System administrators have a stereotypical reputation for grumpiness and irritability. Some times this misanthropy is a cultivated pose, designed to deter casual or trivial requests that would take time away from more important activities like playing nethack and reading netnews. More often, however, sysadmins are disgruntled simply because they can’t seem to make any headway on the dozens of items clogging up their todo lists. If you’re an example of the latter case, you may find some help in Time Management for System Administrators, the new book from Thomas Limoncelli (who you may recognize as one of the co-authors of the classic The Practice of System and Network Administration).

This slim book (only 226pp) packs a large amount of helpful information about making better use of your time at work, so that you can make some headway on at least some of those tasks that have piled up around you, while still managing to have a life outside of work. One of Limoncelli’s main points is that sysadmins have to develop some way of effectively dealing with the constant stream of interruptions in their life if they’re going to accomplish anything. The other point is that they also need a good tracking system to make sure they don’t lose track of new, incoming requests in the process of dealing with existing ones. The book continually reinforces these two points, and presents several alternative, complementary ways to accomplish them.

The first three chapters deal with high-level, generic issues: principles of time management, managing interruptions, and developing checklists and routines to help deal with the chaos of day-to-day system administration. The middle third of the book details how to use “the cycle system”, Limoncelli’s task management plan for sysadmins. Basically, it’s a hybrid between Franklin-Covey A-B-C prioritization and day planning and David Allen GTD-style todo lists, with a few sysadmin-specific tweaks thrown in. The final chapters of the book address a grab-bag of issues: task prioritization, stress management, dealing with the flood of email that all admins seem to get, identifying and eliminating the time sinks in your environment, and documenting and automating your work-flow.

In general, I think this is a great book for sysadmins that are looking to begin addressing time management problems. People that have already done some investigation of time management techniques (like the aforementioned Franklin-Covey and GTD systems) may find less value here — but I still think the book will be interesting, especially the chapters detailing the workings of “the cycle system”. Personally, after reading this book, I don’t see any reason to move away from my modified GTD system, but I have gone back to using some daily checklists, which are helping me keep on top of my repeating tasks a lot better. I suspect that any working sysadmin will take away at least two or three productivity-enhancing tips from this book.

Happy Chanakwaneidxmastice to everybody — things are going to go quiet here for the rest of the year; we’ll catch you on the other side.

After the DCLUG meeting last night, I went to Metro home and discovered that the Dupont Circle statiot had lost power. Trains were still running, but there weren’t very many lights. I tried to get some pictures, but this is the only one that ended up being worth looking at — low-light handheld stuff is beyond my capabilities with the small point-and-shoot, I guess.

I’m giving a talk on CfEngine at the DCLUG meeting tomorrow night; details are here. Stop by if you’re interested in configuration automation or sysadmin-type stuff; I hope to be interesting or at the very least, informative.

UPDATE: Here are my slides.

A couple of hipster PDA mentions that I’ve noticed recently. First, in shark-jumping news, US News & World Report discovers the lifehack “movement”:

Have you heard the term “life hacking”? That’s the newest techno jargon, and it means coming up with ways to reclaim your time.

Ironically–and yet aptly–some of the best advice for cutting through digital clutter comes from self-described “geeks.” You know, the folks who got us in this mess in the first place. Many of them have set up websites to disseminate their wisdom.

Second, a columnist from the Great White North says enough already:

If there’s a quibble (oh, I’ll quibble alright) it’s with the site’s rallying symbol, the Hipster PDA. Basically any type of paper fixed together through any means (paperclips, staples, very thin rocks), is suddenly cool. And instead of calling it “paper fixed together,” it’s called “the Hipster PDA”; it’s cool like the kid at the comic convention with the Star Trek t-shirt AND the Luke Skywalker lunch box. Enough already - we get that paper is cool.

That was a fairly quick fifteen minutes, all things considered.

In the continuing slow-motion explosion of SnoopGate, we find:

• The moderator of the Cryptography mailing list says the President violated the law and endangered the future of the Republic:
  

  There is no room for doubt or question about whether the President has the prerogative to order surveillance without asking the FISC — even if the FISC is a toothless organization that never turns down requests, it is a federal crime, punishable by up to five years imprisonment, to conduct electronic surveillance against US citizens without court authorization.

  The FISC may be worthless at defending civil liberties, but in its arrogant disregard for even the fig leaf of the FISC, the administration has actually crossed the line into a crystal clear felony. The government could have legally conducted such wiretaps at any time, but the President chose not to do it legally.

  Ours is a government of laws, not of men. That means if the President disagrees with a law or feels that it is insufficient, he still must obey it. Ignoring the law is illegal, even for the President. The President may ask Congress to change the law, but meanwhile he must follow it.

  Our President has chosen to declare himself above the law, a dangerous precedent that could do great harm to our country. However, without substantial effort on the part of you, and I mean you, every person reading this, nothing much is going to happen. The rule of law will continue to decay in our country. Future Presidents will claim even greater extralegal authority, and our nation will fall into despotism. I mean that sincerely. For the sake of yourself, your children and your children’s children, you cannot allow this to stand.

  Call your Senators and your Congressman. Demand a full investigation, both by Congress and by a special prosecutor, of the actions of the Administration and the NSA. Say that the rule of law is all that stands between us and barbarism. Say that we live in a democracy, not a kingdom, and that our elected officials are not above the law. The President is not a King. Even the President cannot participate in a felony and get away with it. Demand that even the President must obey the law.

  (via boing boing)

• Our Vice President is telling blatant lies and getting away with it.
• AmericaBlog points out that this means the Second Amendment is just as dead as the Fourth — alert the gun nuts NRA members in your life. (via Medley’s Furl-stream.)
• JWZ breaks down the post-Bush impeachment succession order and discovers it’s all bad, all the way down the line.
• Finally, Talking Points Memo and Political Animal are both speculating that the underlying reason for the secrecy over this program, and the reason why it wasn’t presented to Congress in the first place, is because it involves wholesale screening of electronic communication — i.e., the NSA reading everyone’s email. Time to bust out that GPG Howto, or maybe turn your holiday celebration into a keysigning party.

TheChild loves nothing more than sitting down at the end table with a good book and a tall glass of milk.

Dear del.icio.us:

I see that you’re still feeling a bit under the weather. I hope you feel better soon.

Here are some things I would have fed you over the past few days, had you been able to eat them:

• Catalyst Authentication/Authorization
• Catalyst Sessions
• Catalyst::View::TT
• Catalyst Testing
• Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::Store::DBIC
• Overview of the Prototype Javascript Library
• Quick Guide to Prototype

Again, hope you’re feeling better soon. I miss you.

Yr internet pal,
genehack.

Or at least the end for now, because there are lots of things I should be doing instead of procrastinating with this shiny new toy…

Let’s see if things don’t work a bit better now that I’ve set up a custom template…