On Friday I secured an interview for the following Tuesday. The job requested expertise in a particular technical area I didn’t know anything about. If college taught me anything, it was how to cram.

I went to sleep early Friday night so the weekend would be free.

There was an online class with 33 hours of instruction. Playing it back at 2x speed took this down to only 16.5 hours.

On Saturday morning, I borrowed my girlfriend’s Ritalin and set off to find the material interesting, trying to remember to break every four hours for food and hydration.

Saturday covered 19 of the 33 hours without much difficulty. Nothing is too hard if you don’t get interrupted and put everything else aside. Feeling good about how it was going, I scheduled the certification exam for Monday.

Sunday repeated the same schedule as Saturday, only needing 14 more hours, knowing stimulants aren’t quite as powerful two days in a row.

For the certification exam Monday, more Ritalin kept things flowing smooth. It’s best to take an exam using the same mindset as you studied, so whether drunk, stoned, or disassociated, the contours of memory will find maximum recall when the current state of mind matches the conditions of learning.

I didn’t get 100%, but that was never the goal. Passing was good enough, and my successful certification “proved” my expertise for the interview on Tuesday. With a nice raise, I became their lead consultant in a topic I didn’t know just three days before.