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Time Management for System Administrators
Posted by
samzenpus
on Fri Feb 10, 2006 02:05 PM
from the slipping-into-the-future dept.
from the slipping-into-the-future dept.
genehack writes "System administrators have a stereotypical reputation for grumpiness and irritability. Sometimes this misanthropy is a cultivated pose, designed to deter casual or trivial requests that would take time away from more important activities like playing nethack and reading netnews. More often, however, sysadmins are disgruntled simply because they can't seem to make any headway on the dozens of items clogging up their todo lists. If you're an example of the latter case, you may find some help in Time Management for System Administrators, the new book from Thomas Limoncelli (who you may recognize as one of the co-authors of the classic The Practice of System and Network Administration). Read the rest of genehack's review.
This slim book (only 226pp) packs a large amount of helpful information about making better use of your time at work, so that you can make some headway on at least some of those tasks that have piled up around you, while still managing to have a life outside of work. One of Limoncelli's main points is that sysadmins have to develop some way of effectively dealing with the constant stream of interruptions in their life if they're going to accomplish anything. The other point is that they also need a good tracking system to make sure they don't lose track of new, incoming requests in the process of dealing with existing ones. The book continually reinforces these two points, and presents several alternative, complementary ways to accomplish them.
The first three chapters deal with high-level, generic issues: principles of time management, managing interruptions, and developing checklists and routines to help deal with the chaos of day-to-day system administration. The middle third of the book details how to use "the cycle system", Limoncelli's task management plan for sysadmins. Basically, it's a hybrid between Franklin-Covey A-B-C prioritization and day planning and David Allen GTD-style todo lists, with a few sysadmin-specific tweaks thrown in. The final chapters of the book address a grab-bag of issues: task prioritization, stress management, dealing with the flood of email that all admins seem to get, identifying and eliminating the time sinks in your environment, and documenting and automating your work-flow.
In general, I think this is a great book for sysadmins that are looking to begin addressing time management problems. People that have already done some investigation of time management techniques (like the aforementioned Franklin-Covey and GTD systems) may find less value here -- but I still think the book will be interesting, especially the chapters detailing the workings of "the cycle system". Personally, after reading this book, I don't see any reason to move away from my modified GTD system, but I have gone back to using some daily checklists, which are helping me keep on top of my repeating tasks a lot better. I suspect that any working sysadmin will take away at least two or three productivity-enhancing tips from this book."
You can purchase Time management tips for sysdadmins from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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More time to throw away (Score:3, Funny)
Re:More time to throw away (Score:2)
Re:More time to throw away (Score:2)
Seriously, the book comes with a trial for O'Reilly's Safari. I found that reading the PDF, I finished the book in a weekend, while had I cracked the physical pages it would have taken me longer. I was able to keep the Safari window (no relation to Apple's browser, I'm on a PC =-P) in a Firefox tab and flip back to the book when I had a 5-10 minute break, or even instead of checking my non-work email. Now, what to do with all this spare time...
Re:More time to throw away (Score:3, Funny)
It's about Russia.
Some tips (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, I think a lot of places do this now. At the time, it seemed new and it worked and continues to work well. It will even work when you have 2 sysadmins, probably the optimum is to have about 4 because if you have any more than that, you lose your rhythm with what is going on with the company a bit.
Re:Some tips (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Some tips (Score:2)
All fixed. Thats assuming your user is as versed in unix as he appears to be.
Re:Some tips (Score:2)
http://publib16.boulder.ibm.com/pseries/en_US/cmd
Re:Some tips (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Some tips (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Some tips (Score:2, Interesting)
- Use your ticketing system instead of filing requests via email
- Use your ticketing system instead of walking up to your cube and bothering you
- Not walk up to your cube at all
- Not mail specific/favourite admins specifically for specific requests
*sigh* If only HR wouldn't throw a fit if I replaced the plastic battleaxe on my cube wal
Re:Some tips (Score:2)
Haha, that's like how we named it the stick. We needed something visually to use to show who was the stick each week. The first thing that we used was a plunger. Although I think the stick name came first. POC wasn't really a commonly used term until later I think.
Re:Some tips (Score:2, Insightful)
One task at a time... (Score:4, Interesting)
Quiet, I'm working! (Score:3, Insightful)
"Hey, the network guys are seeing some suspicious traffic - "
"Later."
"Hey, our loads are skyrocketing - "
"Later."
"Hey, our front-end web servers have just crashed - "
"Later."
"Hey, the director of systems administration would like to speak with you - "
"Later."
"Hey, security's coming over - "
"Later."
"Sir, we'll need you to come with us."
"La - "
Re:Quiet, I'm working! (Score:2)
The most important lesson of time management (Score:5, Insightful)
The commitment required is not insubstantial. You will have to overcome years of bad habits.
It's not insurmountable, but don't think that by reading this (or any of the other books... I prefer 7 Habits myself) that you have learned time management. Reading the book is only the first step in a long journey.
It is worth it though. And I recommend it to anybody, especially to people who think their lives are so interrupt-driven that they couldn't possibly benefit from time menagement. Guess what? You're the folks who will benefit the most.
Re:The most important lesson of time management (Score:2)
Also, winkydink is right about learning time management, or really abo
Re:The most important lesson of time management (Score:2)
*to my Dell C810* Be an AMD 64! Be an AMD 64! Be an AMD 64!
Typical sysadmin schedule... (Score:2, Funny)
10 hours.. on phone with people that don't speak english even though they're 'support' for American companies
2 hours.. drooling over computer parts with coworkers
2 hours.. 'rigging' cute females' computers with problems
10 hours.. Slashdot and other forums
2 hours.. porn
4 hours.. blaming all problems on lack of hardware budget
8 hours.. being condescending to coworkers who make more money than them
1 hour.. fixing computer problems
All overtime is spent eat
Re:Typical sysadmin schedule... (Score:2)
2 hours.. porn
You have built up quit the tolerance, if it takes 24mins a day for your "fix".
Just how many years have you been on this schedule, Dr Jerkinstein?
Re:Typical sysadmin schedule... (Score:2)
Re:Typical sysadmin schedule... (Score:3, Funny)
Please come to my office.
Your Boss
Show of Hands (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, the irony.
I'm sort of like this (Score:2)
Today I just closed 5 of those. Some of the tickets were sitting there for almost 2 weeks.
They're not critical and I'm usually either not in the mood to close them right there or I'm in
Obvious solutions (Score:2)
Setup a filter to send certain e-mails to your junk box.
I find that filtering the words "help," "questoin,"* and "problem" works quite well.
This one is kind of obvious guys and girls... Hint, if you're reading this, go back to work.
*Yes, I misspelled this by accident, but so do a lot of people. Question. See, I can spell it correctly if i want to.
Works for me! (Score:3, Interesting)
As the reviewer said it may be less valuable for those of you that are already doing something like this. And I'm not taking everything it says as gospel. But you could do a hell of a lot worse than to pick up this book, inhale it several times over a weekend (it's short), and start using what it teaches.
And hey, he co-wrote The Practice of System and Network Administration, another excellent book. I'll take a look at anything he's got to show.
one way.. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Browse the net all day doing as little real work as possible. Take requests from users and wait 4 hours before doing each one. Keep a list of requests and check-off things as you do them, every once in a while getting embarassed because you didn't keep your word.
2) Do all requests right away. Answer all phone messages and emails right away. Get every request done in basically the time it took plus the 15 mins it took to finish what you were doing.
Method 2 was way better. The work ethic it takes is catchy too, and the whole company benefits. Both methods take the same exact amount of work, but with method 2 you don't wait . After two years like this, I was down to spending only 25% of the time on user jobs. ie) waiting time of zero for new jobs to get started. In my spare time I trained and programmed for the users eventually going from maintaining to writting apps.
You can be a solution or a problem, its up to you.
I just ordered it... (Score:3, Funny)
Consider the source... (Score:2, Interesting)
Your boss's job is to keep you busy. In an ideal world, your boss's job would just be to make sure x amount of work gets done and then their responsibility ends. In the real world, your boss gets fired if you're effective enough to hav
Re:Consider the source... (Score:3, Insightful)
I am extremely grateful that at my new job that I work with a team, and we're not "maxxed out" all the time. This allows us to be proactive rather than purely reactive.
Well it changed my life (Score:4, Insightful)
I realize to people who've had time management classes some of it might seem redundant. I would suggest that before you disregard the book, you at least go to the bookstore and skim the forward and maybe even the first chapter. The author makes a point about time managements systems and courses in general, and how they generally don't fully apply to systems administrators (from his personal experience in taking those courses and reading those books).
In particular, I found the section about interrupt shielding very important.
Also the idea of prioritizing task items along "perceived" priorities. That is, if you have two tasks that are at highest priority and one takes 10 minutes and the other takes 4 hours, you do the ten minute task first. There's a good chance that someone else is unable to complete something until that task is done. You still get both done in 4:10 minutes, but to the guy who was waiting on the 10 minute task, you're a hero. A great way to increase your perceived value without doing anything extra at all.
Great ways of saving time as a sysadmin (Score:4, Funny)
I'm surprised, so far no BOFHs have posted yet. Here are some ways to save time that probably haven't been mentioned in the book:
For all the humorless pedants that are about to reply saying "This will get you fired"...what was your username again?
My Review (Score:3, Interesting)
Instead I've done the next best thing, which is to write a Rails app for this, which is, of course, accessible from the Treo and just about any other place. http://www.shokk.com/Todo/ [shokk.com]
All in all, there are some very good nuggets of info concentrated into the fewer pages of this book from the whole of the previous book, which did not wholly deal with time management and had those ideas spread throughout the book.
For an idea of what the book talks about, see the video here [google.com].
Think in terms of computer science (Score:5, Interesting)
-matthew
My suggestions for anyone (Score:3, Informative)
Make a list and work from it religiously.
Work on one task at a time, context switching is very costly, various studies have proven once into a task, it can take upwards of 30 mins to get back to that same level of productive involvement after an interruption or concentration change of any sort. (This is probably the single most important change you can make)
Use asynchronous communication as much as possible, as it allows you to deal with things when you have completed something (email, IM).
Ignore your asynchronous communications while involved in a task. Don't have your client automatically check your email. Get your email when you have reached a natural break or completed what you were working on. Same with IM, put yourself 'Away' and don't look at what comes in until it is the proper time.
Tackle most difficult tasks first, break down if needed, but get the hardest things out of the way first.
Anything that you can handle totally, 100% in 5 mins or less do immediately, do not put those things off. If it is going to take longer than 5 mins, put it on the list, ranked accordingly. Again, this is avoid context switches later.
Work from a clean work area. Really no matter what you think, you will be more productive in a neat organized workspace. Read the studies, people who claimed to be more productive in a chaotic environment, were very surprised to learn that objective measurements and their own experience showed dramatic increases in productivity when forced to work from a organized, neat environment.
Practice these things, they can become invisible second nature if you actually practice them with serious self discipline in the beginning. Practice them, force yourself, you will thank me later. You will see over a 100% increase in your productivity if do all of the above. You will start succeeding in your job in ways you never thought possible if you want to, if you don't really want to, nothing is going to help, so be honest with yourself.
Regards.
Why Grumpy? (Score:2, Insightful)
How about somebody write a book to give to the USERS to help them 1) document the error message, 2) l
Users won't read the book (Score:3, Insightful)
Engage grumpy rant mode now!
It's hard to manage the time for some tasks when they are dependant upon waiting for other employees to go to lunch or go home before you can work on the resources they use - then they wonder why I'm just sitting about reading slashdot at work at 7:30pm some day - it's because I'm waiting for them to go home before I can put in an hour and a halfs work on their PC.
Some of the worst people to deal with are those user
When is it time to get *YOUR* work done? (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, for me, it seems that each person who I've helped in the past, knows that I can help them now. Regardless of how many times I say, "So and so is on-call", I get the response, "I know this will only take you a second." and if I say "Take it to the on-call" again, they go right up the food chain, claiming how "uncooperative" I am.
Anyway, I digress.
How many sys admins, sys analysts, sys engineers (whatever title your company decides to throw at you this week), get to the point, that they just want to scream, "When do I get to work on my assigned work, instead of doing your work for you?".
People will walk up all the time and lay the famous "Quick question" line, at which point I have to suppress the desire to pick up that spare Netra lying under my desk and beat them over the head with it. Sometimes, I surpise myself, and leave it there. Most of the time, I end up with it almost over the top of the desk, before they back off and leave. But seriously, I usually do end up answering their questions, and then try to get back into what I'm doing before the next interruption hits.
The problem with this methodology, is that when the end of the week hits, and your boss asks you for a status update on the one project you were assigned to, and you give them this pole-axed look, claiming to have been inundated with walk-up traffic, your boss just says, "But I thought you weren't on call this week". To which, I really don't have a good reply - other than, "It was either help them, or have them go crying to you claiming I wasn't being helpfull".
We have a help desk center, where everyone with an issue is supposed to call. For some reason, the S&D (no, this doesn't mean software and development, it's supposed to mean Support and Development) group seems to think they are above this work rule. No matter how many times we casually remind them, no matter how many carefully worded e-mails are sent out reminding them of this rule, it never stops the walk up traffic. It also doesn't seem to matter who's on call as long as the person asking the question knows that you can provide them with the answer, regardless of how many times you've given them the same answer. It's easier to ask again, than to strain your brain and remember it on your own.
For those co-workers who actually do remember to follow the rules most of the time, and do remember the answers given for longer than a day or two, I am very courteous and helpfull. For the rest of the SOBs, I'm not as forgiving, and I usually end up reminding them, quite vocally, that I've answered their question (the exact same one) multiple times in the past, and why can't they get it through their duranium alloy skulls?
Oh well - not sure where I'm going with this anymore, maybe I just felt the need to vent.
If anyone has found a chuckle here, then great. If I've offended anyone, then f-off. =D
Re:The real question.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The real question.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The real question.. (Score:3, Funny)
No matter where you click, the first square will never be a bomb
You don't have to flag all the bombs, if you can click all the empty spaces & numbered squares. Alternatively, you don't have to click all the empty spaces & numbered squares, if you flag all the bombs. It depends on how you visualize the field.
Re:The real question.. (Score:2)
<Chevy Chase>
See the bomb.... be..
be.. the bomb
</Chevy Chase>
Re:The real question.. (Score:3, Funny)
edit your winmine.ini file. Use realistic times. There's a call center out there where they're probably still trying to beat my 103 second Expert record.
Re:...I wouldn't need the talcom powder (Score:2)
Re:...I wouldn't need the talcom powder (Score:2)
Re:...I wouldn't need the talcom powder (Score:2)
For instance, some of us choose to relax by paraphrasing classic Marx Brothers jokes on Slashdot in response to book reviews, and some choose to relax by letting their heads explode in response.
The subject line should have been your fi
Re:Time Management Course (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the system admins might have been managing their time better than you. Just because the pager goes off in the middle of a meeting that doesn't mean that the server caught on fire. A pager can be a good time management tool if it can get you out of a boring meeting.
Parent
Re:Interesting... (Score:2, Funny)
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/ [theregister.co.uk]).
This has all you need to know!
Nick... Burns? (Score:2, Funny)