Method to Learn A Technology/Protocol – My Approach

Please read the entire thing and comment whether its a good approach or a bad approach

When i started off with my CCNP preparation back in the 1st week of NOV 2009, I just did an overview of the routing protocols from a BSCI book and then tried my hands on the GNS3 platform. Initally i deliberatly made crazy & unrealistic network topologies (if you will) so as to understand the protocol behavior and ran debug commands.
I made this particular topology and would spend next 10 days trying to figure why I was not getting the desired result. In the meantime I would refer to different books again and again just to read the then configure.

In a nutshell there was not method involve and i was trying to learn the technology by just doing labs and more labs.

Finally I gave up and then one fine day a dropped a mail to Scott Morris and he suggested me to go ahead with the INE CCNP bootcamp. and then Brian M. suggested me to go thru some of the INE recommended books.

Well I am highly indebted to Scott for that invaluble advice as it was a brilliant COD

After clearing 2 papers, BSCI and BCMSN (3rd week in April), I did not go ahead with ISCW and ONT since cisco already came out with their final dates.

Since April last week I have been busy reading/finishing books, and more books and also Cisco DOC + CCIE COD from INE which i bought + other CODs given to me by my friends.. All this to try to build a solid foundation in basic and advanced networking/Technologies and also making sure that each exam and every exam objective of CCIE is clearly understood during my reading days (still reading) I would spend just 8 hours per week on labs.

I actually went thru many forums wherein users post a question which could easily be solved if the fundamentals are cleared. For example the redistribution between a classless and a classful protocol.
I also spent considerable amount of time Intepreting the outputs of various commands.
Most of the people dont know the difference between BGP table version and the local table version and their significance.(show ip bgp summary). but i have gone under the skin , iso as to understand the output which my friends thot was rediculous and a waste of time.

My Modus operandi so far –>

Its difficult to retain so much information acquired from various materials so what I do is that I make notes from the books

for example

TCP-IP vol 1 is about 750 pages

and Im 100% sure that I cannot revise (many times) and retain everything if I were to read the same number of pages.

So for example

I make a Word DOC, say , “EIGRP”
and then I copy paste the only the most important stuff from TCP/IP Vol1, BSCI (catherine Paquet)/ Route(wendel Odom)/Alex ZININ and some more books and then I watch and note down the important stuff form INE CCNP COD / BSCI CBT Nuggets Jeremy C / Advanced technology class INE/ IP Expert CODs (given by my friends) and finally the INE Audio tutorial from Scott Morris
I also cover each and every command of EIGRP and the results.

All the above things about EIGRP put in ONE PLACE and now the technology can be revised again and again. This is what ive been doing and believe me its working for me so far

I did the same for OSPF, STATIC ROUTES, Redistribution, and almost all the routing protocols and stuff related to routing.

I read TCP-IP by both Douglas comer and Stevens and also sqeezed that book to 2/5 the size so that i could re-revise it.

By doing this i have minimized the error rate by almost 40-50% and now i dont have to go back to the books in order to check as to why im made the mistake on command line.

I believe i have continue this extensive reading for atleast 6-7 months more before i finally jump to the command line FULL TIME – 8-10 or more hours a days or something like that.

my whole approach was to a) minimize the knowledge gap b) NOT TO LEARN TECHNOLOGY BY DOING LABS. what this means is that once i have understood the technology (by reading stuff) i could make use of the concepts and then do not make mistakes due to lack of fundamental knowledge of the protocols.

Well, not everything can be learned by reading the books and hence now when i do labs i note down my results/observations and later club it with the respective technology/protocol document

Please suggest if the approach so far has been good or not or that its an Overkill which some of my friends say.

Also i have gained good command over BGP but i have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA about MPLS. . i could have followed the same approach in MPLS but i dont know where to start
i know its full form though