Time Management for System Administrators [Kindle Edition]

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 system. He also tells you how to get into Disneyland and ride all the rides without waiting in line, and how to minimize the time you spend walking around the video store looking for something to rent.

Anyway, I need to cut this short; I'm supposed to be packing for a trip to a weeklong conference, and my girlfriend just called to remind me that we were supposed to see a movie tonight, and -- well, you know.

Incidentally, anyone who runs computers for a living should also own, read, and re-read The Practice of System and Network Administration. Buy it now if you haven't already. Also buy it for your staff, your peers, and your boss. If you don't have time to do that now, add it to your to-do list. You do have a to-do list, don't you?

One of my fellow admins sent me the Amazon link to this page, and I promptly sent it to our manager. The next day, a copy arrived. I read half of it in one sitting, and the second half in the next sitting. Then I told our manager to order ten more.

It really is that good. Limoncelli focuses on building good habits designed to take the pain out of chores that everybody hates. He's a big advocate of combining your work and personal priorities, to prevent the former from taking over the latter. To take back your work time is to take back your personal time, too -- something we ALL need to do in light of the unhealthy, self-sacrificial corporate demands running rampant in our culture.

Limoncelli knows that there's no better way to decrease stress than to exert more control over your own schedule, something systems administrators desperately need. This book will make admins AND their bosses much happier. I wish I'd had it earlier in my career.

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 every task, but you do manage every task. Even if it is only to push it off for another day. That's a powerful bit of trickery when you have experienced what he calls "the Ever-Growing To Do List of Doom."

I won't adopt Tom's approach to email; I do use a huge chunk of disk space, mostly full of 'dead' messages. That's cheap extra brain storage for me, and I think that's in the spirit of his book. Let the email store do my remembering, my paa do my organizing, and leave my brain free for the things that can't be done with other tools.

I appreciate the section on automating/scripting - some specifics there that will pay off for me.

The part of the book that gives me the most trouble so far is in setting (measurable) goals. I can see that a lot of good will come from taking a longer view of my life and career. It's just really hard for me to think strategically. I'll get back to it.

Finally, I was struck by the humane tone of the book. Tom urges us to apply these approaches to actually having a life. Sysadmins blend work and play/home life to a degree most professions don't. So it makes sense for us (maybe for everyone) to be efficient. His approach gives us a place to carve out space and time for personal lives and professional growth. The workplace has gotten harsher in the last 20 years; it's nice that someone is pulling for us.

Thanks, Tom, for another awesome book.