Discomfort: The Best Way to Learn

Sometimes, you just have to put yourself out there to push yourself to learn great things and standing in front of people may be the best way to learn.

On Thursday (7 September 2016) I did a workshop at WordCamp Cape Town 2016 on continuous integration. You may ask, what is "continuous integration"? Well, up to a couple of months ago I had only heard of this term before and never really understand what it was.

Over the last few months, I've been dabbling in it and trying to apply it effectively to the environment and workflow I use. All I knew was that it was important and that I had to start applying it.

When my speaker application was approved and the one idea of me speaking about continuous integration was accepted, I really had no choice but to use it and learn a lot more about continuous integration, and quickly.

I realised, as I was finishing up my workshop notes, that sometimes it's actually a lot easier to learn something when you're under pressure. There's definitely no more pressure than standing up in front of a whole lot of super clever people and telling them about technology.

To, that's what I'll be doing on Thursday, putting myself out there, hoping to help a bunch of people but really just pushing myself to learn more.

What's your best way to learn?