Re: [SAGE] Respondents needed for article on sysadmin survival

[Mason Schmitt <hr824@sunwave.net>]

On January 13, 2004 01:54 pm, Rob Kolstad wrote:
>     * How do you prioritize your tasks while keeping everyone happy?
>
>     * How can you ensure nothing important falls through the cracks?
>
>     * Are there any time-management techiques that work better than
>       others for IT admins and managers?
>
>     * What tricks are there to dodge technical problems and interruptions?
>
>     * Tips and tricks for avoiding hours of overtime every night.
>
I have some work to do before I can feel good about phoning someone up and 
giving pointers on time management ;)

However, for anyone on this list that has not heard of or read "The Practice 
of System and Network Management" by Tom Limoncelli and Christine Hogan, I 
heartily recommend it.  This is an amazing book that covers what sysadmins 
do, why they do it, and gets into a bit of the philosophy of the profession 
as well as techniques for better managing time, dealing with managers, 
customers, the rest of the team, etc.  The front and back covers of my copy 
are starting to get a bit ragged, as I almost always have this book close at 
hand.

As for the last item, avoiding hours of overtime every night, my answer is to 
move to a new way of managing my network.  For any of you that have not heard 
infrastructures.org and the paper "Bootstrapping an Infrastructure" both are 
an excellent introduction to a different view of systems as "enterprise 
virtual machines" rather than discreet computers managed with, what the paper 
refers to as, "adhoc" tools.  It's a wonderful paradigm shift that I expect 
to give huge returns in my network.

Mason