I don’t have to learn JS. I could start to learn, then change my mind. Both would be fine. But there’s no point telling myself for years that “I want to learn JavaScript — but haven’t yet”.

First attempt

July 2014: Email archives reveal that I bought the javascriptbook.com 3 years ago. 😱 Why didn’t I read it? Because I was preoccupied with running a business. I did put substantial effort into expanding my skillset at the time. But I needed to focus on skills I could sell, and didn’t think interesting clients with fun projects would chase down the doors of a newbie javascripter.

Second attempt

January 2016: I started using work hours on Thursdays until lunch for study time, and was making steady progess on this book for a while. The notebook I used resurfaced, and I was surprised now to discover the amount of decent studying I’d done. Two things came in the way last year:

• It became trickier to reserve blocks of time for studying during my week.
• And then I got really busy organizing a conference in my spare time.

Third attempt

July 2017: I have time and energy now. If I don’t make any progress this summer, it’s a sign I don’t actually want this enough and can let it go. (But today is not that day!) Here’s the plan:

• Figure out some reasons Why I want to learn JavaScript. ✅

• Invest a little bit of time (but not too much!) on revising previously mentioned book & notes. The book is old, but still does a very nice job of explaining basic concepts like functions, methods and objects in a visual way to people who don’t have a CS background. 👌

• Make short assignments!! Tiny tasks for myself on CodePen. 👾

• Get to know the MDN web docs on JS and dive into the practical course. 🚀

• Seek out more tasks involving JavaScript at work. 💻