There are an endless amount of skills to learn, but how do we know which is the one (or many)? I believe the answer lies in facing problems. While facing a problem, it helps us figure out what skills we need to fill the gaps that it reveals.

This gives us a sense of purpose and context. Without that, we can spend a lot of time and effort trying to pick up a skill for it’s own sake, only to eventually forget it because we didn’t have a chance to use it.

For software developers, it can be tempting to learn a difficult yet trendy programming language such as Rust. However, I’d argue that if it’s picked up without addressing a problem and there isn’t a clear reason to use it, we might forget how to apply it and ultimately wasting our time.

But what do problems look like? While I do not have an answer to this as it is highly subjective, I can at least share what problems I faced to provide a better understanding.

While writing, I’ve encountered a few problems:

1. My inability to focus while building a project or writing.
   • When I feel bored with work, I will reach out to my phone or start browsing internet for videos to fill the boredom, causing me to be distracted. This is fatal because, if I cannot focus no meaningful work will be done.
2. Not satisfied with the writing tools such as Google Docs and Obsidian.
   • Using Google Docs prevented me from accessing my writings anytime I wanted as it’s reliant on a internet connection.
   • Using Obsidian allowed me to access my writings while being offline, but it’s more of a note-taking app rather than a writing app.
3. Lacking of features I wanted such as a built in time tracker, and topic based draft comparison
   • Time tracking allows me to see how long have I spent typing, which parts of the day am I most active, how long it took me to finish a draft and etc
   • Comparing drafts side by side allows me compare the contents and pick out the parts that I like from either draft which contributes to a new draft.

Additionally, I’ve always been curious how to create a desktop application like Obsidian. So, with my curiosity and problems in mind I began development.

It took roughly 17 days to build an initial version of the application, and it works! I’m writing this article through said application. More importantly, I’ve managed to conquer distractions and learnt how to focus. Without it, I doubt that the application would’ve seen the light of day

Hopefully, by reflecting on my own experience readers can understand where I’m coming from. Don’t try to learn a skill for the sake of it, find or create a problem to aid in our skill acquisition. I’d not have overcome the inability to focus if it was a random endeavour out of the blue.