I found another one of those “obfuscated” scripts today while troubleshooting some stuff. Unlike most that just use those “cheap encryptors” that are a dime a dozen and can be found all over the Internet, this one is extremely elegant and complex, and I soon found myself totally immersed in trying to crack the algorithm. Along the way I had ample opportunity to expand my knowledge of scripting.
Pure joy for a closet geek like me! 
I’m still not done with the work, but as I was taking a break, I realized something that I’d like to share with you. I wasn’t really motivated to work today before I started working on this little project, but am now decidedly motivated and want to use my time wisely. And that’s when it hit me…
Coding and scripting may not be profitable activities for me because I don’t do commercial quality work yet, but by doing them, I put myself into a mindset that enables me to much better focus on the tasks that are profitable.
I enjoy coding and writing scripts. I love the challenge, the immediate feedback, and the immense satisfaction that comes from taking an idea and turning it into a piece of working code (let’s not talk about efficiency and elegance,though!). In other words, it’s “fun work” for me.
So I’m going to try an experiment. I’m going to start working through my collection of coding and scripting books for about 30 minutes every morning just as soon as I start working. I want to see if it carries over every day into more focused work. I suspect that it will because once I start working, I tend not to stop; it’s just hard to get started some mornings. I’m going to do this every day for 21 days, starting on Monday, January 18, 2010 (they say it takes 21 days to develop a habit; that’s why I chose 21 days).
Why not give it a try? For the next three weeks, start every day doing some type of work that you love to do for just a few minutes, then see if you are more productive for the rest of the day. And by all means, feel free to leave a comment to let me know if you tried it — and the results you got from it (and I’ll try to remember to do a follow-up post a few weeks from now).
And who knows? If I do a bit of coding and scripting every day, perhaps some day my work will be “good enough” to sell…
