Time Management for System Administrators By Thomas A. Limoncelli ............................................... Publisher: O'Reilly Pub Date: November 2005 ISBN: 0-596-00783-3 Pages: 226 Table of Contents | Index Time is a precious commodity, especially if you're a system administrator. No other job pulls people in so many directions at once. Users interrupt you constantly with requests, preventing you from getting anything done. Your managers want you to get long-term projects done but flood you with requests for quick-fixes that prevent you from ever getting to those long-term projects. But the pressure is on you to produce and it only increases with time. What do you do? The answer is time management. And not just any time management theory--you want Time Management for System Administrators, to be exact. With keen insights into the challenges you face as a sys admin, bestselling author Thomas Limoncelli has put together a collection of tips and techniques that will help you cultivate the time management skills you need to flourish as a system administrator. Time Management for System Administrators understands that an Sys Admin often has competing goals: the concurrent responsibilities of working on large projects and taking care of a user's needs. That's why it focuses on strategies that help you work through daily tasks, yet still allow you to handle critical situations that inevitably arise. Among other skills, you'll learn how to: Manage interruptions Eliminate timewasters Keep an effective calendar Develop routines for things that occur regularly Use your brain only for what you're currently working on Prioritize based on customer expectations Document and automate processes for faster execution What's more, the book doesn't confine itself to just the work environment, either. It also offers tips on how to apply these time management tools to your social life. It's the first step to a more productive, happier you. Time Management for System Administrators By Thomas A. Limoncelli ............................................... Publisher: O'Reilly Pub Date: November 2005 ISBN: 0-596-00783-3 Pages: 226 Table of Contents | Index Copyright About the Author Foreword Preface How to Read This Book Audience About This Book Assumptions This Book Makes Conventions Used in This Book Using Code Examples We'd Like to Hear from You Safari® Enabled Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Time Management Principles Section 1.1. What's So Difficult About Time Management? Section 1.2. The Principles of Time Management for SAs Section 1.3. It Won't Be Easy Section 1.4. Summary Chapter 2. Focus Versus Interruptions Section 2.1. The Focused Brain Section 2.2. An Environment to Encourage Focus Section 2.3. Interruptions Section 2.4. Directing Interruptions Away from You Section 2.5. You Can Say "Go Away" Without Being a Jerk Section 2.6. Summary Chapter 3. Routines Section 3.1. Sample Routines Section 3.2. How to Develop Your Own Routines Section 3.3. Deleting Old Routines Section 3.4. Summary Chapter 4. The Cycle System Section 4.1. Don't Trust Your Brain Section 4.2. Why Other Systems Fail Section 4.3. Systems That Succeed Section 4.4. The Cycle Section 4.5. Summary Chapter 5. The Cycle System: To Do Lists and Schedules Section 5.1. A Sample Day Section 5.2. Other Tips Section 5.3. Setting Up a PAA for Use with The Cycle Section 5.4. Setting Up a PDA for Use with The Cycle Section 5.5. Summary Chapter 6. The Cycle System: Calendar Management Section 6.1. How to Use Your Calendar Section 6.2. One Calendar for Business and Social Life Section 6.3. Repeating Tasks Section 6.4. Know Your Personal Rhythms Section 6.5. Know Your Company's Rhythms Section 6.6. Summary Chapter 7. The Cycle System: Life Goals Section 7.1. The Secret Trick Section 7.2. Setting Goals Section 7.3. Planning Your Next Steps Section 7.4. Schedule the Steps Section 7.5. Revisit Your Goals Regularly Section 7.6. Summary Chapter 8. Prioritization Section 8.1. Prioritizing Your To Do Lists Section 8.2. Project Priorities Section 8.3. Requests from Your Boss Section 8.4. Summary Chapter 9. Stress Management Section 9.1. Overload and Conflicting Directions Section 9.2. Vacation Time Section 9.3. Yoga, Meditation, and Massage Section 9.4. Summary Chapter 10. Email Management Section 10.1. Managing Your Email Section 10.2. Jump Starting the Process Section 10.3. Summary Chapter 11. Eliminating Time Wasters Section 11.1. What Is a Time Waster? Section 11.2. Avoiding the Tempting Time Wasters Section 11.3. Common Time Wasters Section 11.4. Wasteful Meetings Section 11.5. Strategic Versus Tactical Section 11.6. Summary Chapter 12. Documentation Section 12.1. Document What Matters to You Section 12.2. Wiki Technology Section 12.3. Summary Chapter 13. Automation Section 13.1. What to Automate? Section 13.2. How to Automate Section 13.3. Simple Things Done Often Section 13.4. Hard Things Done Once Section 13.5. Letting Others Do Privileged Operations Section 13.6. Summary Epilogue What to Do with All Your "New" Free Time? Colophon Index Time Management for System Administrators by Thomas A. Limoncelli Copyright © 2006 O'Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. User Friendly comics Copyright © 2005 J.D. "Illiad" Frazer. Printed in the United States of America. Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. O'Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles (safari.oreilly.com). For more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or [email protected]. Editors: Mike Loukides and David Brickner Production Editor: Marlowe Shaeffer Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery Interior Designer: David Futato Printing History November 2005: First Edition. Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O'Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O'Reilly Media, Inc. Time Management for System Administrators, the image of a wolverine, and related trade dress are trademarks of O'Reilly Media, Inc. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O'Reilly Media, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. ISBN: 0-596-00783-3 [M] About the Author Thomas A. Limoncelli is an internationally respected author and speaker on many topics, including system administration, networking, and security. A system administrator since 1988, he now speaks at conferences around the world on topics ranging from firewall security to time management. He has worked for Cibernet, Dean For America, Lumeta, Bell Labs/Lucent, AT&T, and Mentor Graphics. He and Christine Hogan co-authored The Practice of System and Network Administration (Addison Wesley). He holds a B.A. in Computer Science from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. He publishes a blog on www.EverythingSysadmin.com. Foreword Note to self: Dear Self, (because what else are you going to say?) Remember to upgrade the LDAP server. Remember to patch the security hole in zlib and every other package that links to it. (On second thought, are there packages that don't link to it?) Remember to plan for another 10x upgrade in storage capacity. Remember to debug the boss's Outlook problems or, at the very least, have the necessary goat entrails on hand to begin the process. Remember to redo the Oracle installation. See if there are any Wikis that would work better than the one we are using. Rewrite the user account system, and this time make sure it deals with the cases they swore would never occur in the physical world. Be sure that it is Sarbanes-Oxley compliant, ISO9000 certified, and Kosher l'Pesach. Check that your staff's projects are all humming along nicely. Read the LISA conference proceedings from the last two years to make sure you aren't missing anything useful for your infrastructure. Then, if you have time left over, start planning what you are going to do next week. No, the fact that "plan a vacation" didn't hit the list again for the 73rd consecutive week shouldn't bother you. Nor should the incident where your spouse literally tipped over laughing after hearing you were going to write a foreword for a time management book. Or should it? Perhaps you should just take heart in the Henry Kissinger quote, "There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full." Well, anyway. Got to get back to work. Yours in Service, me Does this sound familiar to you (well, besides the spouse part, which really did happen to me)? Tom's first book, co-written with Christine Hogan (now Lear), has become a seminal work in the sysadmin field. The Practice of System and Network Administration does a superb job of telling you how to build a sane and organized infrastructure by following a number of best practices. But there's only one chapter in that tome that tells you how to keep yourself sane and organized during this process. That's where this book comes in. But why do sysadmins need their own time management book? I know I've read my fair share of generic texts on this subject over the years. In this book, Tom does an excellent job of nailing the facets of the job that make time management particularly tricky for our profession.