New Book, A Real Time Saver

Now there are a lot of books about time management and organization skills out on the market. Heck, my wife is a professional organization and time management consultant. So a lot of these books are lying around the house and I've skimmed through a bunch of them. Funny, though, I never got the idea to merge the skills needed for efficiently managing your time with the IT discipline. But Thomas A. Limoncelli did - and he does an admirable job of communicating the skills, tasks, and processes necessary to become a more efficient admin.

I know that the bulk of my readers are DBAs or deal with databases in some way. And this book has "System Administrator" right in the title. But don't let that dissuade you. The book is applicable to DBAs as much as it is to system administrators.

By adopting Limoncelli's "Cycle System," which he explains thoroughly in the book, you can more effectively juggle you to-do list, manage your calendar, and set appropriate goals. Even more important, you can track your progress toward reaching those goals. The author covers topics that are near and dear to any techie's heart, such as how to manage stress, how to prioritize tasks, tips for better dealing with e-mail, and how to eliminate things that waste your time.

There are even chapters covering documentation and automation; and most of use probably don't do the former properly and wish we had more time to set up the latter. Perhaps by applying the principles found in Time Management for System Administrators you can correct that situation.

If you're still not convinced that this book can help to change your life, consider this bit of advice taken verbatim from the book's Epilogue:

Go home after you've worked 40 hours in a week. 
Be as loyal to your employer as it is to you. 
Go home 8 hours after you've arrived each day 
or after working 40 hours a week.