Learning something new is always a task and challenge. Maybe you are studying for a certification. Or maybe just want to learn a new technology or concept. That most daunting task of learning is following through with it and complete it. It is easy to get side tracked and halted or maybe just complete stop and forget about it. One of the best things you can do to keep forward progress is to make a plan. Lay it out and organize it. It’s like a recipe. Make this first, then this second, then put it all together. I’ll go over some things I do for my plan.
The first thing I do is plan time. Set aside time for learning/studying/labing. We all have lives and things to do like laundry, dishes, mowing the lawn, etc. Many have kids with events and sports to go to. This can be a hard thing to do. For me I choose to wake up early to give myself an hour of study/lab time before breakfast (or maybe during breakfast). Maybe you choose the first hour after dinner or an hour after the kids go to bed. Being a NHL fan all the games are in the evenings so after making dinner and doing dishes it’s game time which is why I choose the wake up early method. Maybe you don’t watch much TV so evening may be better. But choose a time and map it out daily.
Leverage weekends! Unless you work on weekends or have migrations/cut overs etc there is more time in the day. In the summer it’s great to just sit on the back deck enjoying the sunshine and warmth and study/learn. For me I get great quiet time lounging around in the summer and since I’m in Michigan in the winter well, you just snow blow the driveway and then relax from the work so it’s good quiet time.
Another thing is “wait/bonus time”. Maybe you have a doctors appoint and are sitting in the waiting room. Or maybe getting an oil change/maintenance at a car shop or dealer. Some have kids at sporting practice. This is a great time to read blogs about your study subject or documentation. Short clips around the topic are great.
A lot of us eat lunch at our desks or at a company food court. Maybe you go out to a fast food restaurant or quick food restaurant to fill your hour lunch break. This is also a great time for blogs or technology documentation reading.
The next thing I do is pick my material. We all learn differently so this is an important decision. For me I usually pick a book, a video course, and a way to lab. You may use all of these or maybe you are just a reader. The important thing is to gather the material you need to study the topic. This is a pivotal point to laying out your plan.
From here I break things into chunks. If studying for a certification this is easy as it usually has a published blueprint for the exam. Even within that blueprint you can break it down even further. Maybe it’s a video course that has modules already broken down for you. Or if it’s a book it can be broken into chapters. You can further break these down into topics within a chapter or module. I like to take these chunks and make a Microsoft OneNote notebook with sections and pages for each topic I break down. I lay the sections and pages out based on my breakdown and leave them empty. As I study I take notes and fill in the pages. This acts like a check list as I proceed down the breakdown I made. If there are notes in it, I attempted/completed it. You might prefer a task board or excel sheet for this. Do whatever works for you.
You can do the same thing with just studying a technology/product. Most products have features that you are going to study. You can break your study plan up into the individual features. For example a firewall you might break it down into firewall rules, connectivity options, protocols, NAT options, and now-a-days some SD-WAN options. You can break your studying up into chunks.
Finally set a goal. This might be a successful deployment (I did this back in the day with a Gigamon deployment which was a device/company I never deployed before). Or if it’s a certification give your self a goal date to take the exam. Pass or not setting that goal date gives you a driving point to keep you motivated to make sure you stay on your study schedule. If you are like me and tend to get distracted another possible motivator is to actually pre-book the exam. This means you already dropped the cash and have to do your work. Or set a deployment date if you are just learning something for work and no exam. Motivate yourself!
For me it’s a chapter/module/chapter/feature a day if possible for whatever I’m studying. Whether certification or just learning a new technology. No, it’s not always possible but it’s a goal to push for.
The short story is set yourself up for success. We all have busy days and life’s and adding in studying something new is tough to fit in our daily schedule. Below is a short list of this post.
Schedule and set aside a time for study
Pick your study materials
Break down your focus (certification or technology) into chunks
Create a checklist (OneNote sections and pages, excel spreadsheet, etc) to cross off
Set a target (date for exam, date for deployment, etc)