Time Management for System Administrators: Stop Working Late and Start Working Smart

by Thomas A. Limoncelli

Simple things done once. Category 1 includes most of your daily work. If it is simple and you do it only once, there is no sense in automating it. It would take longer to automate than to do the task. Hard things done once. Category 2 contains the tasks that are a bit difficult to get right the first time, and by recording the final (working) command into a script, you get a free record of how to do the task next time. If you need to do it once, you’ll need to do it again eventually. Things in this category also include multicommand sequences that are best tested one command at a time, building up until you have the entire sequence working. Then you can use the sequence with confidence that it will work. Simple things done often. Category 3 is the obvious case where automation will pay off with the most impact. The time you invest in automating the procedure will be paid off soon, since the task is one that you perform a lot. Always automate the boring, repetitive stuff. Hard things done often. Category 4 is where a lot of SAs get stuck because they have bitten off more than they can chew. This is the category where one should look into convincing management to allocate greater resources (time and money) into solving this problem. The result may be the purchase of a commercial product, integration of free and/or open source tools to accomplish the task, or development of an in-house solution.