If you’ve never sat for a CompTIA exam, the conventional wisdom is “study for 6–8 weeks, take it.” For someone working a full-time job and learning in their second language, I’m giving myself 12 weeks. That’s more comfortable, more honest, and more sustainable.

Here’s the structure I’m following.

The non-negotiables

Three things I won’t compromise on:

  1. 6 days of study, 1 day off. Sundays I rest. The brain needs it. The week needs it.
  2. 3–4 hours per day. Less than that and I won’t finish in time. More than that and I’ll burn out by week 6.
  3. Hands-on every single day. Even 30 minutes. Reading without practice is a trap.

The 12 weeks, mapped

  • Weeks 1–4 — Foundations and Domain 1. Network basics, Linux, Windows, threats and vulnerabilities. The base everything else stands on.
  • Weeks 5–6 — Domains 2 and 3. Architecture, design, and implementation. The “how do you actually build secure things” weeks.
  • Weeks 7–8 — Domains 4 and 5. Operations, incident response, governance, and crypto. Plus the first round of practice exams.
  • Weeks 9–10 — Hands-on tools. Wireshark, Nmap, Splunk basics. Time to write things up publicly here.
  • Week 11 — Performance-based questions and final review. PBQs are the hardest part of Sec+; they’re not multiple choice.
  • Week 12 — Take the exam. Booked in advance, paid in advance. No turning back.

The resources I’m using

The full kit cost me around €500, exam included:

  • Professor Messer’s Security+ playlist (free on YouTube) — primary video course
  • Mike Chapple’s Sybex Security+ Study Guide — primary book
  • Jason Dion’s Practice Exams on Udemy — for the final 4 weeks
  • Pocket Prep mobile app — for daily practice questions on my breaks
  • TryHackMe Premium — for hands-on labs
  • Anki — for spaced-repetition flashcards

Nothing exotic. These are the same resources that have worked for thousands of Sec+ candidates. I’m not trying to be clever about the path — I’m trying to be consistent about walking it.

A daily schedule that survives a kitchen shift

Here’s what a typical study day looks like for me when I’m working a hotel breakfast shift:

05:00–13:00   Work shift
13:00–14:00   Lunch and rest
14:00–16:00   Theory: video + reading
16:00–17:00   Walk / break (mental reset)
17:00–19:00   Hands-on: TryHackMe / lab
19:00–21:00   Family time, dinner
21:00–22:00   Practice questions on phone (Pocket Prep)
22:00         Sleep

That’s 4 active hours of study, with a buffer in case I’m wiped out one day. It’s not heroic. It’s repeatable. And repeatable beats heroic every time.

Why I’m posting the plan now

Two reasons:

It commits me publicly. If you read this and check back in week 6 and I’ve gone silent, I look bad. Good — that’s the point. Public stakes are real stakes.

Other career-changers can use it. When I was searching for “Security+ study plan working full-time in Europe,” I didn’t find much that fit my situation. Maybe a future me, somewhere else, lands on this page and saves a few weeks.

The plan is good. Now I just have to do it.