Time Management for System Administrators: Stop Working Late and Start Working Smart

I’m not an SA. But I did get a lot of information, tips and ideas about time management. Not going to lie, when he talks about computer code, I just skipped through those parts. Other than the codes, it was a very helpful tool and a great resource

I am largely self-taught and unmentored (only discovered SAGE this year and then they busted it! Thanks, LOPSA for stepping in!). When I started going to Seattle SAGE meetings, I was amazed at how good, how assured, how *correct* a sysadmin could be. And they all pointed me to Tom and Christine's book, _The Practice of System and Network Administration_. It is awesome. This is, too. I think Benjy's review puts it well: tPoSaNA describes what you have to do to run a proper shop. This book gives you some tools and approaches to manage all of that work without going insane. Part of my disatisfaction with the job I was doing had to do with the barrage of stuff coupled with a sense that no particular thing was ever getting finished. Naturally, my stressed and agitated mind was not conducive to productivity. The book has been a big help the last week. Tom does address getting more done, by reducing distraction, improving focus, automating tasks, and especially by defending "project time" by concentrating interrupts in the other part of the day. But I think the heart of the book is in managing the workflow. Even if you don't get more done, you'll get more of the most important stuff done. The book discusses approaches for prioratizing and tracking tasks, some of which seem counter-intuitive but are inarguable. For example, you could do three easy things or one hard one. If the cumulative impact of the easy ones is low, the hard one may be the right call, even if it results in fewer items crossed off your list. Look at impact - what a concept! O.k., maybe that's common sense, but it may not be a common approach. Much of the book is common sense. I think I have had more than a few of the ideas presented. For example, he emphasizes conserving brainpower by reducing the number of things you have to think about. Have routines. Have the same answer for the same situation. I've set up a few routines for particular purposes, but I've not tried to apply this as a general case. Tom takes the common sense notion, articulates it, and that (may) result in me expanding my use of routines. So I have to bow before his superior common sense! While he does address channelling interrupts and distractions, a lot of what he does helps you get your brain around what remains. I found this very powerful and satisfying. I found payoffs on day one - better focus, less stress, more productivity. It's the difference between swimming and floundering. The heart of the book is "the Cycle" - Tom says to start every working day with a 10 minute planning session: what's on the list, how long will it take, how long do you have. You prioratize, push what doesn't fit to the next day, and tuck in. Interrupts get squeezed in and bump lower stuff to the next day. Lather, rinse, repeat. I see two psychological benefits to the approach: better control- or even the illusion of better control- automatically means less stress, and every day you complete your to-do list. You may not accomplish

The ideas presented are extremely helpful in helping sysadmins break things down to easily digestible portions and scheduling how you'll take it all in. Best of all, for those of us that just cannot break away from the screen, this came with a 45-day O'Reilly Books-Online key. After years of shunning electronic books, I found that I actually read much faster in non-print format and I read it in a weekend. Dedicate a weekend to yourself and let this book adjust things in your hectic life.

To save everyone the trouble, I'll make the obvious joke: "I bought a book on time management, but I haven't had time to read it..." Tom Limoncelli knows this about you. He knows a lot about you. He's encountered, and found solutions for, just about every one of the paradoxes, dilemmas, Catch-22s, and neverending Sisyphean ordeals that comprise the day-to-day challenge of being a professional system administrator. He wrote (with Christine Hogan) The Practice of System and Network Administration, which presents a thorough and practical body of knowledge for IT professionals: it describes all the things you need to do to build and run a manageable infrastructure. Now he's written an equally practical book on how to actually get those things done, and he wrote it in a way that makes it palatable for system administrators -- a famously cynical bunch when it comes to books about personal productivity. And there's a lot to be cynical about... Here's how "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", by Stephen Covey, begins: In more than 25 years of working with people in business, university, and marriage and family settings, I have come in contact with many individuals who have achieved an incredible degree of outward success, but have found themselves struggling with an inner hunger, a deep need for personal congruency and effectiveness and for healthy, growing relationships with other people. Deep need for personal congruency? The only deep need I feel at the moment involves my gag reflex, and not in a good way. In comparison, here's how Tom begins: Wait! Before we get started, let's do something to make sure we actually finish. I realize that as a system administrator, you are flooded with constant interruptions. The phone rings, a customer stops by with questions, your email reader beeps with the arrival of a new message, and someone on Instant Messenger is trying to raise your attention. Heck, I bet someone's interrupted you while reading this paragraph. I'm not going to cover how to deal with interruptions until the next chapter, and I hope you don't take offense, but at this rate, I'm worried you won't get that far. To mitigate this problem I'm going to share a tip from Chapter 2, which, if you implement, will shield you from interruptions between now and when we can deal with the subject of interruptions properly. This book is for system administrators. Much of the geek community has embraced David Allen's Getting Things Done as a purely pragmatic way to, well, get things done, and Tom's book complements GTD in two ways. First, Tom describes his own personal system in the space of a couple of chapters, for those who aren't interested in drinking the GTD Kool-Aid but still need to start using a system. Second, Time Management for System Administrators is totally system-agnostic -- whether you use a PDA or index cards, just about every chapter of the book will amplify the effectiveness of your existing syst

This book is badly needed to all busy (as usual) system administrators, dealing with customer interrupts while trying to manage and improve IT infrastructures. The "cycle system", as Tom Limoncelli calls it, works great! For those who read "Getting things done" from David Allen, you notice a great similarity in concepts, and the truth is: it just works. If you're not yet convinced to get it, you can watch a video with Tom giving a quite detailed presentation overviewing the book's contents (check his website www.everythingsysadmin.com for details or search Google Video for the book's name). I wish every author would do the same. Follow Tom's advice and get "into" an old, boring day...