Tips For Balancing Work With IT Certification Preparation

Work takes lots of time out of anybody's schedule, but it's a necessary input to get that all-important paycheck. Those who want to get ahead at work, or find a new job or promotion may tackle IT certification as a way to reach that goal. But prepping for certification takes time, too, so how can you balance these time consuming activities, not to mention commitments outside of work and study for family, friends, and even sleep?

Tip 1: Get The Word Out & Set A Regular Schedule

When you buckle down and start prepping for an IT certification that may involve one or more exams, you'll need to set aside time for reading, practice and experimentation, plus study and drills (a different kind of practice in understanding and answering exam questions). If you can sit down and work out a rough schedule, you can share that information with bosses, coworkers, friends and family, so that they know when you have your "do not disturb" status set. 

Several of my friends have gnawed their way through the Cisco certification program up to and including CCIE by establishing a study schedule -- all day Sundays and Thursday evenings were set aside for cert study, prep, and practice, and also achieving buy-in from their various constituencies at work, at home, and among their friends. 

This helps eliminate distractions and makes it easier to turn away unwanted invitations on or for those days that are set aside for cert stuff. Over time, everybody gets used to this, and you'll have that time available for your certification activities until you get the word out that you've finished this routine.

Tip 2: Decide Where (And How) To Cut To Make Time For Study

Whenever you introduce something new into your current schedule, that schedule has to change. Before you start deciding how to set up the cert schedule just described, you may want to keep a time log for a week to a month to see how your days play out. Obviously, you can't do without sleep entirely, nor can you skip work, family obligations, or other necessary activities, just because you're chasing some IT certification or another. But when you see that, for example, you tend to spend Monday and Wednesday evenings watching TV or just goofing off, you might be more inclined to redirect some of that relatively open time to certification prep as you start learning some new subject matter and mastering associated skills and knowledge. 

Before you set your schedule in stone (or even Play-Doh) you probably want to discuss it with your family members, significant others in your life, your boss, friends, and so forth to ask for their reactions and input. The tendency is almost always to want to over-schedule and/or over-book yourself, so you have to reply on your support network to inject some hard reality into the cloud castles you may otherwise be inclined to build.

Tip 3: Like The Tortoise, Slow And Steady Wins The Race … Err … Gets The Cert

One reads from time to time about certain exceptional individuals who finish certifications exceptionally quickly -- two months for an MCSE, 14 months for a CCIE, and so forth. However true and remarkable these accomplishments might be, they represent something pretty far outside the norm. Hardly anybody can suspend the rest of their activities completely, and devote themselves to chasing a cert during every available waking hour. 

My advice is to figure out a time budget for the maximum number of hours you can set aside during any given week, then plan your progress accordingly. Sure, that means it could take you 12 to 18 months to earn that MCSE, or two to three years to earn a CCIE, but those numbers are much more in keeping with the general experience across the entire population of candidates for those credentials. Because those populations are fairly large, the average turns out to be a fairly useful number to research, and to use as a planning guide. 

Undoubtedly as you travel down the path to some particular certification, you'll be able to adjust your schedule. That's because experience will show you if your timetable is at, above, or below the average, and allow you to tweak accordingly. But biting things off in chunks you can chew is the best way to chomp away at the always-long list of to-dos necessary to earn any kind of IT certification. If you keep at it, and work steadily away on your list, you'll make progress toward your goal of earning the IT cert of your choosing.