Nothing Worked And I Tried Everything, Until…

This post is going to be a bit different from the ones I usually write on Medium. However, after a year or so of writing here, I have noticed something. It is something I did not intend to do, but it happened naturally, and I have benefited from it.

As a DevOps engineer, the nature of my job involves tasks like setting up infrastructure, configuring pipelines, dockerizing apps, and other daily responsibilities. We usually document our processes in detail so that others can understand the steps we took to achieve our goals.

Two years ago, while doing this (documenting things), I had a thought after finishing a documentation:

Why not share this on Medium?

Since medium was always my go-to place for any questions I had. So, I posted it (though I have since deleted that post because it was poorly written). At the time, I had not planned to start writing. However, just a few days later, I began receiving followers and claps. That’s when I thought

Hey, why not continue?

So, after a long time from my first post, I started writing!

Today, however, I don’t want to talk about how and why I started writing. Instead, I would want to talk about the benefits I have gained from this experience.

Being A DevOps Is Hard And Stressful

This is not specifically for DevOps engineers, but for anyone in technology.

It is tough for everyone, and I know it is stressful too. This mainly comes from the daily tasks they deal with and the fact that they need to constantly learn. You should never stop learning, or you will be left behind.

Like everyone, I also started to learn. But with all the distractions from social media and everything else around, it was really hard to focus and keep learning. I was so distracted, so I began looking for ways to help me learn better.

This was funny to me, since I found myself reading a book called, LEARN HOW TO LEARN!

After a while, I discovered several methods that could help me concentrate and learn better. These were strategies I tried, but sadly, none of them worked for me.

Using Scientific Methods To Learn

One of the strategies I tried was the Pomodoro Timer.

Pomodoro timer is a timer you set for yourself and it goes like this:

You set a timer for 25 minutes learning, no distractions, you focus only on learning! Then when the timer goes off after 25 minutes, you take a 5 minute break!

Stretch, relax, do whatever you want, then after 5 minutes, you go back to learning again (this is your 1 pomodoro).

After 4 pomodoros, you take a longer break, 15 to 30 minutes.

That worked fine for about two days. But then, every time I took a 5 minute break, I would forget it was just a 5 minute break. Those short 5 minute breaks turned into 30 minutes to an hour breaks! After a week or so of this, I just gave up.

Then I turned to another method, called Spaced Repetition.

This method is using flashcards to test yourself, trying to recall the answers on the cards. But after a while, I memorized all the cards. The thought of creating, printing, and cutting new ones felt like too much of a hassle. In other words, it took a lot of effort, and the results were not that satisfying.

So I quit that one too!

Then, I tried many other methods. I gave The Feynman Technique a shot, experimented with The Eisenhower Matrix, and even attempted to eliminate all distractions around me, I even tried rewarding myself, among other strategies, but none of them worked. In a way, this left me feeling somewhat depressed.

Writing!

I started writing instead, using the hours I had set aside for learning. It went well for a while since I was writing about things I already knew. But soon, I realized I needed to go deeper and write about topics I was not familiar with myself.

I will admit, that was hard too! Coming up with ideas for articles or posts became a challenge as I ran out of topics. So, I turned to the internet for research. I looked for tutorials and lessons on DevOps and found a ton of them. There are so many topics in the DevOps field, just as there are in other areas of technology.

But that research helped, and it helped in more than one way! For every topic I wanted to write about, I had to do thorough research. I have always lived by a quote from the brilliant mind of Einstein:

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

So, to write a good article (or maybe just an average one), I really needed to understand the material through proper research.

The Benefits

I did not forget that part about needing to learn and keep learning, so as not to be left behind.

I kept trying, over and over. Then, just a few days ago, while learning something new, I noticed I was familiar with concepts I had never formally learned or used in any job. This surprised me. I realized it was because of all the research I did for writing articles. Only then did it hit me:

I had learned a lot. And I mean a lot!

I was really happy to discover a method that actually worked for me. At the same time, without even realizing it, I was getting more benefits. I was learning new things, things that were important for my career.

I won’t go as far as to say that none of the methods I tried will work for you, or that writing will work for everyone. But, in none of the methods I read about was it mentioned to try writing as a way to learn new things.