This chapter focuses upon the actual day-to-day work of putting The Cycle System into practice, creating your schedule and to do list. It also gives you tips and strategies for dealing with too much work.Chapter 6, The Cycle System: Calendar Management
SAs have lots of meetings and appointments. If we can manage them better, not only do we no longer miss appointments, but we can schedule more fun into our social lives. In this chapter, I extend The Cycle System to include our calendar.Chapter 7, The Cycle System: Life Goals
This chapter teaches you how to identify long-term goals, both personal and professional, and how to make sure you achieve them. Where do you want to be in 10 years? You're more likely to get there if you do a little bit of planning now.Chapter 8, Prioritization
A good juggler can juggle many objects but has to stop the whole juggle when a single mistake is made. A great juggler knows how to extend a juggle by dropping a ball or two so the others can stay in play. In this chapter, I discuss a few different ways to prioritize so that The Cycle System works even better.Chapter 9, Stress Management
A short chapter about how I learned to manage stress.Chapter 10, Email Management
We all get too much email. Here are a few realistic tips for getting control over the flood of email you receive.Chapter 11, Eliminating Time Wasters
One way to have more time is to eliminate time wasters. In this chapter, I talk about how to identify and eliminate them.Chapter 12, Documentation
This chapter explores ways to document without pain. When we document, we help our time management two ways. First, we spend less time trying to remember how to do something because we can refer to our notes. Second, it makes it easier to have someone else take over the task, completely removing it from our to do list. The problem is finding a realistic way to get in the habit of documenting. The solution is called a Wiki.Chapter 13, Automation
What's better than having a computer do your job for you? There are many novel and easy ways to start automating tasks today, even if you don't know a lot about programming. This chapter explains a few methods to automate a lot with little effort.Epilogue
A few concluding suggestions about what to do with the free time you'll have after applying the techniques in this book.
How to Read This Book
"Is all this really going to help me?"
Absolutely! Amazingly enough, if you read this book, your entire life will be transformed instantly and all of your problems will be fixed. You'll be better looking, too!
"Really?"
Figure 1.
No. This book won't fix all your problems instantly. In fact, I hope you've dealt with enough salespeople to know that anyone who promises that a product works instantly and solves all of your problems isn't telling the truth.
"So what will this book do?"
This book will give you a framework for managing your time. It's a system that works for me and others, and it can be adopted to your workstyle. The techniques will replace your old, bad habits with better habits. The truth is that you've spent your entire life developing the bad habits that are with you today, and it will take some time to develop good ones. In fact, psychologists tell us that it takes 21 days of doing a new behavior to develop it into a habit.
"So, I'm 21 days away from...."
Well, for you, it may take longer. Did I ever tell you the story of my first experience with time management?
"No."
I took a two-day class. For a month afterward, I didn't use a single technique. It just seemed like too much work to change my ways! Then I had a really busy week, with more things to do than I could keep track of. So, I pulled out the leather-bound organizer that I received as part of the class and struggled to remember some of the techniques. Using the workbook from the class, I pieced together what I was supposed to have learned.
"And what happened?"
I got more done in that day than I had in ages, and I was much less stressed about the tasks I put off for later.
Over the next few months, I kept going back to the course book to refresh my memory or pick up new techniques. It was a struggle but eventually the techniques became second nature. More importantly, I found new techniques that are specific to system administration. Soon I was teaching my techniques to coworkers, then I found myself teaching seminars—now it's all here in this book.
"How long before you didn't have to think so hard to do the techniques?"
About a month. About a year. It depended on which technique. I expect that's how people will use this book. You'll read it—ignore half of it—then keep coming back to it for "new" advice. It took me a few decades to develop my bad habits. It took quite some time to break those habits and develop new ones.
The sooner you get started, the sooner the change will come. Start today.
"Well, that all sounds really good, but with people stopping by my office every five minutes, I'm not going to have time to read this book."
That's a good point. Let's make a deaclass="underline" I'll cover dealing with interruptions in the first chapter, and you promise to try every technique at least once.
"It's a deal."
Audience
This book is for IT workers, system administrators, network administrators, operators, help desk personnel, and the many, many other similar job titles that can be found in the IT industry. It is written for people who are early in their career, but industry veterans will find these techniques to be equally useful. If you don't think you have time to read this book, you need this book.
This book is not for programmers. Beta readers told me that programmers should find this book extremely useful, but I feel that programmers have different issues and therefore deserve their own book. If you're a programmer, buy this book as a gift for the system administrator who supports you. If you happen to read it before it gets gift-wrapped, I won't tell.
About This Book
This is a "technique" book. The art of time management can be done with a paper and pencil or a fancy PDA. The first part of the book helps you deal with the basics of time management—better ways to deal with the interruptions that keep you from getting work done, and managing your to do list so that you don't forget any requests and are able to get them done on time, or at least based on your priorities. This book will help you turn chaotic, unplanned activities into easier-to-use routines that are less likely to be forgotten. After that, I expand the techniques and teach you to apply them to managing your calendar/datebook, email, stress, and life goals. Lastly, I cover techniques that can accelerate your career: eliminating time wasters, using documentation to save yourself time, and tips for automating what you do so that it is less error prone and takes less of your time.
Now that you know what this book is about, I should explain what this book is not about. This book is not about how to use a PDA, nor which personal information management software to use. It is not a comparison of 50 to do list management software packages. It is not "the missing manual" for PalmOS or Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition Operating System. This book is about you and how to improve your life through better time management.