Happy new year to everyone out there. Hope you all have recovered by now =) Over the holidays, I slacked off a bit and lost my way after having to cancel my written exam. So since the new year was here, I decided to some up with an updated plan and start fresh.
There have been a few life changes that have happened since my original plan that have caused me to change some time tables. The first was my wife losing her job. That caused me to have to postpone my written test. I’m pretty sure that I will be taking this in February right now. By then, she’ll either have a job, be finally getting unemployment income, or we’ll be getting a monster tax return. So between now and then, I’ll be taking the occasional practice test to keep me sharp and also I’ll be reading theory in conjunction with my lab preparation. The week before my test, I’ll step up the reading in my weaker areas.
The other big life change that is changing my schedule is that we found out that my wife is pregnant with our first child. We have been trying for some time, so it wasn’t a suprise. But I figured it would be good to really try and get my CCIE before baby Rensink arrives. The due date is early August, so I’m shooting for early July to take the lab exam. That gives me a little over 6 months, which is pretty aggressive for my experience level. But I’ve always counted myself as pretty sharp, and I work well with deadlines. So I’m optimistic about my chances.
So in order to meet my new timeline, I’m going to be reading and watching videos for an hour or so each morning before work. Then I’ll be labbing it up each evening for 4 hours or so. Weekends, I’ll try and put in at least 8 hours each day. I’ll be going through both the Internetwork Expert and IP Expert workbooks (all 3 from each). Once IE gets their Poly Labs going, I’ll be using those as well. Towards the end, I’ll be throwing in mock labs. I’m not planning on attending any boot camps, but I do have access to a pre-recorded one from IE.
So the time for slacking is over. Today is the first day of the rest of my CCIE trek! But first… where’s my coffee?
