me in learning Ruby On Rails from April 1st – April 30th, using One Month Rails.  

Lots of SOCIAL PRESSURE will keep us going:

I’ve made a cool Google Spreadsheet where you’ll be updating the days you’ve completed (all the way to 30 days) during the challenge.

✖ = Haven’t done the lesson :-(

✔ = Done with the lesson :-)

At a single glance you can tell where you are in comparison with the rest of class…..this is will create great social pressure for you (and me) to keep up!

By the end of the challenge we’ll try to make the whole spreadsheet fill with ✔✔✔✔✔✔ !

…..but if you fall significantly behind it’ll be easy to see who isn’t keeping up with the class.  This creates social pressure for you to keep up with everyone.

Not only that, but we’ll have a Slack Chat Group going where we can discuss all our worries and woes and hangups:

This way the entire class can communicate together.

Guaranteed you will lose ALL the money you invest!

That’s right, whether you complete this challenge or not, you lose 100% of your money and I ain’t giving it back!!

I’m doing this mainly because I’m a greedy Indian man.

but also because…..

It will put $$financial pressure$$ on you to finish the 30 day coding challenge!

Think about it:

On day 12 of the challenge if you’re really behind, you know you can’t just drop out and get your money back, so you’ll push yourself to finish with me and rest of the class.

So in addition to this being a class and putting social pressure on you, now we’ve got:

Social Pressure + Financial Pressure

Super clear goals keep you on track:

The best way to get something done is to have super clear goals on what needs to get accomplished and exactly when it needs to be accomplished.

This is a 30 day challenge that requires you to watch some videos and practice a little each day. Most lessons are between 15 minutes and 1 hour long.  You can also do many of them in one day to catch up or get ahead.

You can see the full curriculum here. It seems very doable if you were to dedicate less than 1hour/day:

Now since we know this is doable if you dedicate just 1 hour a day (probably even less), then we can find a nice little 30 day period to try this.

And whhhaaadddyyaa know, April 2015 is a perfect 30 day month!!

This means we can assign exact start dates and end dates.

Having precise start and end dates and a curriculum is why most people who start a college class.

So now we’ve got a pretty good cocktail of motivation going on::

Social Pressure + Financial Pressure + Clear Goals

What platform we’ll be using:

One Month Rails

We will be learning the programming language Ruby On Rails through a course called One Month Rails.

I didn’t pick One Month Rails because they approached me or any weird thing like that, I picked it because I researched it, asked around, and figured out who actually got results.

I also wanted a platform who assumes the student is a 100% complete newbie beginner and knows NOTHING about programming.

I chose Ruby On Rails because it’s a super popular programming language right now that lets you build stuff on the web fast.  This is more than just “web design.”  In fact, by the end of this 30 day course you’ll be able to build your own ghetto-ass version of the hugely popular photo-sharing service Pintrest.

You’ll have people able to login to your website, post stuff, and edit stuff.  Just from 30 days of coding!!

I know there’s a million other programming languages we could learn together, but losers sit around and debate which language to learn for months…..while winners pick one, jump in, and learn it in one month.  

Once you learn to code, you can easily pickup another coding language.  So we’re moving ahead with Ruby On Rails.

There’s literally NEVER a “good time” to do something:

If you always wait for a “good time” to learn something new, you’ll never do it.  Think about in high school or college….there were times when you had to buckle your ass down and study allllll day long just to meet some deadlines.  You would never do that kind of intense work voluntarily, but you did it because you had pressure on you.

I am replicating that pressure for myself, and if you wanna share in that sweet sweet pressure then you can join this one-month long challenge to learn to code.  Let’s do it together (giggity).

What you get if you join this 30-day Coding Challenge:

1.) You join me (and others) in promising to complete the OneMonthRails course in 30 days.

Starting: April 1st, 2015 (Wednesday 8am)

Ending: April 30th, 2015 (Thursday 11:59pm)

2.) You will be added to a chat group (on Slack) where we’ll discuss our updates and problems and hangups.  This creates the social pressure that helps with completing something.

3.) You will be updating a shared Google Spreadsheet that will show you where you stand in the class, adding more social pressure.

4.)  You will have to pay me $100 to join the challenge (CLOSED)….and $74 to buy One Month Rails.  This will put $175 of financial pressure on you.

Join the 30-day Coding Challenge:

Ok cool, I’m in, I wanna learn Ruby On Rails with everyone!

By paying this $100 of my hard-earned money to Neville, I am agreeing that I commit to learning to program Ruby On Rails in a month. Learning stuff on your own is hard, so having financial pressure helps push me, and having social pressure pushes me too.

So if I wuss out and don’t stay up-to-date with the group, I simply lose my money and I deserve it because I’m a lazy ass.

Yes I understand all of this, and I still wanna join Neville in learning Ruby on Rails in the month of April 2015:

Step 1.) Join the Coding Challenge group with me for $100.   (CLOSED)

Step 2.) Signup for One Month Rails here (It’s $99 normally but I got us a discount so it’s $74).

Step 3.) Start learning to code and seeya inside the group!

(Registration is closed)