Linux Server Hacks, Volume Two

Hack #45. Prioritize Your Work

Perhaps no one in the company needs to learn good time management more than system administrators, but they are sometimes the last people to attempt to organize their work lives.

Like most system administrators, you probably find it next to impossible to keep up with the demands of your job while putting in just 40 hours a week. You find yourself working evenings and weekends just to keep up. Sometimes this is fun, as you get to work with new technologies—and let's face it, most sysadmins like computers and often work on them even in their free time. However, working 60-hour weeks, month after month, is not a good situation to be in. You'll never develop the social life you crave, and you won't be doing your company a service if you're grouchy all the time because of lack of sleep or time away. But the work keeps coming, and you just don't see how you'll ever be able to cram it all into a standard work week…which is why you need this hack about task prioritization. I know, it's not really a hack about Linux servers, but it is a hack about being a sysadmin, which means it should speak directly to everyone reading this book.

Prioritizing Tasks

Managing your tasks won't only ensure you get everything done in a timely manner. It will also help you make better predictions as to when work can be done and, more importantly, it will make your customers happier because you'll do a better job of meeting their expectations about when their requests will be met. ...