BenP (00:03.72)
Hi folks and welcome to the Tech World Human Skills Podcast. Now, today we're talking about something that we all have to do in the tech world, learn. And learn quickly, you know, tech is moving so fast. And we all need to keep up. So our guest today is a technical advocate at VMware Tanzu and is constantly having to learn.
new stuff fast and she also came to tech later in her career so it's had to move from relative newbie to expert pretty darn quick so to share with us how she does it please welcome to the podcast Whitney Lee Whitney it's lovely to have you with us
Whitney Lee (00:49.206)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so, so happy to be here.
BenP (00:55.368)
Well, it's great to have you, and I wonder for all those people that have not met you before, could you tell us, what is it you do? Could you introduce yourself to us?
Whitney Lee (01:04.782)
This is the part at the top of an episode where I brag a lot about myself to help establish credibility and trust, right? Ha ha ha. It feels a little weird. I'm starting to get used to it, but here we go. So I speak at conferences and I've done earned keynotes too, earned keynotes for KubeCon.
BenP (01:12.4)
That's right!
BenP (01:19.442)
Hahahaha
Whitney Lee (01:29.09)
I've done a keynote for Platform Engineering Day, which is a co-located event. I've done keynotes for VMware Tanzu, and I do a ton of community keynotes. I do regular talks too. Really, I just have fun. And then I also host shows. So I host three different streaming shows. I'm a CNCF ambassador. CNCF stands for Cloud Native Computing Foundation. And I'm one of the hosts of Cloud Native Live.
And then I also host my own show called Enlightening. Those of you who can see a video, I have the light board behind me. But for that show, I have an expert come on. I'll know nothing about their technology, usually a CNCF tool, and they have to teach it to me from scratch. And I write down notes on my board as I learn. So we have long form conversations. And then the third and final show, the most popular show I host is called You Choose.
And that one is a choose your own adventure style journey through the CNCF landscape, where we take a system design choice in Kubernetes, we gather all the relevant CNCF tech, and for each technology we have a guest on who is maybe a maintainer of that tech or a super user. And that gets only five minutes to present about their technology.
And then we'll let each guest present, we'll have a question answer session and then we'll put it to a vote and the community decides which technology we build into our ongoing demo. When I say we, my cohost for that one is Victor Farsic. How about, did I do it? Did I establish some trust? Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.
BenP (03:09.029)
Yes, trust, credibility, gravitas, all of that sort of stuff has been established. Very good. Now, I think it's worth saying, so we met, we both ended up on the same speaking bill, a user group, wasn't it? I think it was a DevOps user group in the UK and that was sort of where we crossed paths.
Whitney Lee (03:28.706)
That's correct.
BenP (03:32.764)
when you were speaking before, and I thought this was really interesting, so I thought it was a great place to start, because we're gonna be talking about learning and that kind of stuff, but the great place to start was, you've not had, let's say, a traditional, inverted commas, entrance to the tech world. The path that you took to working in tech is a bit different, so I wonder, could you sort of share your career history a little bit, and tell us how you've got to where you are today?
Whitney Lee (03:40.45)
Uh huh.
Whitney Lee (03:59.71)
it's possible to be less traditional than I am. First of all, I'm 45 now and I was 40 years old when I changed careers into tech. So I wrote my first line of code. Well, let's begin at the beginning. In my life, I've been a fine artist. I've been a wedding photographer. I've been a touring musician. I've also driven for Lyft and I've been a server at a restaurant. And then my son
When he was in college for computer science, he was like, mom, you would really like this. You should try coding, mom, do it. So I wrote my first line of code in 2019. I did a bootcamp. So I did hundreds of hours of learning to prepare for that bootcamp. I did the bootcamp, which was 11 hour days, six days a week for three months. I graduated that and I had a job as a cloud developer in November of 2019 in the same year.
And here I was, a whole new Whitney.
BenP (05:02.536)
Really? So now, fully tech, I love music, I'm a bit of a musician, amateur musician, what sort of music did you do? I always love to talk about that. We could do the podcast on that instead.
Whitney Lee (05:14.078)
My brother, my brother is the professional musician on the family. I'll admit that my role is a bit of nepotism or maybe that he knows I'm a nice person to share a tour van with. But I would sing my brother's musical project is called Mutual Benefit. It's absolutely beautiful with violins and harmonies. It's folky. And so I would sing, I would play
BenP (05:42.624)
Really? Wow. 24-year-old. So fast-forwarding now to you're 40 years old and changing career, you know, having a massive change in career. What was that like going from knowing nothing to what is, yeah, a pretty complicated, pretty fast-paced industry with lots of smart people? I imagine that was pretty overwhelming.
Whitney Lee (05:44.082)
Yeah.
Whitney Lee (05:51.283)
Uh huh.
Whitney Lee (05:57.239)
Yeah.
Whitney Lee (06:08.074)
Uh, overwhelming is probably an understatement. I had, at first, I'm not gonna lie, I felt huge imposter syndrome and huge, like, who am I? Like, do I even, how, I'm around, like, people who are my age, who I see in tech around me, they know so, so much. Like, how am I ever going to be able to have a conversation with them, let alone have my own ideas and be able to grow and learn and grow in this role?
BenP (06:12.885)
I'm sorry.
Whitney Lee (06:38.206)
It was intimidating. But did I did I answer the question? It was scary AF.
BenP (06:44.124)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BenP (06:50.417)
So, and that's, yeah, and I think this sort of starts to take us, I guess, towards the meat and the potatoes of what we wanna talk about today, which is, you know, you suddenly find yourself in a situation where you had to learn a lot, and you had to learn a lot quick.
Whitney Lee (06:59.967)
Uh huh.
Whitney Lee (07:04.355)
Mm-hmm.
BenP (07:07.608)
and certainly anybody that's career changing, anybody that's early in career or anybody that's been working in tech for years and suddenly is now working with a new technology because it's just arrived on the scene, you know, has to learn stuff pretty quickly. So I guess that's a great place for us to start to then think about. So
Whitney Lee (07:08.503)
Yep.
Whitney Lee (07:20.915)
Oh, huh.
BenP (07:28.072)
How did you go about learning so much so quickly to get to such a great position? You know effectively already five years into your tech career and yet you've got a great Rob You know great role doing all these keynotes and all and all of this sort of stuff. So how did you go about? Learning all of that stuff so quickly
Whitney Lee (07:48.358)
So, so my brother, not the musician brother, I have another brother, he taught himself Japanese. And he, and I'm so impressed, I am so impressed by him still. And he told me how he did it, and he actually got me a book called Fluent Forever. And this book is about how to learn a language. It's not even about a particular language. It's like, if you wanna learn any other language, use these tools. And so,
I actually kind of started to teach myself Spanish before I got into my tech journey. And then I quickly abandoned the Spanish because I had enough on my plate learning tech. And so I actually abandoned it altogether, like those learning techniques altogether for a while I was in boot camp because they had my days 100% scheduled for me. But then later when the dust settled,
BenP (08:28.242)
I'm out.
Whitney Lee (08:44.486)
and I looked up and I was at IBM and I had the job title cloud developer and I barely knew what was happening around me. I remembered this book and these learning techniques. So I took some of the learning techniques from Fluent Forever, one in particular called Anki, and I used those techniques to teach myself cloud technology or any sort of tech thing that I came across.
BenP (08:52.32)
Hehehehe
Whitney Lee (09:14.49)
To give you some context, when... So I went to a full stack web development bootcamp, and then I got a job as a cloud developer. I learned, I first heard the word Kubernetes when I was prepping for my job interview. But it's not something that they could make me demonstrate knowledge on in a remote coding interview because it's a distributed thing. I don't know that technology is like Minikube and stuff.
stuff we're around yet to run a local cluster. But anyway, so I had, I did like, I had written one Docker file as part of my education and I was, and I was able to talk about Kubernetes, but I didn't really know what was going on. And one thing I didn't understand when I first got there, one basic thing was when you talk about different Kubernetes nodes or different computers, people will say node, box, server.
VM, they'll use all these words that just mean computer. Why can't people just say it's a bunch of computers? But even that much, that's the basic level. I didn't understand what was going on. I tried to take a course about learning Kubernetes and I didn't understand basic Linux commands like grep. And so I had to go backwards and learn Linux command, learn some Linux, and then I could move forward in the Kubernetes. So I was so, so clueless. I was...
BenP (10:16.844)
I'm sorry.
Whitney Lee (10:39.17)
Desperate to do well and I had taken out a big loan and I and I needed this to work And um, and I remembered Anki in particular so I'll let you ask me what Anki is. So this isn't terribly one-sided
BenP (10:46.888)
Oh
BenP (10:57.412)
So what is Anki? And how do you spell it? Because like, you know, in my word, in my mind, I'm transported to a scene from Toy Story and like one of the toys is called Anki or something, spelled O-N-K-Y and is like got like one leg and looks a bit... that's where my imagination goes when you when you say the word Anki but I suspect that's not a true a truism of what it's all about. So can you tell me about Anki?
Whitney Lee (11:03.203)
Ha ha ha!
Whitney Lee (11:09.364)
Uh huh.
Whitney Lee (11:24.926)
Yes, Anki is A-N-K-I. I believe it's Japanese, but I honestly don't know that much about that. But it is spaced repetition learning. So there's supercharged flashcards. And the idea is when the best way to learn something, the most, like not just the most efficient, but the best, like it'll go the deepest, is like when you, first of all, when you learn something,
your brain makes a neuropathway, a new neuropathway, like a physical connection happens. And then when you're about to forget it, if you're exposed to it at that time, it helps strengthen the neuropathway. So those times when you're like, ooh, it's on the tip of my tongue, I know what it is, what's that word or whatever, that means like you're really forming that neuropathway right now. And so the idea with Anki,
is that it is going to increase the amount of time in between when you see the same flash card as you get it right. So when you're about to forget it is when you see it again. So for example, if I have a new flash card, which it's important to make them for yourself, don't get someone else's deck, like making the flash card is part of the learning. But when I see a new flash card, if I get it right, I'm gonna see it one minute later. If I get it right again, I'll see it 10 minutes later.
If I get it right again, one day later, then three days later, seven days later, 17 days later, and so on and so forth. And I've been studying Anki every day now for three years. And right now, if I get, there's some cards, if I get them right, I'm gonna see them again in eight years. So it's like, this one's pretty firmly planted in there, but we don't need you to see it again for eight years, and then it'll stay in your brain, yeah.
BenP (13:16.78)
So let's imagine then we've got this new technology. So there's a new technology that comes out and you need to learn some terms. You need to learn what it does and that kind of stuff. So what you'll do is you'll write some, you know, so let's transport you right back to time. You would have written, right, box, also known as server, also known as computer.
Whitney Lee (13:22.629)
Uh huh.
Mm-hmm.
Whitney Lee (13:39.826)
Yeah.
BenP (13:40.996)
and then, you know, this is where all the business happens, you know, or whatever, you know, you'd have written what a server is, or a box, or a VM, and that kind of stuff. So you write your own flash card, and then you then have gone, right, well, I know that I'm studying in an onky style now, so I've got, what, an hour, an hour set where I'm gonna go through these flash cards, and I've got stopwatches going that are gonna get things at the right time, is that right?
Whitney Lee (13:48.478)
Uh-huh.
Whitney Lee (14:02.761)
Mm-hmm.
Whitney Lee (14:07.786)
Well, the flash card does the work. The Anki flash card does the work of telling me when I need to see this one next. So I don't need to worry about that part. All I need to do is whatever cards are due that day, I'm gonna study those cards. And then I'm in charge of what new cards I'm introducing each day. So if I need to learn, like right now my cards, I'm.
BenP (14:23.82)
Okay.
Whitney Lee (14:30.698)
I'm doing a keynote for DevOps Days Austin next week. And so my cards are kind of just around my timing for my keynote too, so that I remember my own visual sequences. So it's not even technical, right, at this moment. But a lot of times, most of the time it is technical. And so that's it. I just, I make the cards and the Fluent Forever book will tell you, and this is true for me, a couple of things. One is...
You learn so much more when, if you just read something, you need to be able, you need to recall it. And for me, I might make cards out of docs. And so it's not like I'm just reading the docs. I'm going through the docs. I'm putting them in my own words. I'm making it into a question that later I'm gonna have to recall the answer to. And then for me, they say the more senses you can engage, the better. And so if you can associate it with a personal memory,
So if someone came on enlightening and taught me about it, I might have a picture of them in there. But I might just have a picture of the logo because I'm a visual person and it helps me to have a picture. And I'm making it sound.
BenP (15:31.276)
Okay, okay.
BenP (15:36.476)
Or you could have something like Kubernetes smells of chocolate, for example. Can we assign smells to different...
Whitney Lee (15:42.326)
Sure. Yeah. I have heard and I don't know where now that if you like burn a candle, that's a certain sense while you're studying for an exam. And then later when you take that exam, you burn the same candle. It helps you recall the information. Yeah.
BenP (15:55.436)
Okay.
BenP (15:59.936)
Really? And so, this is using a piece of software, is it? So you've got some onky software that you're using. And so that is why it takes care, you're saying it takes care of all the timings for you because you've got this software that you use, which is therefore psychic. So do you therefore have to commit to a certain amount of days? You know, like I am gonna do an hour of...
Whitney Lee (16:06.462)
Yes. Yep. Mm-hmm.
Whitney Lee (16:13.834)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Whitney Lee (16:21.002)
Mm-hmm.
BenP (16:22.92)
And you set an hour of on key a day. That sounds a bit weird for me to say, but you're doing like, right, I'm going to do an hour or two hours or three hours a day and then commit to that. And how does that work?
Whitney Lee (16:25.484)
Yeah.
Whitney Lee (16:30.175)
Yep.
Whitney Lee (16:33.814)
So I don't know how long it's gonna take me, but generally an hour is about right. And it's what, so I don't think I'm gonna study for an hour. I kind of think I'm gonna study until the deck's done. And so it might, I might block an hour and do it. And if I still have some left, take care of it before bedtime or something. So whatever comes up. And then they compound on each other. So if I miss days, they'll...
it'll get backed up and there are strategies for how to get out of it when you're backed up but I'm very motivated to stay on top of it because it can be like stressful for me to get behind on my cards and I also am aware of how many I introduce a day so if I know next week I'm going to be really busy at a conference therefore this week I'm not going to give myself any new cards so when I'm studying next week it'll be a minimum amount of cards so I'm kind of planning ahead but
advanced Anki. But it's I'll say about like making your first Anki cards. Do people make the mistake all the time? They're like I want to get to end Anki. I want to learn Kubernetes. I found this Kubernetes Anki deck that I'm going to download and start studying. Do not do that. Make your own. It's so important. The book the fluent forever book says the same thing and that's been true for me. Like you need some sort of personal association with it.
BenP (17:32.102)
Yeah, yeah
BenP (17:49.076)
Yeah. Okay.
BenP (17:59.241)
Yeah, okay.
Whitney Lee (18:01.047)
The other thing I'll say is, don't give yourself essay questions to answer. Don't be like, what is Kubernetes? And try to come up with the eight different value adds that Kubernetes has. That's too much and you won't wanna study. Give yourself more something you can answer with a fill in the blank or just a simple phrase. And if it takes you five different cards, five different fill in the blank cards,
then that's better than one that's way too long to answer. So something you can kind of flip through and doesn't feel like a huge cognitive load. It's fun.
BenP (18:37.116)
And how does it fit? So I'm just sort of thinking like of...
Different ways that different people learn, you know, I guess different learning styles, you know, some people are very Visual learners some people are very hands-on learners So if I thought if I sort of think about tech the way that it really goes into my brain is When I've learned a bit about the theory so I kind of understand the concepts and then I get my hands on it I build it I try something I then think oh, I'll try that it doesn't work I then fix it and I've learned something whilst I'm fixing it and by kind of
Whitney Lee (18:48.2)
Uh huh.
Whitney Lee (18:53.875)
Mm-hmm.
Whitney Lee (18:58.495)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Whitney Lee (19:10.783)
Mm-hmm.
BenP (19:13.09)
doing it, pulling it apart, breaking it, and then having something working at the end, that's really helped me get it in my, how does that sort of fit in with this flash card approach?
Whitney Lee (19:13.452)
Yep.
Whitney Lee (19:25.454)
I think that way is valid and awesome in a way that I used to, but the problem for me is when I only do it that way, I will remember it for a little while, but in a year I can be like, oh, I remember I did that. I can remember I broke it and fixed it, but I don't remember exactly what I did. And so how Anki could maybe supplement that experience is if as you were making things and breaking things, you make yourself just a couple flashcards about like, hey,
BenP (19:43.916)
Okay.
Whitney Lee (19:54.658)
When you broke this and got this error message, what did you do? And then you actually have a really great memory associated with it, and then it sticks with you for longer.
BenP (20:04.928)
Right, okay. And so the same maybe like with, I guess for people that are really visual, and really like the big architectural diagrams to really think, oh, well, that's how that's connecting to that, and that's how that's connecting to that. So would you like insert that visual in the flashcards, or is that something you do and then you... Right, okay, yeah.
Whitney Lee (20:11.733)
Uh huh.
Whitney Lee (20:19.301)
Uh huh.
Whitney Lee (20:22.966)
Oh, 100%. Yes, uh-huh. Oh yeah, all of my flashcards have pictures. I find something. I'll do an enlightening episode where I draw out my board and then I'm gonna go behind the scenes and make Anki cards of everything that an expert just taught me on enlightening and I'll use screenshots of my light board as my visuals for that one. Yeah.
BenP (20:48.852)
Love it. Love it. Now, so what is there a particular platform or anything that you use that you'd recommend to people if they want to get into to try to learn like this?
Whitney Lee (21:01.558)
I use Anki and then Anki, it syncs across your devices. So I have my flashcards on my phone, on my iPad, on my laptop and whenever I study any little bit. So other people, I'll say another thing, besides a platform, like the dedicated study time, I'll say it's important to have distraction-free time.
So when my friends tell me like, you're the worst at returning text messages in a timely message, in a timely way, I wear that as a badge of honor. I was like, that's great because I am in charge of my time and when I'm sharing it with other people and I don't want other people to just be able to burst my bubble of concentration at any moment. So especially when I'm taking the onky knowledge and turning it around into another resource, a talk or a blog post or anything else.
I don't want to be interrupted. So I'm big into the productivity books. So like a combination of like atomic habits and deep work and focus. There's one about focus that's escaping my mind right now. Anyway, I think avoiding distractions is a huge part of also what makes Anki successful.
BenP (22:02.098)
Yeah.
BenP (22:06.055)
Yeah.
Whitney Lee (22:22.514)
or studying or learning a lot quickly, setting yourself up for success.
BenP (22:23.156)
Yeah.
BenP (22:27.697)
Yeah. Yeah, it was fascinating because we were chatting.
I think it was yesterday and we were just thinking, what is it we want to talk about? You know, and sort of all that kind of stuff, all the logistics. And we're like, right, how should we communicate with each other? And I was like, right, well, you know, I use LinkedIn Messenger a bit, you know, we got email a bit and you were like, oh yeah, I can't use LinkedIn for another seven hours or something. And I was like, what? And you were like, because it's barred for you, you know, so you go to some quite extreme
Whitney Lee (22:36.642)
Uh huh.
BenP (23:00.758)
That deep focus is never very... Can you tell us about this? Because I'd never even heard of what you were doing this before, this app or whatever it is that you were using.
Whitney Lee (23:03.12)
Ha ha
Whitney Lee (23:06.53)
So.
Whitney Lee (23:13.086)
So all of these books deep work, I'll think of the focus one and you can link to it. But all of these books say, the whole world is designed to distract you like your attention has literal monetary value and every app has been designed to take it from you. And you cannot stop it on willpower alone, like you'd have to be superhuman. So willpower is not enough. So one thing you can do and should do
is pre-commitment. So you decide, I don't want to be distractible from 8 a.m. to noon. And I cannot do it. I admit I'm human. I cannot do it on willpower alone. So I'm going to use one of these mechanisms. So what I was using to make sure I didn't look at, I didn't look at LinkedIn is I'll have it blocked using an app called Freedom. And that also works on my laptop, on my phone, and it can sync across devices.
BenP (23:54.124)
Hahaha.
Whitney Lee (24:09.826)
So I literally blocked LinkedIn and Twitter because those are my particular Achilles heels. So it's not possible for me to look at them. And then another thing I have done in the past, which I used to, yeah, sorry.
BenP (24:16.02)
Right. Right, add se-
BenP (24:23.496)
No, no, please carry on, carry on. You've done something in the past as well that you've used.
Whitney Lee (24:30.406)
Yeah, so another one, Stolen Focus. That's the name of the book, Stolen Focus. So Stolen Focus is the one that, the book that recommends these two things. So Freedom App, and then the other thing is a thing called K-Safe. K-Safe stands for kitchen, and it was first, it's a physical object that was first designed to keep people from eating like cookies or chips or whatever. So it's a container that you put something into, it has a lid.
and then that lid has a lock and you set an amount of time on the lock. And then it cannot be opened, that container cannot be opened under any circumstances for X amount of time, whatever time you set. And so you can use a KSafe to like lock away your switch or your phone or whatever it is, that device that you can't put down. And for me, I got the KSafe and I used the KSafe and then the KSafe showed me how much I enjoy my own brain.
BenP (25:15.814)
Yeah.
Whitney Lee (25:26.954)
And then I don't really have to use the KSafe so much now because I don't, I don't have, it broke me of the problem in the first place. But I think those two mechanisms are very helpful.
BenP (25:34.536)
Really, right, I love the idea of the K-safe. The idea that I just have with the K-safe though is like if it's on a cookie jar, you know, like the cookie jar won't unlock until, right, okay, six o'clock, and then it's gotta be locked, I don't know, within another 20 minutes. I'd be like, well, can I empty that jar in the window that I've got? I've got a small window. I need to use it as effectively as possible.
Whitney Lee (25:48.074)
Uh-huh.
Hahaha!
BenP (26:03.428)
Love it. So I love the...
Whitney Lee (26:03.856)
That's funny. It doesn't it's not so advanced where you only get a window. Yeah.
BenP (26:08.912)
Yeah, yeah. I love the fact that you're, for me, taking it to the next level. You know, I think...
Early in my career, I went on some of these productivity, read some productivity books. I've read some of the ones that you've talked about. And the first thing I ever did when you got your email program was turn off all notifications, so that you just wanna be in focus mode so that you can just work. And so I probably do that. I turn off notifications and I put it in focus mode, but I don't take it to the next level. So that's an interesting thing for me to reflect on a little bit.
Whitney Lee (26:30.803)
Yep.
BenP (26:45.552)
But also what I find and I think is... Now carry on.
Whitney Lee (26:46.654)
And I said...
Whitney Lee (26:52.214)
only going to repeat that it was really validating to me when these books said you can't do it on willpower alone. You know then it becomes not about me and my personal failings of not being able to resist looking at twitter when i have an extra minute. You know um it's more about a feeling of the world and something that i can take responsibility for but it's not really it's not my fault but i do need a case safe.
BenP (27:17.976)
Yeah, yeah, and because I noticed that and it's interesting you saying that you start to get a little itch in your brain don't you? You know like, I've done some good focus right, I've maybe done about half an hour now or whatever, I've now come out of that thing, you know that little cycle and then a little itch in that brain comes in, I wonder if they've got back to me about that really important thing that I want to talk about you know and you're like and then I can't get rid of the itch and the itch is there and you're like
Whitney Lee (27:27.69)
Uh-huh.
Whitney Lee (27:32.31)
Ha ha ha!
Whitney Lee (27:43.002)
Yep.
BenP (27:45.928)
I'll go on then, I'll just have a little quick look and I'll have a little quick look and then of course they haven't got back to you, you know, and so then you close it off and but yeah.
Whitney Lee (27:54.542)
But it's not that important, yeah.
BenP (27:57.212)
Yeah, yeah, it wasn't that important. It was just, yeah, a little itch.
Whitney Lee (28:01.162)
Uh huh.
BenP (28:02.62)
So I love that the commitment there, you know, say we're talking about this sort of deep focus, but then also that commitment to continuous learning, you know, and saying, right, well, I've got an hour in my day of all the things that I'm going to do. I'm going to commit an hour every day in order to do that focused learning because I need to keep up. I need to learn all of this new stuff. And I'm not sure a lot of people would necessarily put that structure and formality.
Whitney Lee (28:14.155)
Mm-hmm.
Whitney Lee (28:26.382)
Mm-hmm.
BenP (28:33.077)
to support them in that continuous learning.
Whitney Lee (28:38.05)
When I started, it was, I'm not gonna lie, it was just because I was scared that it was all going to go away if I didn't keep up with it. Not just the knowledge, but having a tech job at all, or feeling like I belong in this world. Like it was, what motivated me was fear. But then, and now that it's like a deep habit.
Now I find it soothing and I love to do it and I look forward to studying Anki cards and I love making new ones. Like I know the power firsthand, the power of like, I'm just gonna put this into a card. I don't even totally understand it right now. But by the time I spend the cycles on these cards, I will have a deep, it's gonna come out with a deep understanding that I could talk about in a casual conversation in my very public facing job.
And I have a lot of confidence in the process and a lot of enjoyment in the process now.
BenP (29:35.384)
Yeah, and how do you decide therefore? What's going on in your in your onky cards? How do you?
because you've only got an hour right so let's say we're setting an hour a day or whatever then you've only got an hour and all of these products are coming out you know in parallel and the products you already know are changing on a weekly basis with new features updates that kind of stuff how do you choose and prioritize what's going in your flashcards
Whitney Lee (29:47.059)
Uh-huh.
Whitney Lee (29:53.63)
Uh huh. Yeah.
Whitney Lee (29:58.372)
Hahaha. Yep. Uh huh.
Whitney Lee (30:07.85)
At first it was just following my learning and my curiosity. Like I thought I was going to make flashcards about Kubernetes and I had to take a right turn and make flashcards about Linux, you know? And those still come up, by the way, every once in a while and they're funny. What does the ls-d do? Anyway, and then...
So at first it was that, but now the YouChoose show that I do with Victor, we cover a lot of CNCF projects in a short amount of time. So I started 2024 knowing nothing about Kubernetes security and Kubernetes security projects. And then through Anki and through my shows, I've come out the other side. You know, I won't say an expert, but I could talk about
I understand all the different system design decisions around security and all the different tools available for each one and at least the basic concepts behind everything. And the fact that that's what I'm working on, you choose, is what shaping what I'm choosing to teach myself is what I'm about to talk about in a public facing way next, yeah.
BenP (31:16.192)
Yeah, right, I'm going to need to talk about this in public. I need to know at least a little bit about it. That goes to the top of the flashcards.
Whitney Lee (31:18.084)
Hehehe
Whitney Lee (31:21.675)
Hahaha!
Whitney Lee (31:27.805)
Exactly. Yeah, jargon is huge. Yeah, just understanding the jargon.
BenP (31:30.145)
Oh, brilliant.
BenP (31:35.412)
Well, do you know what? I just looked at the clock and we've been talking for a good amount of time and we're probably heading towards the end of the show, can you believe it? So I wonder if perhaps we can just loop back and summarise a little bit. What would be the key takeaways for everybody that's listening to this from your perspective, Whitney?
Whitney Lee (31:47.016)
Oh.
Whitney Lee (31:59.106)
The key takeaways to learning a lot in a short amount of time, I would say it has to do with daily, undistracted learning. And don't underestimate how much learning a little bit every day really adds up. And then for me, the tool that I use to learn a little bit every day is Anki, which is a spaced repetition learning tool. So that one will show me.
My cards at a longer and longer it's a flash card system and it'll show me cards at a longer and longer Interval apart so that I never forget anything. I learned Hypothetically and I you know with reasonable success. I am human and then and then I'll say that the third thing is like avoiding distraction So we talked about case if we talked about freedom, but part of that too when you're off
when you're willing to be offline for at least part of your day, you're making a choice like I'm willing to be invisible. I don't need to have an opinion about every teeny little tech thing that happens. Like I'd rather be pretty much invisible and then when I am around, I have something meaningful and good to say as opposed to just having whatever comments about any little thing that crosses my mind or my desk.
So that's a choice I've made too.
BenP (33:24.924)
Yeah, yeah, really interesting this topic and...
If I think and reflect on it from my perspective, one of the reasons I worked in the corporate world for a long time, and one of the reasons I left was I felt like I wasn't really learning as much as I wanted to. So I made this jump into a small business world because there was so much to learn that was completely different. And so I feel like I've spent a lot of time learning. But then you start to plateau a little bit, don't you? And you think, right, well, I know enough for these bits and pieces, and there are more things.
Whitney Lee (33:45.986)
Mm-hmm.
BenP (34:02.782)
with what you've done there is you've then built that into a habit and I'm thinking of that is it James Clearbuck or Atomic Habits by whoever that's by I've forgotten who it's by where it's if you do that every day for whatever period of time it is and you've got some structure and you've got some focus
Whitney Lee (34:22.187)
Uh huh.
BenP (34:22.64)
and you just build on that and build on that and build on that. And I think that's probably something I need to think about bringing into my own life a little bit is right, what are those prioritised learning topics that I really need to focus on? And now how do I get a little bit of that every day? And maybe this approach is something I can think about. I've never done anything like this, never used flashcards, never done anything like that in my life. Even for my exams as a kid, never really liked flashcards. It was just not a thing I ever did. But I think I'd love to experiment.
Whitney Lee (34:45.604)
Yeah.
Whitney Lee (34:50.911)
Uh huh.
BenP (34:52.675)
with it and have a little try.
Whitney Lee (34:56.478)
Let me know how it goes for you. I'm so interested to hear. And I'll say something about one thing I remember about Atomic Habits. One thing the author said was actually not to make goals, if I recall correctly, that the goal is the journey itself. Like the goal is the habit, not the thing you think you want to learn. Just just a side note. Exactly. Uh huh. Yep.
BenP (35:00.297)
Yeah.
BenP (35:17.256)
Right, okay, so it's building that journey, not always focusing on the destination, thinking about the journey. Yeah, love it. Well, Whitney, for people that wanna get in touch with you, see more of you, have liked what you've said, where can people in the internet world get hold of you, get in touch with you?
Whitney Lee (35:41.414)
I am, I have a YouTube channel if you want to see my talks or any of the shows I have them pinned there. It's just a hodgepodge of a place, but it's nice. It's a good representation. And on Twitter, I'm Wiggity Whitney, W-I-G-G-I-T-Y Whitney, all one word. And you can find me on LinkedIn too.
BenP (36:06.208)
Brilliant, well I'll pop all of those in the show notes. And as we said, there might not be a quick response because it's all bad for you whilst you're doing your learning.
Whitney Lee (36:11.934)
Yeah. And that's what I was going to say. Maybe within 24 hours I'll say something. We'll see.
BenP (36:26.568)
Well, last thing to say is just, thank you so much for your time. I think it's really inspiring to see such a structured, continued approach to learning in the professional space, which is brilliant. And also awesome to see that as you change career, the approach that you've got and the success that you've had from changing career later in your career. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today.
Whitney Lee (36:54.018)
Thank you for having me. This has been really, really fun. I enjoyed it.
BenP (36:59.22)
Brilliant, well take care and speak soon.
Whitney Lee (37:03.639)
Bye.
BenP (37:08.372)
Done. Stopping.
