Thomas Limoncelli is the author of the O’Reilly book Time Management for System Administrators and his talk at the New York Linux Users Group was less technical than most but no less important.
Every system administrator lacks the time to do everything that needs to be done. “I’m not good at time management,” Limoncelli said, “but I’ve created many coping mechanisms to deal with the problem.”
“It’s not your fault,” he added.
Part of the problem is evolution. The human brain may be suited to surviving in the wild, but it is not suited to time management. For example, one key time management skill is memorizing long lists, a skill not suited to the neocortex, which is roughly the most recently evolved part of the human brain. However, the neocortex is good at making tools. So use them: paper, pencils, smartphones.
Another part of the problem is infrastructure.