CCIE #TBD

I am not somebody who has classically good study habits. I get distracted easily or go too deep on tangents easily, I historically suck at taking notes, and sometimes when I don’t have a clear direction and a plan I struggle to get started at all – I frequently say my whiteboard is the most important tool I own, because without having it to mindmap or write tasks out or skeleton documents out, etc., I would honestly never get anything done.

Knowing that I wanted to approach the CCIE lab exam seriously and try to accomplish it within a reasonable timeframe (and ideally pass it before my SCOR exam validity expires in late 2023), I had to come up with a schedule. With family obligations and a demanding job, it isn’t realistic for me to just say “sure I will study every second of my spare time 6 hours a day every day” or anything that aggressive because I’ll burn out in a week, upset my family, and quickly fall off the wagon. Likewise, it doesn’t make sense to study for 2 hours every other day, because by the time I have put in enough effort to feel comfortable to sit for the lab exam they will have updated the blueprint.

So, I landed somewhere in the middle. Just about every “CCIE Success Story” I have read seems to come in around 20 study hours a week, so, I picked an arbitrary target date in early 2023, figured out how much time I had between now (May 2022) and then (about 34 weeks), and tried to just divide it up. I came up with a schedule that I think should work for me, shooting for 18 hours of study a week which gives me 600+ hours of study time between now and when I would like to attempt the exam. Will this be enough? I’m not sure, but, one has to start somewhere. I have some wiggle room at the end if I need to adjust or in all likelihood retake the lab one or more times, and likewise I am hoping to find that some of the products I have considerable experience with like ISE, FTD, and ASA, will demand less of my time.

I’ll be trying to keep a daily log of my study time with some high-level notes on what I am doing, and of course, writing articles where appropriate. I’ll be keeping the Study Schedule page updated, check it out if you would like to follow along or see a little more detail.

Study Schedule

Happy labbing!