Why Slowing Down Your Hands is The Fastest Way To Hard-Wire Your Brain for Code

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Introduction

Many of us are so inspired by AI and the digital world, that most of the time we are dependent on AI-powered solution fixes, quick Stack Overflow solutions-to-doubtful-questions, Google search fixes etc.

As a beginner, we struggle to make the logic stick in our minds. When we are staring down at our online code editors, we are presuming that we are involved in lots of coding flow, but, that’s just an illusion because, you are just skimming through the coding blocks, and your mind is not consciously engaging with the code! You will experience that the moment, the screen is shut off, we suffer from the delirium of lost-logic and blank-mind!

Then we go around seeking the answers for the best computer in town, the best laptop screen size, the best mobile phone with the latest apps installed for coding etc ect., but, what we fail to realize is that the key to getting through that ‘beginner slow syndrome’ is not the fast processor or expensive technical gadgets/ tools etc.

On the other hand, it is actually just the reverse, that of going in the reverse direction, that is, ditching your behaviour of sitting down to code in your expensive IDE’s for non-stop 8 hours, (in order to rush through your coding lessons) and, pick up a pen and pencil to start writing down what you are learning. By going this manual mode, you are actually stepping away from the keyboard and persuading your brain to slow-down, visualize and build a solid mental model that prepares you to think logically, and this is not possible if you spend hours infront of your text editor to type your code for hours.

In the rest of this post, I will be explaining how you can make your learning journey faster by hard-wiring your brain to a logic-set mental mode and why manual note-taking is the best method to learn code as a beginner and how to do it smartly.

The Learning Traps To Avoid

In this context, we will be first taking into consideration, some of the learning traps that you need to avoid or escape in order to rectify your learning phase as a total beginner. I myself have been victim to some of these Traps, so, I thought of creating this post, so that you may find this helpful to avoid some of the mistakes that I have made as a code beginner during my learning phase.

The Speed Trap

When we type fast into our coding editor, we are not actually thinking, but, our keyboards are working fast! We are so rushed to getting the information transformed over the keyboard, that, the actual processing of our brain gets ignored and we get lost in the speed of the knowledge transaction.

Here, the knowledge is not actually getting transferred to your brain, your memory muscles also not engaged, but, you are all caught up in storing the just received information into your respective online storages, could be your github repository, your code IDE or your pasted code folders.

The fast action is being performed without actually engaging your mind and brain,in other words, you are doing things by thinking shallowly.

Some more traps that you experience when you learn to code as a beginner are, explained below.

Tutorial Hell Trap

What is it

In this trap, you feel that you are literally speeding through or shall I say, flying through 12 hours of video in few minutes!

Why to Avoid this Trap

In this situation, you are actually not building up your muscle memory and logical thinking tanks, but you are just superficially high-charged with overwhelming amount of information that is stored temporarily in your brain, for so long as you are in front of your computer screen!

This gives you a heightened feeling of making fast progress since you are following several videos, blogs, guides, tutorials, etc, but the moment, you are away from all the source of knowledge tank as mentioned above, your mind goes total blank and you are left staring at your blank code editor, wondering what line of code to start with?

How To Know You’re Suffering from Tutorial Hell Trap

You excel in completing several courses really fast, but, when left to yourself, you have zero traction and no clue as to applying your learnt knowledge on practical projects.

How to Escape this Trap

You need to apply your knowledge in to building actual projects and refrain from watching tutorials or better still, find a new way of doing the project after watching the tutorial, or even add a new twist to the project problem and solve the challenge. For example, if you watched a tutorial on building a ‘To-do list in Python’, in which you can add items and remove items of your choice to the list, close the video tutorial and build by yourself a different version of this to-do-list by adding an additional challenge of one more feature, that is, a to-do list in which you can also edit the items after adding the items. This is a positive way of escaping from your Tutorial Hell Trap because you are not completely dependent on the tutorials that you are watching, but, you are engaged enough to add your own version to the problem project and solve it yourself without any video help.

Copy Paste Coding Trap

What is it

Solving coding problems by taking the help of nerds on Stack Overflow or FreeCodeCamp or Reddit.

Why to Escape this Trap

In this situation, you are able to understand the solution that is provided to you from different nerdie sources, but, you fail to actually understand the Problem itself! Remember, when it comes to code challenges or any challenge, for that matter, understanding the Problem is much more important than understanding the Solution before you even attempt it yourself.

When you understand the problem, it is so much easier for you to solve the problem in order to get your own solution.

How to Escape this Trap

You can escape this trap by not searching for solution in various platforms, even before you analyze the problem itself. Try understanding the problem first, then, look up your own hand-written resources of concepts with code logic and apply that knowledge to solve this problem, instead of running promptly to your favorite answer-driven nerds’ haven.

At one point of time, I used to seek answers and help from Reddit, but, stopped within few months of my visit there, when I realized that I get answers to my problems, but, I get de-motivated into thinking that I am not a nerd and that only nerds like them can help me to solve problems. That feeling was so annoying that I escaped that trap completely by starting my own Manual Learning System that I am going to explain a bit more in the coming paragraphs.

Plateau of Despair Trap

What is this Trap

This is your typical “Learning Curve” situation whereby, you reach a certain peak of your heightened learning initially, and once this initial excitement wears off, you feel that the learning is getting too heavy and you feel like, it’s time to back off!

Why to escape this Trap/What’s Happening Here

After your initial beginner learning phase, you reach the intermediate and advanced levels where the concepts and projects get much tougher than what you can comprehend, but, your learning pace doesn’t slow down to adjust to this complexity.

The result is a feeling of ‘Burn-Out’ as you are over-exhausting yourself by not adjusting the learning momentum in order to keep up with the complexity that follows the easier lessons.

How to escape this Trap

You need to go back to your previous basics once in a while while connecting forward to more complexities, so that, you apply the basics to go forward and also go backwards to slow down and recover before rushing ahead to learn more complex topics.

This way, your memory muscles are preparing themselves for accepting more complexities after being fed with simple stuff earlier.

Syntax Obsession Trap

What is this Trap

This is a mode of trap where you are tring to learn by rote every line of code syntax by-heart instead of understanding them first. M

Why it is a Trap

Have you heard your Grandpa tease you saying, “Son why are You learning the “dictionary” instead of the “language?” This is a similar situation whereby you are learning the code syntaxes or rather the list of syntaxes and creating a dictionary of sorts in your memory instead of actually trying to understand the Programming language itself by understanding the logics of the language.

How to Escape this Trap

Analyse the problem, try to simplify the problem by breaking it down into simpler manageable tasks/steps. Think logically, on solving the problem by logics rather than straightaway doing the code.

After writing down the logics step-by-step, you can translate that into your code syntaxes, but, not before understanding the problem itself.

What is Tactile Learning

This type of learning is based on the physical sensory system, example, that of touch sense in learning to code. In other words, when you physically or manually write down each and every letter of the concepts and code snippets that you are trying to understand and learn, this process of touch sense between your pen, fingers and paper, leads to slowing down the process of learning and increasing the retention of whatever topic that you are writing down. Physical sensory system helps in longer and deeper retention.

For example, consider the aroma of the food that you cooked last month, this sense of smell will remain with you long past time the phase that you cooked the menu ages ago. Remember, the alphabets that you wrote down 100 times on your note book while you were in school? Do you still need to ask Google for help as to what precedes the letter Z? No, because it has been imprinted in your mind through your tactile learning phase during your childhood years!

Yes, it might look and feel so boring, having to write down each and every line of code and the concepts that go with it, based on your understanding, but , that is the secret sauce of tactile learning: slow down, understand, pause, visualize, understand and then absorb! This is not superficial knowledge, it is deeply rooted in your mind. The key here is to only write the concepts in your own language, based on your own understanding of the ‘what-why-how-when’ while note-taking, and not copy-paste others’ language.

When You Focus while Learning

When you writing down notes by hand on paper, you are escaping the distractions of the browser-tab into a distraction-free sanctuary of pen and paper! No social media notifications to disturb you here, and no email distractions from office or friends either and when you are free from such virtual distractions, your mind and memory muscles perform much more efficiently than how they do while you are in your browser tab, busily, typing away to glory on your favorite code editors.

Also, there is no AI prompt to tell you if you are going wrong, when you are in your paper mode and that stops you from being lazy and dependent on your AI prompt As tools of your modern code editors.

Why the Traditionally-Manual Style of Note-Taking Works for Coding

As a beginner learning to code, you have not only gone wrong by focusing on code syntaxes too much, but also got yourself confused by developing the wrong mental models.

Now, let’s go over the points where the simple traditional pen/pencil and paper is the biggest winner of all times!

1). Slow Down the Logic

When you are typing on your keyboard to code in your IDE, you would have already realized by now that you are typing is very fast. When you type fast, what you need to know, is that your thinking gets reduced to a great extend.

On the other hand, while you are writing by hand, you are literally forced to think and process every part of the problem, every part of the code, including parenthesis, brackets, colons, semi-colos etc thereby preventing you from rushing over to the next part of the logic. In other words, you are thinking slowly and that is when your logical thinking is at it’s best.

When you are physically doing rush jobs, you are in no situation to think at all. For a thinking mindset, you need to slow down and relax and focus on the task on hand, mainly, the problem and the steps to solve that and also the expected outcome that ensues the execution of the task.

2). Muscle Memory

When you are typing the code, your memory muscles are not working, it’s only your hands are working on the keyboard. But when you are writing down code and notes, your memory muscles start working and laying down the heavy structure with solid foundation that helps in deep absorbtion of the information you have written which further helps in memory retention and strong memory recall when you need the information later while solving problems.

Have you forgotten the alphabets and numbers that you had learnt while in primary school, that you learnt so well by writing down few hundred times with pen and paper?

3). Freedom from Formats

When you are using your hands and paper, you feel so free to write down the notes with the help of visual charts, graphs, diagrams etc that would work as visual mind-map support for you in your note-taking process.

When you are typing your notes, you may find the process of drawing graphs, charts, diagrams etc., very tedious and time-spending as you would need to make use of external graphic tools that are time-consuming. Here you would be so engrossed in getting your diagrams perfect, that, your thinking mindset would again get interrupted as you would be more focused on the visual appeal of the notes rather than the points mentioned in your notes!

4). The No-Tab Zone

While you are just occupied with pen and paper, you are not interrupted by App Notifications from different Social Media accounts. You wouldn’t be tempted to steal code results from Stack Overflow, Github etc., as it is just you and YOUR LOGIC!

How to Take Manual Programming Notes

Writing down the Code Logics

Instead of copy-pasting the code, or even writing down your code, write down the logics of the code snippet, line by line, in natural English language, as to what is the code actually doing there.

For example, this code is actually making a list of all the exam marks of a student and then the next line is involved in adding up all the marks of this student before proceeding to calculate the percentage score. Once you write the logics like this and then write down the code, it makes much more sense to you as a learner than what you would have achieved by writing the code in the first instance.

Drawing Memory Maps

This is for learners who prefer the visual type of learning structure. You remember things that you can see and it is cool to draw out the structure of the concept or code logic that you are learning or doing rather than write in phrase or sentence or point format.

For example sake, consider an excercise when you are creating different variables for storing different item values. A name variable for storing the names of male students. So here, you could draw a square box to depict the name variable and then draw an arrow to connect it to another box that is labeled as the value that is stored in the name. If there are 10 students in the class whose names have to be stored inside the name variable, then, you could draw a box with the label name and jot outside the box that it is a variable and then draw ten arrows connecting to another ten boxes, with the ten different values of names, so you know that the name variable is the container for the ten different name values stored there.

Writing the Pseudocode

Pseudocode is actually the code without the syntax script, as it is written in plain English, something like writing the algorithm. For example, for creating a name variable in Python, instead of writing the typical syntax, name = “John Smith” you write, in plain enclish, pseudocode, Create a name variable and then give it an initial value of John Smith.

Conclusion

So, now, you know how to take notes while learning a Programming Language and start thinking Logically before jumping on to your respective keyboards to type your code.

You also learnt how to escape the different traps that serves as hurdles to your learning phase and how exactly focus on your strategy to learn to code using a Smart Logical Mental Model.

It’s all about focus on the Manual Learning Methods rather than rushing on the keyboard or virtual world. Traditional mental mapping and hand writing is the best way to gear up your learning journey and the best way to take down notes while learning to code.

Actually learning to code is more of a strategy rather than short cuts to rush your learning. If you have more suggestions to add here or practised any of these methods, do mention in the comments below this post. Happy Coding!

Originally published at https://meeramenon.substack.com.