How to 'Just Start Moving'

Although we are in the era of reskilling, I was someone who found it hard to get started, wondering where to even begin.
No! It's not in the past tense; it's still the case today!

However, I have found that by adopting the mindset of 'I can move if I start with the smallest unit,' I have become a little more agile in starting anything.

I chose programming skills as my reskilling target, but at first, I felt like the programs in the world were almost like magic, wondering how they actually worked.
There are scenes in certain anime and manga where characters instantly type out code to solve problems, and I used to admire that!
(I'll keep this part in the past tense, haha)

While I am using programming as an example here, I apply this way of thinking to muscle training and other habits as well.

Trying it out with Excel VBA

It started from the question of what I should use to run a program and how.
When looking at reference books, it is often necessary to install various things and set up an environment.
I wanted to just type and run something myself as soon as possible, so I thought VBA would be good and started from the following.

Actually, I thought about starting with the popular Python, but since I was starting from the point of 'what is programming anyway?', looking back, I personally feel that choosing VBA to start was the right answer.

Make the task the smallest possible one

Task: Create an automatic addition tool

I will make a program that adds two numbers entered into Excel cells and displays the answer in a message box.

If you press a button, something moves automatically.
Just thismade me excited!
Some might say that you or an AI could make this in an instant, but since I am using it myself when returning to the mindset of minimizing tasks, I will record it here.

By the way, you can learn how to make a button from the following.

Try to understand the meaning of each piece of code

At first, you don't even know what or how to write, so I think you should just ask an AI.

Sub ボタン1_Click()
   
    Dim num1 As Long
    Dim num2 As Long
    Dim sum As Long
    
   
    num1 = Range("A1").Value
    num2 = Range("B1").Value
    
  
    sum = num1 + num2
    
   
    MsgBox "合計は " & sum & " です！"
End Sub

If you type the above, you can create something that moves like in the capture earlier.

The main point is from here on.
(But after doing the above, I took a break, haha)

What is 'Dim num1 As Long'?
→ What is 'Dim'?
→ What is 'Long'?
I minimized the '?'s like this.

If anything, I even started by researching and understanding what
Sub Button1_Click()
End Sub
meant, which was displayed by default.

When I did that,

Dim: Declaring a variable (creating a container)
Long: A type (enabling it to hold integers)

and so on—just from this much, I was able to gain new knowledge.

A very, very important first step in reskilling!

I will keep going until interest starts to emerge like a chain reaction from here.
Just keep doing it in the smallest units possible.
A series of these = habit,
is what I believe.

By the way, I also wondered if this wouldn't be applicable to other languages besides VBA... but as a result, I believe the common denominator of programming lies in assembling instructions in the smallest units. I think the differences are just in the characters used for writing, and for those differences, you can just ask AI.

However, I also believe that thinking about how to assemble those parts is a necessary skill when verifying the authenticity of something, even if it was created by AI.

Today was a post about an example of a minimal-unit start that I return to whenever I think, "I'm going to start something!"

Thank you for reading!