My homelab, projects and how I learn for my certificates
The certificates I get are actually very theoretical. They are just to put them in a pdf and send that out along with my other references from school, uni and work. You can — and I did — install VMs and simulate stuff in Packet Tracer and the like for learning and practice, but a lot of it is just memorization of commands, terminology, and workflow steps on top of everything else.
However, in order to memorize, learn, and demonstrate things better, I do have my homelab, documentation, Anki cards (flashcards), and whiteboards filled with notes and graphic-facilitation-style images. These are basically visual anchors and memory palaces that use the Loci and Major methods in ways I haven’t seen before.
For example I create a memorable image for rsyslog (the new rocket fast syslog)....
Syslog comes with priorities. I then create images that combine the Major method with Loci. For 0 I often use "sea". Syslog prio 0 is "emergency". So I combine the two and turn it into an image and I do that for all the priorities.
These are not meant to be high quality illustrations because this is for me personally and for my own private study notes. The important part is I get to the associations of words/numbers/commands etc. as images in my head. I can even turn these into a visual story that connects these images. It becomes very crazy very fast but that makes it even easier to remember. The more intense the emotion, the better the association and therefore better memorization. Since I grew up with Simpsons, Star Wars and such, I incorporate that into my visual libraries. For you this might work entirely different. The overall idea is that most people learn better with images rather than with textbooks and words only... So the story could be: a crazy island sized "emergency" siren floats on the sea (s=0). Meanwhile I sit on the beach watching that, drinking tea (t=1) and ringing the "alert" bell. Neo (n=2), who is next to me, hears that and says this is "critical".... I don't know if you get any of this but that is the main mechanism for memorizing structured data like lists and tables of information.
I record audios of what I learn sometimes, so I can listen to it at night. I do practice tests, use ChatGPT and NotebookLM for the creation of Anki cards, I bought online programs — and if I were to show all of that, I would probably just confuse you, or it would take a lot of time to structure it and turn it into something you can read up on or watch as a YouTube video.
--- Update 2026-02-200
I installed codex the other day. As I am learning how to use Linux CLI rather than letting others do it, I did not do it earlier, but I have to go with the times and at least play around with the coding agents because this is not future anymore. This is not part of any learning programs. This is cutting edge technology which is now integrated into my network and I can let it do work for me.
I can say I am probably more advanced than many other IT managers here in the area. I am not even joking. I spoke to the 60 year olds who don't even see it when my documentation was written by GPT 4.0. The one from last year! I will dive into this more deeply at another point in time.
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However, I also practiced network diagramming along with my other documentation, and I’ll be happy to discuss this uncensored in a professional environment. At this point, I just don’t want to share everything on the public web.
So this whole mix of learning methods makes me somewhat of an “omni learner”: hands-on experience, auditory learning, visual learning, plus simulating the actual thing (the exam). A lot of it is the Loci Method, the Major Method, and diagramming / facilitation-style visuals to memorize lists of ports, tools and options, and workflows. It got a bit extreme — I even got a crown from Miro because I’m in the top 1% of users of their whiteboard app.
In the end, the actual project work is what’s the most fun, compared to just running some commands and seeing what they show. Another reason I don’t share everything is that what I do is still junior level and not fully hardened, and again, some of it is outdated tech. I do get a lot of traffic from China and the US — not from employers I applied to.
Over time, I update my homelab and post older documents. For now, my main focus is still the certificates because that’s what most people look at. If you are reading this, you are in the top 1% of people who care and who are actually interested. This is for you — and I’ll be happy to demonstrate more in detail in a live discussion.