Managing Your Mental Stack

It’s information overload these days – how can a technology professional manage to keep up with everything that is new and exciting in the world of DevOps? What are the best methods for absorbing content and developing skills? Just how useful are podcasts, anyway?

In this talk (inspired by an episode of my Arrested DevOps podcast) I share strategies for consuming information about techniques, concepts, and stories about DevOps. I include practical methods for acquiring information, managing intake of blogs, articles, and studies, and absorbing and synthesizing this information in an applicable way.

Transcript

1. MANAGING YOUR MENTAL STACK
2. WHOAMI @mattstratton
3. INFORMATION OVERLOAD
5. PODCASTS
6. Listening to podcasts is a terribly inefficient way of transferring actual information. It's a bit like asking Grandpa Simpson for directions. It takes 45 minutes, consists mostly of historical inaccuracies and long rants about the messed up state of the world today, and at the end you're not really sure you aren't more lost than when you started. But it sure is entertaining. -- John Smyth, the "Ron Swanson of DevOps"
7. PODCAST PRO TIP LISTEN AT 2X SPEED
8. ABSORB IDEAS FIRST UNDERSTAND THEM LATER
9. DECIDE WHAT IS WORTH LEARNING
10. AVOID THE ECHO CHAMBER
11. INVESTIGATE
12. LEARN
13. DO
14. TEACH
15. HOWTO
16. INGEST ARTICLES IN "SKIM MODE" ▸ Twitter ▸ Fliboard ▸ RSS feeds
17. SHIP THEM INTO TEMPORARY STORAGE ▸ Pocket ▸ Instapaper ▸ Plain old bookmarks
18. READ THEM LATER
19. WHAT ARE YOUR TIPS?
20. RESOURCES ▸ Flipboard - http://flipboard.com/ ▸ Pocket http://getpocket.com/ ▸ Pomodoro Technique http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique ▸ VoodooPad https://plausible.coop/voodoopad/ ▸ Arrested DevOps: Managing Your Mental Stack http://www.arresteddevops.com/managing-your-mental-stack/