CISSP motivation and organization help

5502george

Ok so I have the harris book for CISSP and the access to VTE training for the CISSP traininf for the DOD but...

.....everytime I get motivation to start studying I get overwhelmed by the sheer size of the harris book!

.....Does anyone have any advice on how to create a training plan or keep myself motivated to knock this test out?

ajs1976

I purchased the Harris book on Friday and the size of the thing is ridiculous. My plan is to start by focusing on each domain one at at time. Once i'm comfortable with that material move onto the next.

JDMurray

When you have a large job ahead of you, analyze what you need to accomplish and chop the job into into small, achievable tasks. Remember that while studying you are taking notes to boil down those giant study guides into a short stack of paper that you will actually be memorizing for your exam. You read a book one page at a time, not the entire book at a time, so take it at that level.

emerald_octane

-Set an exam date; 3 or 4 months out. If you're an expert procrastinator such as myself, you will start to panic in about a month or two and reveal your study mode.

- Pick a set of materials you like. If one just isn't your cup o tea don't force yourself to read it. You can't really choose just one but you can mix and match, and there are many to choose from for CISSP. Harris, Conrad, Krutz, Hernandez.

da_vato

If the book is intimidating get the ebook off the disc and load it on a tablet. I kept the book in my lab when I had down time and used my tablet everywhere else.

badrottie

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. The AIO is a big chunk to digest at first. I would recommend setting your goals to doing 1 chapter/week, which is reasonable.

If the writing style is not to your liking, then Eric Conrad's book has been getting favorable reviews on TE (I used the AIO and OIG to prepare, because Conrad's book was not available when I wrote the exam. Yes, I am dating myself....)

Do not forget about audio/mp3 training (Shon Harris for instance), CBT, live-training, study groups, etc. so there are a number of preparation approaches that can be used. Find out what works best for you and do not forget to practice. Writing 250 questions in 6 hours is a lot for some people to get used to.

bobloblaw

When first getting started, my goal was to just read the book. Best advice I got from someone regarding the AIO is when it starts getting to rote memorization, skim. You'll have plenty of time to memorize when you're doing practice quizzes nonstop.

Daily goals. If your goal is to finish the book, your daily goal should be "I am going to read X time today" or "I am going to read X pages today."