This really hit home with me. For a while now, whenever I've been coding, I've been more focused on learning new things instead of creating things. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, I had project for a CS course that I didn't end up doing so well on, and I attribute that partly to me not having built something in a long time.
I'd like to change that this year. When he posed the question "What was the last thing you built that gave you that Builder's High?", I sure as hell couldn't remember much that I've built recently that gave me that feeling.
I like to separate my time in 3 parts:
loop:
1/3 : Reading/researching/learning new concepts.
1/3 : Hands-on experiment with what I learned.
1/3 : Actual work, were I might apply what I've learnt
in the last 2 phases.
The new knowledge gathered improves my throughput in the 3rd phase, making up for the 'lost time' doing research. That's of course a rough estimate and I don't have any numbers to back that up, aside from my own biased experience living it.
I find it's a good balance and having it formally listed out reminds me to actively switch from a phase to another every few weeks. I end up always applying newly learnt stuff, which is rewarding and motivating.
I'd like to change that this year. When he posed the question "What was the last thing you built that gave you that Builder's High?", I sure as hell couldn't remember much that I've built recently that gave me that feeling.