please share your lab strategy

I was wondering if you can share your lab strategy and how it helps ensure
you.
I find myself getting stuck on some non required tasks that I can leave for
the end but I keep hamming away. How do you move on?

I was thinking about doing what is required and what I know I can do is a
short amount of time.
I try to do this when I am practicing. I don't run to the solution guide. I
shoot right over to the doc cd. I find the solution and I make it work, BUT
even though it works I stay with it until I understand it. This is great
because I am learning but not so great when you are trying to complete a
timed lab.

I can get stuck on a non required task because I am so afraid to leave it
for the fear of missing the points and not being able to make up those
points. I hammer away while the clock is ticking and I am wasting my brain
power. After some labs I am so spent from tackling these little issues that
I don't want to think anymore and we all know that the little issues add up
and can cost you the test. This worries me the most because I fight how I
train, what I mean is that I will fall back on my training and hammer away
during the test. What if I do not have time to go back. Some people are fast
I am slow constantly thinking things through again and again.

I spend a over a year of hard dedicated studying and my head is all over the
place when I am frustrated and can't solve a task. This frustrates me
knowing I must have covered a similar task in the past. I just do not
remember it. I went over how everything works many times. I know it but it
does not come to mind right away. Sometimes I have to calm down and then I
can start to put the process together on how somethings work. I think I
need a anti anxiety pill, but they put me to sleep even when taking adderal
for add. I take my vitamins and fish oil.

Here is my process

1- read the lab while creating a task tracker. I note down various issues I
see right off the bat like OSPF VL 0/1, etc.. or EIGRP over FR - split
horizon?, MLS - ip cef . Just something very short to remind myself that
something might be amiss later on when I am frustrated and can't get
something to work or I know if I do this it will break something else.

2- I take a look at the diagram and I sho show cdp nei on the switches then
I create my own layer 2 diagram. I check and double check this against the
diagram (vlans), cdp and sho inter status. I am paranoid about my access
ports and trunks( I know I might not have the trunks set up yet and I scan
the cat section to see what I will need)

3 - I note how many loops I see which reminds me to turn on debug ip
routing.

4- For multicast I right away assume there is an RPF failure and jot RPF on
my tracker.

5- I leave a space for tclscrip - so I do run it and not skip it when the
heat is on.

6- I open up note pad and I type out my alias' - I leave this open for the
duration of the lab and remove them before the lab is graded.

7- While running through practice labs I configure a solution that works but
even though it works I remove it and try another one if it comes to mind.
This kills my time and always run out of time. So thinking about this I
think I will second guess my solutions during the lab.

8- I leave some hard security task for last because I have lost almost all
my points configuring a task incorrectly and breaking just about everything.

9- I do a sho run and check the diagram against the config.

10 - I do my frame and cat then I go through each device and make sure I can
ping everything in my local subnet and my local ip address. If the lab does
not mention anything about pinging the local ip I configure it anyway.
Thinking about this maybe ping 255.255.255.255 would be faster here.

11 - I also like increasing the history to the maximum size.I do this to see
what I have changed aka broke and what I had before. Maybe I should copy the
initial to notepad just in case.

12- I wr mem after every task.

That's all I can think of.

-- 
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"The more I learn the less I know". This is incredibly frustrating to me.
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