How to study for the CISSP with work in the way, a wife and a child? No Time!

mnijhawan

Hello fellow CISSP'ers...

How do you study for the CISSP exam that is a couple months away with work full time, a wife and a child to come to in the evenings? Weekends are hard too! It seems there is no time for me to study which I really need to do because my exam is January 9, 2014.

Any advice would be appreciated!
Thanks!

broli720

I don't really know how to answer this. You either have to make time or not take the exam.

samurai86

Wife, 3 kids (11, 4, and 2 at the time), and a full time job here. The best thing is your wife's support. If she can be down with it that is the biggest battle. It was not easy at all, but it is do able. I also believe it is still important to make time for the family during your study process. When I did pass, I celebrated with my family as a family accomplishment. I celebrated them and thanked them by having a nice family night out. I also verbally thanked (especially the wife) them for their patience and their perseverance.

Also whenever they left the house for errands I would make use of that time, or if we went somewhere I made use of the time. It is literally all I did for over a month when I buckled down on studying.

I have also promised not to study for anything else for a while.

I figure with what I have I am due a break for a while. Now if an opportunity arises it arises, but I am not pursuing official certs for a while.

moyondizvo

The situation you are in is very common, my recommendation would be to create the time and utilize every free time you can get. I know that the following may not be ideal but if you want to pass the exam that bad, you are gonna have to sleep less. If you are a morning person, wake up at 2 - 3 a.m, put in work before you go to work, likewise, if you are an evening person, study til late then go to bed. I know that rest is of the utmost importance, but you know what, if passing the exam is that important, you will manage.

You really need your family to commit to this too, explain to your wife how important this exam is to you and ask her to support you. It ain't gonna be easy, but you have to make sacrifices. I would also suggest that you move your exam back if you are struggling with study time, but then again, how much have you done so far??? You probably could manage if you are already into it.

Why are weekends hard? What are you doing that makes it hard? Not getting personal or anything, just trying to understand so that we can make appropriate recommendations. When I was studying, I totally shut out from everything, no weekend fun, no lunch time, no college football , no Christmas (was actually studying half of Christmas before I went out for a family dinner), it ain't easy, but it's temporary. It's your future, invest in it.

However, if it's all too hard now, you ought to consider putting the exam on the back burner, concentrate on other certs and come back to it later.

asmodan

I don't quite have the same situation but I do have a busy job and also live with my girlfriend, and my studies were much easier once I got her on side!

It also helps to make use of your commuting time if this is possible. I used the Shon Harris mp3s during my drive to and from work, or while doing other things like cleaning or exercising. The IT masters free CISSP course that everyone was talking about a month or so ago also has lectures in mp3 format.

Flashcards or practice tests on your phone are also great for a quick review whenever you have 5 minutes spare.


And like samurai86 says, dont forget to say thanks when you pass! I bought my girlfriend flowers on the way home from the testing centre.

instant000

You would need the support from family, to pursue this, like anything else. Once you get your wife and child on board, this will be a lot easier.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to see if your wife cares about the improved income potential you may have with CISSP, and how you can take her on a nice vacation after you clear the exam. Heck, just tell her that it is a challenge that you want to clear, and you need her and your child's support.

I don't know the age of your child, but children old enough to understand can be quite supportive of their parents.

1 - During commute: listen to audio if driving, or read a book if riding
2 - While doing personal hygiene, explain security concepts to yourself in your head
3 - Less time on techexams, and more time studying
4 - Schedule entertainment. Use the rest of your time for studying.
5 - Schedule a vacation with your wife
6 - Schedule an activity/study time for your child that gives you a break to study

zxbane

I just went through a somewhat similar situation myself in that I spent the last two months studying for, and then on Tuesday passing the CISSP. My girlfriend lives with me and is 8 months pregnant. Luckily I was able to get her to understand how much getting the CISSP could help me career wise and how I just personally wanted to know if I could pass it. She was very helpful with leaving me my space for study time in the evenings and weekends and even woke up early the day of my test to make me breakfast while I did a final cram of info. Afterwards I got her flowers, a card and a couple other gifts to show her that I couldn't of did it without her help!

beads

Start off by explaining that you need one hour of uninterrupted study time in the evening as a starting point. You can gradually increase this time to longer periods as you build your study stamina. A bit like first time gardeners who want to plant 2 acres the first year and quickly become overloaded with the amount of work involved and simply give up, shortly thereafter. Sounds good out of the gate but is generally unattainable. Smaller steps will help everyone adjust more quickly than saying: I need 4 hours of uninterrupted time by myself, no excuses! LOL.

Remember your household needs to adjust a bit as well. Start with a small increment and increase accordingly. My problem wasn't human children but with parrots with some human level of intelligence and emotional quotient. Try reasoning with a five pound bird with the EQ of a 5 year old that she's got to stop talking to you because you need to look at this paper. It doesn't always compute, so to say, for them.

Good luck with the studies. Its not as hard as it sounds.

- B Eads

TBRAYS

Tell her you need to separate so that you can find yourself, lol. Jokes aside, the comments above are pretty solid. My wife and two kids completely understood. They went to bed at 9pm. I studied from 930 to 1130.

acomo

I am like that mate. Studying 2 hours a night with a newborn. My wife tries to undestand (not every time) but i spend lots of hour in the night to study. Good luck with it.

JoJoCal19

I had the same situation except that I just couldn't study at night as I was always so tired and lethargic. I have a wife, 3 year old and 1 year old (and one on the way) and house to take care of, and work full-time. I also had my daughters 2nd birthday, and a trip to NYC in the weeks leading up to my exam date. Basically I started waking up around 5am (two hours before work) and studied. I also studied on my lunch break. I also have some flexibility since I work from home, that I was able to nab a little study time here and there if I was ahead on my work. I spent very little time studying at night until the week before my exam. My caffeine intake doubled during that time.

emerald_octane

Morning study IMO is the best.

Wake up at 4:30-5:00, get in a few hours of studying, read on your way to work, at work etc, then spend the afternoon with the fam.

Schpoon

Seems like a lot of us are in or were in the same boat. So, I'm not going to try and repeat what anyone else has already written. What works for me is going into work early (I'm lucky enough to have flex time) and then hitting the library directly after work. Staying until 15 min before it's time to go home. I can get in around 3 hours a day this way. Then hard stop when I get home. That's the family's time, two hours with the kid...an hour with the wife, while I get ready for the next day, and sleep.

Really, however you find the time will work for you. I accepted that my personal time was the library time, so I try and enjoy it. Rocking techno while doing practice tests. Good luck.

LionelTeo

I only study about 30 mins per day, and I can finish the CISSP CBK in 4 months and Eric Conrad Study Guide in 2 months, and passed by CISSP in 6 months of studying. 30 mins per day is not a lot, since I am taking public transport I studied during travelling. This means I never wasted my relaxation time. While with my gf, I study while she is bathing. You have to find the gap in your busy schedule to study. For example, your wife can be taking her usual long bath while your kids are asleep, you can easily study up to 15-30 mins depending how long she bathe.

I don't recommend prolong study, or a fix study time, or a fix number of page to study a day, everyone study limit is different, some can study 4 hours per day if their foundation is good. But some who need time to grasp the foundation, may not be able to study more than an hour, you may end up stuck trying to grasp the concept of a certain domain or section.

My recommendation is to study until your limit is reach for the day, sometimes the topic is easy, you can easily cover 20-50 pages, and read on a non-stop streak for a few hours. Sometimes the topic is tough, you can only go up to 3 pages, and got a headache after 10 mins. You have to realise what your limit is and when your limit is reach, stop and relax, when you come back, the same topic can become easier once you read back with a better state of mind. For example, while going through the Art of Exploitation by Jon Erickson, some topic was so new to me that I couldn't go through more than 3 page in a day, yet having started since Oct, I am nearing completition covering about 450 pages into the book.

Some maths
2 months
30 days a month
10 page per day
30 x 10 x 2 = 600 pages in 2 months

mnijhawan

Thank you all very very much for the replies! I really appreciate the support and the good pieces of information and wisdom in this thread. I appreciate it and will try to use all of the information provided. I'll keep you posted on my study progress.

Thanks again,
Mike

philz1982

I read each night for 2 hours and then 4 days before the test I took two days of vacation and told my wife that she would have to watch the kids all weekend. It worked for me.