JM, I wrote out a reply a couple of days ago but when I tried to send it PPRUNE said my password was wrong. When I typed in the password again I found my message had gone !
The following is just my advise. I'm not claiming to be an expert, but I did the IR three months ago.
* Contact the school, find out which instructor you will be getting and get copies of the checklists you will be using.
* Learn the checklists that you will be using so that they are second nature to you. Practice and practice them all the time, eg in your car, at your desk, in the pub. Burn them into your brain. You can't afford to be paying the best part of £300 ph in the aeroplane while perfecting the checklists.
* The IR is all about workload. Do absolutely everything you can in your own time on the ground. Study the airways in the training areas, learn which, if any are "wrong way". Study the half-mil chart and look for all the danger areas within an hours flying of the test centre. Write yourself a list of them and their details.
* You will be shown a lot of techniques and tricks by your instructor, eg for updating your eta at an airway join. Practice again and again on your sim with random winds.
* David Hoys book is the best of its type I have seen but remember that the test is slightly longer now with a partial panel handling section and I don't think this is in the Hoy book.
*During the first few hours, the IR seems impossible. Just keep at it and keep thinking about it. At the begining of the course it took me over two hours to do the flight log and flight plan. By the time of the test I could do the flight log in under twenty minutes and the flight plan in under two minutes.
*If you make a mistake during the test don't give up. I made a number of minor mistakes but as soon as I realised I pointed out to the examiner what I had missed and then I did something about it ! I got a first time pass.
*Make sure you have enough funds (or credit) to go far beyond the anticipated hours. The latter part of my training was dominated by worries about the debt I was running up and I think this slowed my progress, and therefore cost me even more.
* Good Luck, and all the best for a first-time pass.