Hey Reader,

A student of mine quit his job to go full-time on his DevOps career change.

Three weeks later, he was playing video games instead of studying.

Here’s why that happens to everyone, and the system that fixes it:

The problem is that people rely on willpower instead of systems.

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I know because I’ve been there.

Not with DevOps, with something way harder.

I’m a recovering drug addict.

I’ve been addicted to alcohol and marijuana for 12 years.

Last July I celebrated 7 years of sobriety.

I can’t count the times I’ve tried to quit during those 12 years.

I tried quitting using the only tool I knew about: willpower.

Yet willpower runs out after 2-3 months and then you are back to square one.

The 12 step program saved my life.

And this taught me the importance of systems.

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Amin’s Question

Monday’s KubeCraft coaching call: Amin drops a question about going full-time on his DevOps studies.

I know immediately where this is going, I’ve seen it derail careers before.

So we go deep. Not just the technical answer, but the psychology, the systems, the traps that catch everyone.

10 minutes later, he has a complete framework.

No Googling. No guessing.

Just direct answers from someone who’s done it.

Here’s what I taught him:

(if you want the same mentoring Amin's getting)

Apply for October Cohort → CLICK HERE

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The Full Time Problem

I’ve seen this happen over and over again with friends of mine.

One of them is a content creator. Like me, he used to create content after his day job.

When he did it as a side hustle, he only had a couple of hours a day and the weekends to work on it.

It makes sense that if you quit your job and have the whole day, that you would also create more, right?

Wrong.

He ended up working 2 hours a day and getting distracted by video games.

He started making LESS money even though he had all the time in the world.

This happens with DevOps students too.

It’s caused by Parkinson’s Law:

If you give yourself the whole day to finish a task, a course, or a project, it will take the whole day.

Or the whole week.

This is why you can’t rely on your mind here either.

You’ll spend 8 hours at your desk and only study for 2.

The other 6? Reddit. YouTube.

‘Research’ that goes nowhere.

Then you go to bed feeling like shit because you KNOW you wasted the day.

The answer to the problem? Systems.

The System That Fixes It

Here’s the system I gave to Amin.

I created it during my own career change and still use it to this day.

It consists of 4 components:

1. Scheduling work blocks
2. Pomodoro timing
3. Tracking
4. Review

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Schedule Work Blocks

First, you block off time for your work.

I religiously work a block of 4 hours right after I get up in the morning.

I do this 7 days a week.

Then I eat and train, and after that I will usually do 4-8 hours of more work for the rest of the day.

If you want results, don’t rely on your mood.

Set a schedule and follow it.

Run your life like a bash script:

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#/bin/bash
/usr/bin/wake
/usr/bin/work
/usr/bin/eat
/usr/bin/train
/usr/bin/work
/usr/bin/eat
/usr/bin/work
/usr/bin/sleep

No if statements. No while loops waiting for motivation. Just sequential execution.

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Use Pomodoros

The pomodoro method has served me well in my career change.

Quick primer if you don’t know:

You set a timer for 25 minutes. You study until it runs out.

Then you take a break for 5 minutes.

Then you repeat the cycle.

I’ve found that 50 minutes work, 10 minutes break is best for tech work and studies.

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Track

Here’s where most people fail:

They start using the pomodoro method without a plan.

The solution: set a target amount of pomodoro’s a day.

At the end of the day, write down the amount of pomodoro’s you’ve done.

You can do this in an excel sheet or in a physical notebook.

If you’re studying full time you should be targeting at least 8 pomodoros a day of 50 minutes.

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Review

At the end of the week, you review how many pomodoro’s you’ve done per day.

Did you meet your target of 8?

Or did you do only 4 a day?

Now you have data to work with, and you can take action based on that data.

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You Can’t Trust Your Mind

The thing is, you can’t rely on your mind to do this for you.

You need to see it visually on a sheet of paper or in an excel sheet for it to work properly.

Set your target and track it religiously.

Without this, you’ll go to bed at night wondering ‘Did I actually study today, or just fuck around?’

With this system, you KNOW. 8 pomodoros. Done. No question.

Are you still Googling ‘how to break into DevOps’ and getting 47 different answers?

Amin didn’t do that.

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He had a question. Jumped on a call with me. ‘Should I quit my job and go full-time on DevOps?’

Ten minutes later, he had a complete system: Schedule, Pomodoro, Track, Review.

That’s the difference between learning alone and having direct access to someone who’s already done it.

I take 10 new students into KubeCraft per month. 6 spots are taken for October.

If you’re serious about landing a DevOps role in the next 90 days—not ‘trying to’ but actually doing it...

Apply for October Cohort → CLICK HERE

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Enjoy the free system. May it serve you well!

Mischa

P.S. The 4-part system is free. Use it today. Inside KubeCraft, I teach you 10+ other systems like this, including Job Magnet OS, which gets recruiters reaching out to YOU instead of you chasing them. Go here to get the systems and land a job in 90 days.