Need CISSP Advice

Khaos1911

I need advice, everyone.

I am slogging and trying to pull my way through my CISSP studies, it's a battle. Not that the material is overly difficult, it's just boring, lol. I know most of my weak spots and ultimately just need to start focusing on those (all that COBIT, Orange book, RAID, and a couple others) and banging out countless numbers of practice questions, but I wanted to finish the book 1st. I'm using the Conrad book as my main tool, I also have the Shon Harris 6th edition, and the sunflower PDF. The latter two and just referencing and glancing at here and there. I'm stuck on the Conrad book, Chapter 9, pg 380. I'm just tired! Tired of looking at it, tired of studying in general.

As soon as I start reading my mind just starts thinking of other things and by the time I finish a paragraph, I have no idea what I've read because I've been thinking of other stuff. Don't get me wrong, I know how to study. I just don't feel like it anymore. I didn't have this issue with CEH, GCIA, and GSEC. Which were all completed last year, I just think after GCIA, I was/am burned out. With everything going on at home and at work, not to mention trying to start a Masters program in the fall, I'm just beat.

My CISSP exam is scheduled for 4/11.

How do you all deal with mental fatigue? Study fatigue? I go to the gym, I get enough sleep (mostly). I don't know what's come over me.

kiki162

I just passed the CISSP on the 3rd attempt, and yes it's a lot to deal with. I can tell you that the CD in the back of the Shon Harris book along with transcender and CCCure is the ticket that got my through. Might wanna put the book away and focus on doing some exams and train for that instead .

Look at taking at least one day to yourself, even if it's for a couple of hours.

I'm a lot like you where I put more stuff on my plate that I think I can handle. I applied for a Masters program myself, and just got a few books on Kali linux to occupy my time, till I figure out what's next.

Also lots of redbull and coffee helped me out.

tiagotavares

Hi! You need just to focus! Well, I think I have the same problem I have: Loose focus very easily. I have created kind of future checkpoint, where I planned all my studies, for example: I put in mind that I should read 20 pages per day, then I distributed this planning along the book, then I knew the start and end date that I should finish a chapter of the book. I read Erick Conrad's book three times, using AIO and Official CBK as reference. In the last reading I was doing all tests from AIO, CBK, FreePractice Exam and McGraw Professional in order to make my knowledge sharper. My test is scheduled to 27th Feb, lets see the results..LOL As you could see, English is not my mother language, so reading all these material maybe should be worst for me than for you. Don't forget that all you efforts will give new opportunities. Good luck!

matai

Read out loud, kinda helps me focus. Even just whispering the words keeps me from skimming.

beads

Time your studying down to 20 minutes. Look up and think about what you have read. Write some key points down and examine what you have read. Do these things and you will remember much more than if you try to simply read along. If your drawn more to infrastructure particularly routers and the like... well, we have a name for it - OCD. If you come from a developer type of background well, you really are bored.

- beads

Chuzpah

I'm also studying for the CISSP exam, I started the journey several years ago. At the end of last year I finished my Master's degree in digital forensics and now that is out of the way I have no more excuses! A lot of the material in the books is rather dry but I have lived through a lot of it over the years. My blind spots are Networking and Encryption so I'm focusing more heavily there.