DEV Community

Cover image for How I built 100 Projects in 100 Days
Florin Pop
Florin Pop

Posted on • Updated on • Originally published at florin-pop.com

How I built 100 Projects in 100 Days

Originally published on my blog.


I finished the #100Days100Projects challenge 🥳 and in this article I’m going to cover my experience doing this challenge and I’m also going to answer some of the questions that I received on Twitter about this.

It would be an “ask and answer” type of article so I hope you enjoy it! 😃

What is this challenge about?

The main purpose of this challenge is to build a project every single day for 100 days in a row. You can read more about the rules here. (Note: there is also an easier variant: #30Days30Projects, in case you are interested for something lighter 😃)

I started this challenge on 17 September 2019 and finished on 25 December 2019.

What projects have you built during the challenge?

In the last project (#100) I added all the projects that I’ve built during the challenge, so if you want to check them out click here.

All of the projects were web based - frontend mostly (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), and some of them had a little bit of NodeJS for the backend.

I used all sorts of APIs, some JS libraries (ReactJS, p5js - for working with the canvas), but most of the projects were done with Vanilla JS and CSS.

How do you come up with so many ideas?

Apparently a lot of people have asked me this question over these 100 days.

It’s simple: I am a genius. 🧠

Just kidding 😆... I’m far from being that.

The truth is that I gathered a lot of resources over the past year because I needed inspiration for my articles, videos, etc, and I’ve used them to get inspiration for these projects also.

Also, doing this creative process over and over and over, you end up eventually getting ideas from all the things around you. There are some projects that I did because I saw a need in my day-to-day life (Drink Water app, Random Picker Visualizer, Countdown, Password Generator, etc…)

Let’s not forget also that some of the projects were suggested by my followers. (Thank you guys 🙏)

The resources that I’ve used mostly for inspiration:

Did you have a plan for a longer period of time or you did it spontaneously?

Out of the 100 projects, I think that only 2 or 3 were “planned” beforehand - like a day before. 😅

The rest of them were just done spontaneously.

But I wouldn’t recommend doing it. It’s much better to have things planned out - it gets rid of the headache you might get when you have to come up with an idea right away.

Why you did it?

I LOVE CHALLENGES! 🥰

As simple as that.

I love pushing my limits and this challenge looked like one that could do that (and it did!) Also, I’ve noticed that if I publicly announce that I’m doing something, I end up actually doing it - maybe because of the shame that I would feel if I fail. I don’t know. Haven’t failed a challenge yet. 😆

The first challenge I did was a 365 days of running challenge. I publicly declared on Facebook that I’m going to do it + I posted a picture daily with me after my runs and this gave me the strength to finish it (actually ended up doing 422 days). I couldn’t fail my followers, right? 🤪

And on the other hand, I knew that if I’m going to post daily I will inspire others. I want to show people that even ordinary people like us can do stuff if we set our mind to it. We have a powerful mind, we just don’t use it at its full capacity!

Yes. I am an ordinary guy. Nothing special here. So if I did it, you can do it too!

How much it took to create a project?

Some of the projects I did in under 30 minutes, a couple took me 6-8 hours and 1 or 2 I had to “postpone” on to the 2nd day because I couldn’t finish them. Although I postponed these projects to the next day, I recreated them from scratch - only using the gained knowledge. This turned out to be a good way to get "unstuck". Just redo it from scratch.

I would say that I needed around 1-1.5 hours on average per day. This includes: idea + execution + social media.

Keep in mind that I’ve been coding since 2013 so maybe someone with less experience would need a little more time, but it really depends on the project difficulty.

What motivated you to keep going?

As I mentioned above, I think that the shame of failing kept me moving, considering that I publicly committed to the challenge. I can’t fail my audience!

I had a \$25 “punishment fee” which I would have to pay for the failing days, but I don’t think that I ever thought about it after I started.

I added the money aspect because I knew that it would be engaging for people to have it and some of them would want me to fail (sneaky you! 😜) so they would check in daily - which ended up giving me a small boost of views on my posts 😁.

What have you learned during the challenge?

I’ve learned a couple of things:

  • Learned how to “sketch” and plan a project structure
  • Learned and played around with some technology and APIs that I haven’t used before
  • Learned more about CSS properties (positioning, animation, etc)
  • Learned more on how to work with the JS DOM API

It ended up helping me solidify my vanilla JS and CSS skills!

What would you do differently?

One thing that I’ve noticed is that there were more simpler projects that I initially planned. I expected to have more apps with multiple functionalities, but considering the fact that this challenge wasn’t the only thing that I had going, I ended up doing more simple projects (like just a design implementation with HTML/CSS, no JavaScript).

If I would ever do this challenge again, I would either:

  • Do less days (30 or 50) or
  • Focus 100% on the challenge (no more client work or other projects, etc)

This way I could do more “sophisticated” apps.

Nevertheless, I’m happy with the projects that I’ve done considering the given situation.

Also, I ended up spending a lot of time posting on Social Media (Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram - for which I created a new image every time).

Maybe a good system to “share everywhere” would help to speed up the process.

Don’t get me wrong, posting on SM is important and I wouldn’t drop it, but I would speed it up if possible.

Should people do this challenge?

If you want a good challenge. Yes.

If you want to learn new things. Yes.

If you want to create engagement with your audience. Yes.

Should you do 100 days? Depends.

Do you have the time? Then do it. Otherwise I would only do the 30 days variant.

What’s next for you?

Another challenge. 🤩

For 2020 I’m planning to go all-in on YouTube so I’m going to start the year with a 31 days 31 videos challenge (more about it coming soon). I want to have a solid backlog of videos for my youtube channel so this challenge goes very well for that.

Who knows… maybe I’ll keep doing it if everything goes well.

Subscribe if you want to follow my progress! 😃

Conclusion

If you have any other questions, let me know and I’ll be happy to answer and update the article!

I hope this was helpful for you!

Thank you for reading! 🙏

Top comments (38)

Collapse
 
mhm13dev profile image
Mubashir Hassan

Hello!
It was an interesting article...
you said about sharing posts on social media takes time...
I think there is an app called "Buffer" which helps you share posts on multiple SM platforms ar once...
and you can also schedule posts.

Collapse
 
florinpop17 profile image
Florin Pop

I’ll look into it! Thank you! 😃

Collapse
 
mhm13dev profile image
Mubashir Hassan
Collapse
 
sapatubutut profile image
Puspa Bangun Subekti • Edited

just realized that you're the creator of
codepen.io/FlorinPop17/pen/LzYNWa

just wanna say thanks, I use your animated countdown on my office app launch event,,

keep productive and congrats on your challenge..

Collapse
 
florinpop17 profile image
Florin Pop

Your welcome! I'm happy it was useful for you!

Collapse
 
rajakannan profile image
Raja Kannan 🤠 • Edited

That was an inspiring challenge!

I have a question though, I'm a developer and I cannot really design as you do now.

All your designs were amazing in this challenge, but why your blog design looks very ordinary?

After checking out your 100 projects I was expecting your blog to look even more interesting.

PS: your blog is still looking good for my eyes, not complaining about it 🙏
Collapse
 
florinpop17 profile image
Florin Pop

I'm glad you found the challenge inspiring!

My blog looks ordinary because... I'm not a designer 😆

The projects from #100Days100Projects were inspired from dribbble designs - so... they're catchy! 😜

Collapse
 
rajakannan profile image
Raja Kannan 🤠

Gotcha! you are a good designer already! 😊

Cheers

Collapse
 
blazephoenix profile image
Tanmay Naik

Congratulations! I never attempted it because I have the need to do everything as good as I can make it. And it just didn't feel like a good idea to push myself like that, considering I would have to abandon paid projects to focus on it, which is just not feasible at this point. Might try the 30 day variant after reading your article though!

Collapse
 
florinpop17 profile image
Florin Pop

You know... I am a perfectionist too sometimes, but I try to drop it as it's not doing very good for the long term.

Instead of trying to make it perfect on the first try, why not just do it, and then improve as you go. At the end of the day "perfect" doesn't exist.

Try the 30 days variant or maybe even the 7 days one. 😃
Have fun!

Collapse
 
arik14 profile image
Faisal Arisandi

100 Projects in 100 Days?
Each project take only 1-1.5 hours a day?

Okay, I'm done.
I think I wanna cry 😭

How productive you are?
👏🏻

While in the different of side of this universe, there was me who can even execute anything.

I was always overthinking over everything.
😅

I always find idea which I thought awesome.
And it turns out, I couldn't even start it.

I learn web from html, css, JS all the way to NodeJS, MongoDB and Postgresql. (Even start thinking to learn Go, and Julia (as I was fascinated with math)).
But it turns out, I am perhaps the prove of "Jack of trade, Master of none."

Nothing I could start, other than just finishing project in my work.
I hate it.
Why I can't start my own project.

Thinking about the layout itself is easy to become overwhelm with it. Not even the JS methods, API, whatever.

All I can do is just thinking of it, create the illusion of done, all in my mind only. Haha.

Procrastination at its finest.
😭

I wish I could get motivation by reading your article.
🙏🏻

The minimum of 1 project done in my entire lifetime.
😁😂

Collapse
 
florinpop17 profile image
Florin Pop • Edited

There is this "overthinking" barrier that you must brake.

Just do it. Don't overthink it. Do it as simple as possible, create the MVP and then you can later add more functionalities.

I wish you the best!

~ Sent from another galaxy 👽

Collapse
 
mohammedasker profile image
Mohammed Asker

Congrats on finishing 100 days of project, Florin! It was fun following your progress and finally learned about your secret of coming up with new ideas.

If you didn't know already, Buffer can do that exactly for you. Even the free version is enough for you as you can post to three social media at the same time.

Collapse
 
florinpop17 profile image
Florin Pop

Interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Collapse
 
allanjeremy profile image
Allan N Jeremy

Congrats!

That's some discipline you've got there. Are there any days where something unexpected happened? If so, how did you work around it?

I don’t know. Haven’t failed a challenge yet. 😆

Humble flex 😏

Collapse
 
florinpop17 profile image
Florin Pop

Thank you Allan!

I had 2 days that I was forced to code on my phone as I was away from home! 😆
Other than that... it was alright!

Humble flex 😂

Collapse
 
zenulabidin profile image
Ali Sherief

Wow, completing 100 projects in 100 days is like running a marathon 🏃🏃. A question though: How did you "pay" $25 every time you were late?

Collapse
 
florinpop17 profile image
Florin Pop

I was never late so I didn’t have to pay 😜

Collapse
 
liana profile image
Liana Felt (she/her)

Wow

Collapse
 
emma profile image
Emma Goto 🍙

I took a look at your projects - that's insane! How many hours a day do you think you spent on each one?

Collapse
 
florinpop17 profile image
Florin Pop

As I mentioned in the article...

I would say that it took a average of 1-1.5h to build a project.

Collapse
 
emma profile image
Emma Goto 🍙

Oops, totally missed that section 😅

Collapse
 
freedomxam profile image
freedomxam

Good bro!

Collapse
 
vintharas profile image
Jaime González García

Amazing job!! 💪👏😁👍

Collapse
 
kuzzzzz profile image
kuzzzzz

Bro you are awesome, this is awesome it's insanely awesome, I'm screaming right now 👍👍👍👍 man this is a big source of motivation thanks for sharing

Collapse
 
florinpop17 profile image
Florin Pop

Haha, don't scream, you might scare someone 😂

I'm glad it motivates you!

Collapse
 
creator674 profile image
Yaroslav Ryzhkov

OMG... That is amazing!! Waiting for your 31 videos on YT🍃.

Collapse
 
florinpop17 profile image
Florin Pop

Is coming in January 🔥

Make sure you subscribe 😃

Collapse
 
thapakazi profile image
Milan Thapa

you are inspiring...

Cheers!!

Collapse
 
florinpop17 profile image
Florin Pop

Cheers! 😃