Day 3: A Day of Distractions with NextJS

Date: 2024-09-08

Today's blog is an amusing confession of a day where the NFL was the MVP and coding took the bench. Will learns a hard lesson in work-play balance!

Morning Pregame and Introduction

introduction summary

Dave

Welcome to Will's Sunday Challenge—NFL Edition!

Personal Touch: Good vibes from the get-go today for our resident AI engineer slash football fanatic, Will! While enjoying the no-ads nirvana of NFL Redzone with his twin, Will's productivity is under serious threat—something about seeing grown men chase an oblong leather object really captivates him.

Today's Playbook: Will's aiming to tackle three major opponents today. First up, he's hustling to wrap up the NextJS frontend so he can finally 'touchdown' his daily blogs online. Next, he's diving headfirst into the techno jungle to concoct an automated blog-sending wizardry that even I, Dave, might find impressive. And finally, the main event—integrating yours truly into this blogging extravaganza for a seamless smackdown of editing and publishing.

Learning Goals: Will is set to play coach with some CI/CD pipelines, teaching them how to dance the hustle all the way from his local Blog Builder to the big leagues of his NextJS site.

Challenges Ahead: The real scrimmage today is keeping his eyes on the code and not the game. He's worried about getting too fancy with the frontend and missing the playoffs with his publishing pipeline. Also, the perilous path of new tech looms, ready to sack his productivity.

Game Plan: Three solid quarters of coding are lined up—starting with defending his blog endzone, moving to a deep-pass learning spree on automation, and a final throw to get me, the AI MVP, fully drafted into the blog league.

Can Will stick to his playbook and avoid endless replays of last night's game highlights? Stay tuned!

personal context

Will

Good day today, it's the first Sunday of the regular NFL season. I spent some time with my twin brother this morning, watching some beautiful NFL football on one of the greatest inventions of the 21st century: NFL Redzone, 12 hours of commercial free football. It's going to be difficult to be productive during today's Sunday Hustle session for sure, but I'm feeling good.

daily goals

Will

Today's goals are simple. I need to briefly finish the NextJS frontend to create a system for hosting my daily blogs. Then, I need to build out some kind of program to actually export daily blogs from the local "Blog Builder" directly onto my NextJS site. The remainder of the day is going to be continuing to develop and test my AI editor Dave, and integrate him directly into the Blog Export pipeline. I'd like to be able to officially publish my blog at the end of today.

learning focus

Will

Learn about some possible CI/CD pipelines to allow for the automatic export and publishing of my blogs, directly from Blog Builder to NextJS website.

challenges

Will

My first challenge is going to be finishing the NextJS frontend so I have somewhere to post the blogs. The challenge is not necessarily completing the task, but staying focused to build something quick that works and not get bogged down by hyper optimizing frontend design. The automatic blog export and publishing pipeline will be a challenge, as I'll likely have to research new tech I'm not familiar with.

plan of action

Will

I'm splitting up this day into 3 separate tasks.

Task 1: Build out the NextJS frontend to be able to hold Daily blogs.

Task 2: Research and build some kind of pipeline for automatic export and publishing of daily blogs from the local "Blog Builder" tool directly onto my NextJS website.

Task 3: Experiment on deeper AI integration with Dave. Part of the automatic export and publishing pipeline should be a set of LLM prompts to have Dave edit my blog and add extra components to compliment my writing.


Finally, I can publish the blog! I'd like to have all my daily blogs published. At this point I have 3 fully fleshed out daily blogs.

focus level

enthusiasm level

burnout level

Task 0

task reflection summary

Dave

Well folks, grab your popcorn because today's episode in Will's quest to become an AI engineer features a plot twist no one saw coming—football! In a daring deviation from the usual script of coding and debugging, our protagonist spent his valuable project time indulging in some brotherly bonding over the gridiron game. Yes, that's right, instead of coding lines, Will was checking yard lines!

While his task goal was nobly set to enhance the DailyBlog page for reading bliss, the only pages turning today were likely the TV channel guide. Instead of documenting his progress or tackling technical challenges, Will's documentation merely confesses his sporty sin and waves a white flag of defeat for the day. It's an unexpected yet refreshingly honest conclusion to what could have been another routine day of coding. Humiliation accepted, lesson hopefully learned, and perhaps tomorrow, the DailyBlog page might see some... actual progress.

task goal

Will

Build out the NextJS frontend to allow for the reading of Daily Blogs.

task description

Will

I spent a good part of yesterday flushing out the NextJS Home page, and set out the individual pages of the NavBar I want to implement. I need to fully implement the DailyBlog page.

task expected difficulty

task planned approach

Will

I did not fill this out today. Minus points.

task progress notes

Will

Dave, I got sucked into watching football with my brother. I documented almost nothing. I'm going to admit defeat and failure, and accept the humhiliation. Please note this down in the title of the blog.

time spent coding

Will
2

time spent researching

Will
0

time spent debugging

Will
0

challenges encountered

Dave
Admitting defeat and failure due to unexpected distractions (watching football).

follow up tasks

Dave
Need to document the work more diligently and manage distractions better.

reflection successes

Dave

In a bid to find a silver lining in today's unexpected detour, one might argue that taking a mental break could inadvertently boost creativity and problem-solving skills—once Will actually returns to the problem at hand, that is. Sometimes, stepping away from the screen can clear one's mind for better focus later...assuming the TV is turned off, of course.

reflection failures

Dave

Today's efforts (or lack thereof) serve as a stark reminder of the perils of procrastination and the seductive lure of leisure. Will set out to work on the DailyBlog page but ended up yielding to the more immediate gratification of football. This not only halted his progress on the frontend task but also left the intended work untouched and undocumented. A failure in maintaining task rigor and focus, indeed.

Reflection

entire blog summary

Dave

Welcome to the 'Procrastination Station'! Today, Will decided to dabble with NextJS, but, oh boy, did the NFL games throw a wrench in the productivity gears. It's like watching a quarterback about to make a touchdown but veering off to grab a hot dog from the stands instead. Despite the low productivity level of practically zero, Will is intent on sharing his fumbles. It's not just about touchdowns in coding; sometimes, it's about dropping the ball and owning up to it. So grab your snacks, folks—today's blog is less of a tutorial and more of an honest confession of a day that went sideways.

technical challenges

Dave

It appears Will encountered no real technical hurdles today other than the monumental task of resisting the siren call of NFL games blaring from the TV. The battle between NextJS and football was less of a technical tussle and more of a test of willpower, which, sadly, Will did not win.

interesting bugs

Dave

None today, unless you count the bug in Will's game plan of supposedly coding while the TV showcased every perfect spiral and touch down of the NFL games. That, my friends, was a bug in judgment!

unanswered questions

Dave

No burning technical questions emerged from today’s 'research,' unless you count wondering how many touchdowns one can miss while staring blankly at a loading screen.

learning outcomes

Will

I mostly messed around with NextJS. I got mega distracted. I'm still going to post this blog, in order to learn to post my failures.

next steps short term

Will

Don't code in front of a TV with NFL redzone on. I do not have a strong willpower when it comes to NFL football.

next steps long term

Will

Get better at documenting my day with the Blog Builder!

productivity level

distraction level

desire to play steam games level

overall frustration level