Ignoring Appealing Side Projects When Trying To Learn Something New

I started working on a new iOS app a couple of weeks ago. The first few iOS apps I made 6+ months ago were just for learning that I never really intended to go into the app store. I’m really intending on submitting this app to the app store, but I’m really making this app because it is something I would use daily. I do have a fear that it is going to be rejected, but even if it doesn’t make it into the app store I still believe it will be a worthy pursuit.

Anyways, I did start working on my app a couple of weeks ago, but quickly got stuck. My objective-c skills were never that great to begin with and on top of that I was quite rusty because I hadn’t really used xcode in 6 months. I tried looking a lot of stuff up online and even found a few great answers on stack overflow that were getting me closer to my destination, but after plugging away for a couple of days I realized I was starting to build a Frankenstein of an application that should be killed now before ever being brought to life.

Realizing that I’m lacking some fundamental knowledge I decided to purchase Objective-C Programming - The Big Nerd Ranch Guide and get to work on building a solid foundation of knowledge that hopefully I can build any iOS app I want on top of.

I’ll be honest that waking up early (almost) every morning to study Objective-C instead of writing code toward a new project hasn’t been easy. And every time I sit down to study I seem think of some new web app idea that I could be working on instead in a language I’m more comfortable with. But so far I’ve been successful ignoring those tempting distractions that would ultimately take me away from my end goal. Right now I’m sticking to my guns and will continue to plow through mastering Objective-C so that I can not only make this app I wish I had, but so that I could make any other iOS app at a much quicker pace when the time comes.