ramblings of a {sys,net}admin…

Recently, I have been — often without realizing it at the time — doing a lot of reflection and reassessment about myself. Only during the last few days have I realized what I was doing. I am now officially committing myself to do some of the things I’ve been meaning to for quite a while as well as “getting my priorities straight”.

Getting organized is at the top of my list. For as long as I can remember, I have always been one to write things down and/or “make lists”. I usually have so many things going on in both my private and work lives that I have to — if I don’t, I’ll forget things. I’m also guilty of using my Inbox as a task list, which is a bad thing. For the past year and a half or so, I have gotten fairly involved with “Getting Things Done“. “GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them somewhere. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done, and can concentrate on actually performing those tasks. What distinguishes GTD from other time- or action-management systems is the idea of grouping tasks by the context (defined as a place or set of available resources) in which they are to be performed.” (–Wikipedia).

About the same time I started getting involved with the GTD methodology, I picked up a copy of “Time Management for System Administrators” by Thomas A. Limoncelli. I was able to relate tremendously to the book — I’m a system administrator as was Mr. Limoncelli. The book outlined the unique aspects of a sysadmin’s daily work life and ways for a syadmin to become better organized. “Time Management for System Administrators” was the first book I’ve read cover-to-cover in a number of years. The things it talked about really hit home and I was determined to put them into practice. And I did. For a while. Then I quit.

It wasn’t a conscious decision to stop, it just happened slowly over time. Over the last week I’ve really been devoting myself to becoming better organized and most of that centers around GTD. I’ve spent countless hours trying out and evaluating a number of online, web-based systems that are designed around GTD: Vitalist (I have a premium account), Toodledo, and Remember the Milk (RTM). I also took the time to install Tracks on a test box at work, but wasn’t all that happy with it. I think I’ve finally decided on RTM — both for its features and because it has a nice API. I currently have 42 tasks entered into RTM, 30 of which are active (i.e. “uncompleted”). I currently have RTM set up to send me a once-per-day reminder e-mail of all my tasks due that day, and I get notifications via Twitter as well. If I can just stick with it, I think it’ll help tremendously.

Continuing my education is the next thing on my list. I currently have somewhere around 69 credit hours completed and have decided I want to continue my education. I’ve decided on pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology from Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio (home of the Ohio Linuxfest). I’ve spoken to the folks there and every one of my 69 credits will transfer, which is awesome! For the classes I have to complete, a number of them can be taken at my local Community College and Franklin will give me credit towards the B.S. The remainder have to be completed through Franklin, of course. I know firsthand that working full-time and attending school part-time is not the easiest thing in the world to do — especially when I also teach and volunteer for some non-profits in my “spare” time. It will simply come down to being able to effectively managing my time, which goes back to GTD (above). It might be a little on the optimistic side, but I’m confident that I can complete the B.S. in three years. I’ve reviewed the requirements, completed all the necessary paperwork, and have a telephone appointment with a “Student Services Associate” at 2pm on Tuesday to finish things up. At that time, I’ll get signed up for the first course, PF321, “Learning Strategies”. I’ll begin in January.

Obviously, my job is still a priority of mine as well. I don’t spend every waking moment of my “free time” VPN’d in and working on things like I used to, but I still love my job and (a majority of) the people I work with. Building on my skillset is something that I want to continue doing as well, to benefit both myself and my employer. In that regard, I have plans to also add to the list of certifications that I have and will probably start by completing the requirements of the MCSA (I’m already an MCP).

I’ve also made a conscious decision to pay off some of my debt. I don’t have a lot of it, but I usually look at my bills, see what the minimum payment is, double it and round off. I could pay things off a lot faster than I have been — it’s just a matter of doing it, which hasn’t really been a priority for me. That said, I’ve decided to cut down on some of “leisure activities” and put the money towards the debt. Tuition at Franklin will be much higher than at the local Community College (where my tuition is paid for), so that’s another bill I’ll have that I don’t have now. I put together a “Net Worth Worksheet” and have set some pretty realistic goals with regard to my finances. Christmas is getting close, though, and I always blow lots of money this time of the year… maybe I’ll wait until January to start on this. =)

Oh, and I sold my motorcycle too. I’ll miss it, but to be quite honest, I’d probably just end up getting killed on the damn thing. That wouldn’t really be good.

Aside from all of this, I have took the time to take some goals that I’ve had (many of them for years) and put them down on paper where I can review it often. Keeping those sorts of things fresh in my mind is the only way to keep myself motivated towards completing them. The months ahead will definitely be interesting, that’s for sure…

Perhaps a year or so ago, I discovered the book “Time Management for System Administrators” and, after reading just a few pages, could definitely relate. It is the first book that I read cover to cover in the last several years. Newly motivated, I began implementing some of the things that Limoncelli wrote about.

Now, several months later, I find myself again in the same spot. My interest in “Getting Things Done” seems to come and go. Having recently taken the time to sit down, evaluate a number of things in my life, and making some decisions, I know that I will have even less time in the near future to get done all of the things I need to do. It is time, once again, for me to focus on getting organized and making the most efficient use of my time.

One thing that I remember from “Time Management for System Administrators” was unsubscribing from mailing lists. Like most other sysadmins, I’m a member of a large number of mailing lists, both at work and at home (though there’s a very blurry line between the two). At work, there’s only a few mailing lists I could really remove myself from without affecting my job (and those are very low traffic as well). My “personal” e-mail address is subscribed to a number of mailing lists, however — I intentionally keep my work address off of “non-work” mailing lists (even though some of them are definitely related to work: security lists, “new version” announcements, etc.).

A good example would be the Fedora Project mailing lists. I’m a Fedora Ambassador but, to be quite honest, I don’t really do much in that regard. I set up a Fedora booth at the IU Linuxfest and have mailed out a number of Fedora CDs and DVDs as a part of the Fedora Free Media Program. I promote and use Fedora in the courses that I teach and to the other folks who have to work around me. Other than that, however, I don’t do much else and yet I am still subscribed to a number of mailing lists related to this, even though I delete probably 75% of the e-mails from those lists without even reading them. In an effort to save a few moments out of my day, therefore, I just unsubscribed from every “non-essential” Fedora mailing list.

This is nothing against Fedora, of course. It’s simply a matter of time (literally!). Fedora just happens to stick out as the majority of e-mail to my “personal” account is from those lists. There are a number of other lists that I’m on that I don’t really need to be, and those will be going away as well. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a number of unsubscribe requests to confirm.

43 Folders is Merlin Mann’s family of websites about stuff like personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life a little better. A lot of the content on the site is geared towards Getting Things Done, an action management method of The David Allen Company, and the title of the book which describes the method by David Allen. On July 23rd, Mann gave a Tech Talk entitled “Inbox Zero” to Google employees at Mountain View.

“Clearly, the problem of email overload is taking a toll on all our time, productivity, and sanity, mainly because most of us lack a cohesive system for processing our messages and converting them into appropriate actions as quickly as possible.”

Google made the presentation available as a video so that all of us can watch and learn. The presentation is just over 30 minutes long, followed by Q&A. If you’re struggling with an overflowing mailbox (I am), take the time to watch the presentation to learn how to develop a system for processing your e-mail quickly and efficiently.

Be sure to also check out Merlin’s recap of a series of articles called “Becoming an Email Ninja“.

Web Worker Daily has a great write-up entitled “7 Rules for Communicating Clearly and Concisely in E-mail” that I wish everyone in my company would read. =)

As email is the prevalent form of communication for many web workers, it’s gotten a lot of attention: how to handle your email, how to empty your inbox, email etiquette, and more.

But perhaps not enough time is spent learning about how to communicate with email. And more specifically, how to communicate clearly and concisely, two crucial aspects of communication that are often overlooked.

Among other things, I wish people would stop sending me e-mails that say nothing but “thanks”. I know they don’t want to seem ungrateful or unappreciative of whatever it is I’ve done for them, but seriously, that’d be 10 less e-mails a day I have to take the time to read, only to delete immediately afterwards.

Recently, Borders was running a special where they were giving a 25% discount to “educators”. I’m not (technically) faculty, but I provide support for and work closely with them (showing the clerk my business card — with the College logo on it — was good enough for him). I stopped in, browsed around, and ended up flipping through a copy of “Time Management for System Administrators“. I went ahead and bought it; it’s been a pretty good read so far.

I’m not going to focus on the book so much, but there are (what seem to be) some very good ideas and concepts presented within. One of the key things it talks about is your “organizer”, whether that’s a PDA, a pad of paper, or a leather-bound daily planner. Then, today, I somehow stumbled across “DIY Planner“, which has templates that you can print out and use in lieu of purchasing your own commercially-made planner.

I don’t think I’ll be giving up my Blackberry anytime soon, since it goes literally everywhere with me (I’ve been known to answer it in the shower), but I’m sure this will come in handy for numerous others (many people I work with prefer to keep a “dead tree” organizer).

I’ll update you on the book as I make it further through it, but so far it seems that it’s definitely worth the money (especially since $boss told me to turn in my receipt and he’d reimburse me for it!).

I just read a somewhat interesting blog post by rmorril entitled Lack of IT Skills = Job Burnout over at ITtoolbox.

To be honest, most of it was rather uninteresting, but one paragraph in particular caught my attention:

“IT workers who are implementing new technology need to have the training to make it happen, or the project will stand a long-term chance of poor adoption or outright failure. Within that concept of failure should be considered the loss of key employees who implemented the technology, or quit at critical times during the implementation phase of the technology. Most workers leave when work stress begins to impact their regular lives, or they find that they are not getting the support or recognition they need or think they deserve. Stacking the deck against an IT worker when implementing new technology by not training on the new technology will impair the workers ability to complete the task effectively, or lead to burn out.”

Yeah, I can see that…

I wish I could remember where I first seen this so that I could give appropriate credit, but there’s an article on the Microsoft web site entitled 4 Ways to Take Control of Your E-mail Inbox.

If you’re like me, you get A LOT of e-mail on a daily basis. I’ve been at work a whole two days, I think, in the last two weeks and I haven’t hardly read any of it. I imagine when I get back to the office (on Tuesday), I’ll spend at least the first day simply catching up on e-mail.

I’m one who usually reads e-mails as they come in, just to see if they’re important, but then usually close them thinking “I’ll take care of that later.” Then I usually don’t get back to it for a day or two, when there’s a bit of a “lull” — or until the original sender “reminds” me about it.

Anyways, I think this is a pretty good article and I’m going to print it out and stick it on my bulletin board in my office so that maybe I’ll remember how to keep control of my mail.

I just came across The 10 Beliefs of Great Managers over at Lifehack and thought I’d put up a link to the article.

The article describes “qualities” of great managers. An interesting read, if you ask me (says he who has the greatest boss in the world).

For a couple of thousand years, smokers have sought a quick concentration boost by firing up a cigarette.

It turns out that cognitive buzz isn’t just in smokers’ heads. Scientists have found that nicotine really does boost certain transmitters in the brain that can help people think better. Now, the pharmaceutical industry hopes to improve on the effect, minus the lung cancer.

Earlier this summer, biopharmaceutical company Targacept reported that a compound called ispronicline acted like nicotine to increase memory and concentration in elderly test subjects. Targacept next plans to test the drug on people with Alzheimer’s disease.

If successful, ispronicline will be at the head of a whole new class of drugs that target neuronal nicotinic receptors. The receptors, found on nerve cells in the brain, respond to two chemicals: acetylcholine, which is found naturally in the brain, and nicotine.

Read original article…