So you’ve decided you want to take your career to the next level by getting Network+ certification. Smart move – a technical certification demonstrates to your employers that you’re committed to continuing to grow in your field.
But how do you stay focused on that commitment? I can say from experience that studying while holding down a full-time job is not easy. How can you stay motivated and on-track after a long day at the office? What is the best way to prepare for CompTIA Network+ Certification?
Start with the Right Materials
CompTIA Net+ courses from LearnNowOnline will ensure you’re up-to-date and prepared for your certification. Topics covered include system security, security threats and attacks, network mangement and troubleshooting, media and hardware, LAN and WAN infrastructure, and more.
Each course is over an hour of in-depth material totaling to about 18 hours of course time total. With 18 hours of study material, this bundle will provide you with the in-depth training you’ll need to attain Network+ certification. But how will you manage to maintain a study schedule so that you can master the concepts?
The Buddy System
I highly recommend finding a study partner. This person doesn’t even have to be working on the same project, although that helps. As long as you are both committed to using study time to complete some kind of work, this is an effective technique.
Why does this work? There’s the obvious factor of pride. If you tell your partner that you’re going to commit to two hours of studying, it will be far more difficult for you to spend that time goofing around on Facebook if he or she is sitting there with you. We may be motivated to stay on task just to save face – sometimes literally, like the blogger who hired someone on Craigslist to sit next to him while he worked and slap him in the face every time he went off-task.
There’s also the less-obvious factor: the social element. Studying is usually a solitary activity, and oftentimes procrastination stems from an impulse to break up the isolation. We get lonely and then decide to just quickly check Facebook or browse Reddit’s front page for ‘just a minute’. If you’re anything like me, you know that sometimes these “quick” check-ins end up consuming hours of your time.
Having a buddy there gives you an opportunity for some real-time social connection. When you start feeling restless, ask your partner about what he or she is working on. (This is a valuable exercise in and of itself, since one of the most effective ways of learning a topic is to teach it to someone else.) The genius part of this hack, though, is that IRL interactions follow a natural rhythm. Conversations have natural lulls, and studies have shown that they appear to occur at intervals of around 3 to 6 minutes. So you’ll only spend that long getting your “socialization” fix instead of getting sucked down the black hole of endless links. Instead of draining your time and energy, a brief face-to-face chat will refresh your mind and allow you to get back to work with renewed focus.
What’s been your experience with study buddies? How have you found people to partner with? Let us know in the comments!