Mastering AI & ML while Working Full-Time: A Step-by-Step Guide
We are live! Do you know what this setup reminds me of? Actually, I'll tell you where I am in a second here. It reminds me of the OG YouTube days, you know? YouTubers sitting in their bedroom being like, "Okay, what's up everyone?" I wasn't an OG YouTuber, but I think that's what they sound like. Let me show you! More importantly though, now that we're on these random talks, let me show you my view of New York City, what I'm looking at. Let me do it! It's pretty incredible, what do you think? Look at this! I mean, what... Wait, sorry, that's not my background right now. But lighting and all... Alright, we are going to talk today about how, in particular, I balance having a full-time job, having business interests in Tech, and then also starting to go back to school. Yes, you heard that right, your girl is going back to school. But before I share with you what exactly I'm going back to school for, what it entails, and the bigger question of why Tiff, why are you putting more on your plate, I want to share with you a few different things that we're going to cover in this video. I hope when you leave this video, you take away really how you can balance your time and you, too, can continue to upskill and level up in technology at whatever works for you, whether it be a few times a week, whether it be once a week, but really make significant changes in your ways of learning and balancing your time. That if you want to go back to school, you can. If you want to take an online course, you can. Whatever the case is. Alright, before we get started, you know what I have to say: Since I'm doing this old school YouTuber background, hit that subscribe button, give this video a like, and leave in the comments what other topics you want me to cover. So before we get into it, though, what did I enroll in and what have I been accepted to go back to school into? So, I enrolled and was accepted into George Brown's practical AI and machine learning program. So, what does this entail? Well, for me, what it looks like is going back to school Monday and Tuesday nights from 6:00 to 9:00, so 3 hours on those two nights, which is going to be intense, to be honest with you, on top of everything else. And we're really going to, or I'm going to, really dive into everything around machine learning and AI. And I picked this course for a few reasons. One being because it's hands-on. So, as a builder starting my career in Tech with software development, and being very technical and still a very technical person today, I feel like a lot of times I have a really good grasp on machine learning, generative AI, and a lot of the different concepts within it. But as a builder at heart, and inherently I just need to get hands-on with it. And I have been doing that through different online courses, and that's been wonderful. It's been working out great. But one of the things, which I will cover more in this video, is I know what kind of learner I am, and I know what kind of environment I need to be in to really, really learn. When I say really, really, what does that mean? It means I can get to a certain point through self-learning, and I get pretty far with it. But there comes a point where I need the support of a community, of a teacher, of other peers, essentially, to really build up that knowledge together. I'm not someone who can just learn on my own, and that's something that took me many years to uncover. It's okay, you don't need to be everyone. Everyone's so different with their style of learning, and don't try and compartmentalize yours or force your learning to be what suits others. Do what suits you best. So here we are.
Why Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence?
So, why machine learning and artificial intelligence? What made me want to take this course? Well, for one, as I mentioned, it's hands-on. So, I'm actually coding, I'm building different things. And the other side is the business side of this. I will get to learn and really understand how these technologies can affect business, how businesses are going forward and where they are at today. I just feel like these technologies are things that, although they're trending right now, they are here to stay. And they're just going to be integrated further and further into our daily lives. That's why I really want to understand the ins and outs of them. I want to be able to build with this technology, and that's really what prompted me to go back to school. It's a total of a year program, done in semesters. We are starting the first one in February, as I mentioned. So, I will share with you my journey around this, my learnings, and what I uncover. But now, here's a bigger question. How am I going to be able to balance all of this? I mean, it's 6 hours of learning weekly in class, and then I think it was...what is it? It's another few hours outside of class for take-home projects, studying, and working. It feels like a lot. So, let me share with you some things that I'm going to implement.
Implementing Time Blocking
One thing that I always do, one thing that I've already implemented, the system, and it's really helped me be very functional throughout the day, is I've implemented time blocking. And this is how I look at it. A little backstory on time blocking, or how I use it anyway, so I am someone who is very anxious if I know I have a lot of tasks to do throughout the day. And what will happen is, I will open up my computer, 9:00 a.m. comes...or earlier for Tiff tech stuff as well, and I'm sitting there and I'm thinking about my day. And I'm thinking, "Oh, I need to write this email. Oh, I need to respond back to this person. I need to walk the dog. I need to go get groceries. I need to do this." And then it starts compiling to the point where it seems my day isn't even possible. I think, "How can I get through this?" And I'm sure I'm not alone. This isn't unique to me. This is being an adult. It's kind of hard, especially trying to manage everything.
So what I have done, and what I found myself doing before I implemented time blocking, is with those thoughts and having this continue to pile up, what would happen is I would become almost frozen. I wouldn't feel like I could get anything done, and I would just sit there overwhelmed. So what I do now with time blocking is I will literally block off hour by hour or 30 minutes, depending on the task at hand, increments of what I need to do. I'll start by saying, "Okay, what are the top three things?" And this is very key. Don't let these three things become four things, because that's very easy, or become five things, because that's very easy as well. And tell ourselves that all these things need to be done. But when you take a step back, what actually needs to get done today?
So what I will do is I will have my big three things that need to get done. And then what I will do is structure my days around those three things. Okay, for me, I know I am most productive, most focused in the morning. By 3:00 p.m., yes, I am still working, but for the next hours after that, I need it to be simpler and easier tasks. I don't schedule meetings that are very focused or intensive after 3:00 p.m., if I can. I will always try to schedule them in the morning or earlier in the day. And same goes with the tasks at hand. If there's a task that I really don't want to do, I will schedule it in the morning. Because otherwise, what I will do is my whole day, I will spend dreading it. With time blocking, it makes me feel as though I'm not going to miss something, because I have literally written on my calendar, my personal calendar, when I have my work meetings, what I need to get done at work for the day. And I block it out hour by hour. The key here is that you have to be practical. You need to block off things such as "go for a walk and get your coffee" or "take the dog out for a walk" because that still counts as time. And if you're being unrealistic by just blocking your entire day, it's going to get draining really fast.
I bring up time blocking as one of the main points to really be able to balance a full-time job with something else, such as studying new technology, going back to school like myself. Because if you are not structuring your work day properly, you are going to end the day so exhausted. And in turn, you are not going to be able to put your attention or focus to your night course. So that's step number one, really ensure you know how you work best and when you work best. Are you a morning person? Are you a night person? Your time, you can alter your day based on when works best for you. For the most part, you can schedule meetings. I mean, obviously there are meetings that come up and maybe someone else is the opposite as to when they are productive as you are. So it's in the afternoon and you're a morning person. But for the most part, you have control with time blocking to schedule out when you want to do your tasks.
Eat the Frog First
Here's another way that I can balance having a day job, being very focused and busy at that day job, and then other things in the evenings or very early mornings. One thing that I read, and I think we've heard throughout many different self-help books, but it's really true, which is, I think it was Mark Twain who said it, "Eat the frog first." I'm probably saying that quote wrong, I'll have to pull it up here. What essentially it means is do your most difficult tasks in the morning or whenever is best for you. For me, it's in the morning. So when it comes to taking this course with machine learning and artificial intelligence, how I plan to structure my days is I wake up very early. And right now, what I do when I wake up, there are certain days that I go for my early workout classes or different things like that. But what I plan to do is, also on the days that I'm not working out early in the morning, at least, is schedule in that it'll be an hour to an hour and a half of time to work on these courses. And I'm talking these are typically at 7. Or I wake up around, typically, 5:30 in the morning. Not every morning. Some mornings it's 5:45. But for things like this, waking up early and then having time before work to get this work done for my courses.
Now, I'm not saying this works for everyone. But what it does work for everyone, or how it can work for everyone, is knowing yourself. If you are a very early morning person like me, then maybe it's taking these hours in the morning before you start work to study. If you are a night owl, do the same. You have all day to do your day work, and then come the night time when you're really energized, you can focus on your course and studying. It really goes back to you have to understand how you work best and learn best.
Now, on that note of working best, learning best, another thing that's so key here, that is crucial to bring up, is do not, and this is something I need to work on, but do not put unrealistic expectations on yourself. And this, again, goes back to cramming. It goes back to procrastinating. Where it's so... I don't want to do any studying throughout the week, and then the weekend is when I'll cram all my studying. For me, that will not work. Because I need at least, preferably, the whole weekend to fully recover and recharge. Obviously, little tasks come up here and there, and there is some studying required. But for the most part, if I was to cram all my study, being on top of my learning hours, meaning the course hours, onto the weekends, I would fail. And I know that because I've tried it before with other things. So for me, spreading it out in small increments throughout the week is what I know will lead to success for myself, and I think for most people too, rather than taking this massive chunk of time to try and catch up on everything.
If you take anything away from this video, I want it to be this: You have your unique way of learning. Gone are the days when we go to school and you know you have to study a certain way, test a certain way. I mean, that's still implemented in that sense. But as an adult now, you have the freedom to choose how you want to learn and when you want to learn. So structure it when it works best for you, identify those times. That's the first thing. Another thing that's really important is to find a person or community to hold you accountable. I mean, on one hand, you all are going to hold me accountable to my learnings because I'm going to share them with you. The other side, though, is find a community that supports you. Whether this be an online community or an in-person community through the peers that you're taking a class with, or if you're taking an online course, maybe it's through different Slack groups, different things like that. By the way, it would just be so disappointing if I didn't shout out takeoff here, because part of takeoff is exactly that, with our unique Slack group that you can study and learn together, build those relationships, and then learn from mentors and other individuals on our platform. It's not the point of this video, but I'll link takeoff down below. It's a company I started. Anyways, I hope you found this video super helpful and valuable. On the note of machine learning and AI and the course I am taking, what do you want me to share with you about? Do you want me to share weekly updates? Like, what would be beneficial? Because it's essentially, we can learn together, which is kind of cool. Really cool, actually. Leave in the comments. I'll also share the course that I'm taking down below, just in case there are any questions, and you're curious about it. Maybe more questions will come out that way. Alright, it is getting dark here in New York. Check out the skyline one more time. I mean, come on! Alright, thank you all for watching this video. I'm so excited to take you on my learning journey with me for this new chapter. And I'm also so excited to hear what you plan to learn in 2024. Tech is moving faster than ever. And on one hand, it can feel exhausting, how am I ever going to keep up? But on the other hand, having communities like, I hope that we have built together here and other platforms to really bring each other up and just stay motivated and committed together, I think is the way to go. Alright, thank you all for watching. I'll see you all soon. Bye everyone!
