CCIE General Preparation

Here is my time plan so far to prepare for my first CCIE.


First of all the strategy is straight from this document. I thought it laid out a clear and effective plan I can use. I like mastering the basics and slowly adding bits and pieces until I am ready while keeping my skills up by constant labbing. I'm still in the process of doing Step 1 but am almost ready for the "basic" full scale labs.

Actual time breakout is

M-F -2 hours/day

Saturday - 6-8 hours

Sunday - 3 hours

Now of course those times will move up significantly as I get closer to my anticipated date where especially Sunday will be a full day also. But I don't want to burn out too early. In practice so far this ends up meaning I watch videos, listen to audio and read during the week with labs on the weekend. I think I will maintain this throughout with full scale labs every weekend and mini-labs/extra reading during the week. My vague goal is to finish all the INE Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 labs before attempting the real thing.

I plan to buy vol.3 for my weekly mini-labs and hopefully I can afford to squeeze in a formal bootcamp near the end although that doesn't look likely right now.