(upbeat music)
- Is this how it feels when you are learning
for your CCNA exam?
It's as if you're drinking from one of these.
(upbeat music)
You've got to keep on studying, you got to keep on learning
because in networking the only constant is change.
Even though it feels like
you'll never be able to learn everything,
just like you'll never be able to drink all this water.
You've got to specialize and choose what you are gonna study
and keep on learning.
The important thing in networking
is that you keep on learning. Things will change.
Things always change but you gotta keep on learning.
(upbeat music)
So how are you supposed to understand all this information
coming at you?
You've got rivers and rivers of information
coming at you.
(river burbles)
It's impossible to understand everything
that's happening in information technology today.
Even in the world of networking,
there are so many things happening.
How do you cope with this onslaught of information
coming at you?
It's like this river of information coming at you.
How on earth are you supposed to understand everything?
And that's the first point.
You don't try and understand everything.
You don't try and learn everything.
You don't try and consume everything.
You have to narrow it down.
You have to focus on specific topics
and specific information.
As an analogy, think about light.
We have diffused light,
which would light up a room, but when we focus light,
we get a laser, and a laser can cut through glass.
They can cut through rocks and many other things.
So to be effective, you need to focus your concentration.
What are your goals for the next month?
Next three months, six months, year, five years, 10 years.
What's your focus?
What specific goals are you trying to accomplish
in those timeframes?
It's not always very easy to say.
I wanna do this in 10 years,
but you should have at least an idea
of where you going in the future.
What are you trying to accomplish?
In a series of videos I'm going to talk about
how you can accomplish more and be more productive.
Whether you're studying for an exam,
or just trying to accomplish something.
Now this is a good book. "Deep Work."
The idea is that you need to work deeply
and not to do shallow work.
If you have the time and money,
I suggest you buy this book and you read it.
I'm gonna talk about some of the principles now,
but it's well worth reading.
The idea with "Deep Work" is that to get big things done
or important things done,
you need to have blocks of concentration
where you're not interrupted.
So you need to concentrate on a task at hand,
specifically an individual task and do that
for extended periods of time until you complete that task.
There's no such thing as multitasking
when trying to think deeply and accomplish deep tasks.
This is a quote from the book.
The ability to perform deep work
is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time
it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy.
As a consequence of the few who cultivate the skill
and then make it the core of their working life will thrive.
Do you want to thrive?
Do you want to make a difference?
Then think about doing deep work.
Think about removing the distractions in your life
and concentrating on a task at hand
and concentrating on making a difference to your life
and to those around you.
Deep work: Professional activities performed
in a state of distraction free concentration
that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit.
These efforts create new value,
improve your skills and are hard to replicate.
That's what you need to do.
If you wanna accomplish something,
work deeply, don't work from a shallow mindset
or do shallow work.
So what is shallow work?
Shallow work is non-cognitively demanding
logistical-style tasks often performed while distracted.
These efforts tend to not create much new value
in the world and are easy to replicate.
Think about email.
So what about these devices?
What about Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter,
these devices cause shallow work.
How often are you interrupted by WhatsApp messages?
Tweets from Twitter, Instagram posts,
Facebook, chats with colleagues and so forth and so on.
How often are you distracted by interruptions
from a phone or other device?
If you wanna accomplish something deep
or something important,
don't get distracted by a device like this.
Don't get distracted by other things.
Turn off your notifications,
turn off your phone and concentrate on the task at hand.
Do deep work, as an example
if you wanna get your CCNA, block out of the world
and concentrate on your studies.
Don't try and do a million things at once,
there is no such thing as multitasking
when it comes to deep work.
I don't wanna talk about all the concepts in this book.
I've kind of summarized it for you.
The big idea in this book is don't do shallow work.
Don't get distracted, block out time in your life
and concentrate on specific tasks.
Make specific blocks of time, the bigger the better,
and try and concentrate on doing a specific task
or accomplishing something.
Get rid of this.
Get rid of other devices that distract you.
On your computer, install applications
that stop you accessing the internet.
Don't let YouTube and other distractions
grab hold of your attention.
If you need to, turn off your computer and study from a book
you're less likely to be distracted
than trying to learn from a computer screen
where you've got all of these messages coming to you
and all of these distractions.
(soft music)
You've got to keep on studying.
Keep on learning, keep on studying, keep on changing,
keep on getting better and better at what you do.
Things will change but always keep on learning.
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