Time Management for System Administrators
February 9th, 2006 neteng Posted in HOWTO, Reviews |
I would like to take some time to share with you a book that has been a real eye-opener for me. I plan on taking a chapter-by-chapter review approach to give some insight on why this text has quickly become my new best friend, but first I wanted to give a brief overview of why I bought this book:
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am really, really, really good at procrastinating! “Oh, I’m too tired from work… I’ll clean my apartment tomorrow.”… tomorrow arrives… “Man, I’m just beat. I’ll clean my apartment on Saturday when I don’t have work fatigue!”… Saturday comes… “It’s the weekend! I don’t want to clean house during my fun time!” … a month down the road… “Hmmm, is carpet supposed to be sticky?”
The one thing I’ve really noticed since reading through this book is I’ve gained some major SELF-DISCIPLINE. And that really is the key to defeating procrastination. I really do want to be all that I can be and push myself to the limits, but you mean I actually have to work at it?! Yes, it is work and it’s not easy for me to maintain such discipline on a lot of issues. But by following the recommendations in this book, I’m forcing myself to break bad habits and form good habits.
Following this will be a summarization of the first chapter and key points. In each chapter overview, I hope to show how I’ve put the system to use. If anyone has their own system or tries some of the things recommended in my postings, please give me some feedback in the comments section. I would love to hear how others manage their time.
neteng
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February 10th, 2006 at 5:15 am
I’ve been trying to use the Getting Things Done methodology using the hipster (3×5″ index cards held together by a metal ring). I’ll admit I haven’t been doing a great job.
Sean
February 11th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
Ahh I’ve seen quite a bit on the web lately about the GTD method. I haven’t given it more than a cursory glance myself, so I would be very curious to see how it compares to the Cycle Method used in this book. You probably already know about this link, but here’s something from one of my regular RSS subscriptions:
http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/08/getting-started-with-getting-things-done/
At first glance from the summary, it seems to be a bit more of a structured system in and of itself. The Limoncelli book seems to be more of a general principles thing compared to the GTD method. I look forward to any comparisons you might have as I go through the chapters.
Thanks for the comment!
neteng
February 12th, 2006 at 7:02 am
Really a great book. I’m also reading it currently.
February 27th, 2006 at 7:51 am
[…] Just finished reading Time Management for System Administrators by Thomas A. Limoncelli. I highly recommend this book to every System and Network Administrator. The book is packed with really useful tips for geeks who need to address the time management issues. I agree with most of the productivity tips given in the book and discovered that I was actually following similar techniques before reading it. I’ve written a productivity related article previously called Productive Network and System Administration. Currently I’m trying some of the techniques and softwares recommended in the book. A friend of mine has started a chapter by chapter review of this book in his blog, Human Modem. I recommend you to check his site for detailed analysis and review. Here I’m listing the tools, softwares and books recommended for time management by the author: […]