knew?
Meditation. Meditation is an intentional quieting of the mind. If you can shut out all other noise and thoughts, your mind can relax and your body will follow. The better you get at it, the more amazing it gets. Oh, how wrong I had been.
Massage. Massage is the physical manipulation of the muscles to relax them. I have back pains, and it was quite amazing to learn that it's not my back that hurts, it's the muscles in my back getting so tight that they hurt. They don't relax (loosen) all the way because of the pain, which means they stay tight, which hurts. That pain makes them tighten more, and the cycle builds on itself. Massage relaxes the muscles and brings them to a calm, relaxed state. I find that a monthly massage keeps my muscles from ever getting too tight (sort of similar to how rebooting Windows servers once a month helps them stay fresh).
I bring all this up because maybe you have been avoiding these things because of misconceptions. I encourage you to explore these techniques. Trying them for yourself is the only way to find out if you like them. You probably won't find all of them appealing. However, only one needs to work for you.
There are centers all over the country that offer such training. They usually advertise in holistic healing or naturally living catalogs that you might find in your local health food store. Places such as Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York (near Woodstock; http://www.eomega.com) have introductory weekends that are an excellent starting point. Your local YMCA, community college, or high school adult program may also have resources. Ask around.
Summary
System administration is a stressful job. Therefore, managing stress well is part of doing your job well.
Often, the causes of stress that are most pressing are the feeling of being overloaded and of being pulled in multiple directions by multiple bosses with different priorities.
Feeling overloaded can be greatly helped by time management techniques, especially The Cycle System.
Stress caused by conflicting priorities needs to be fixed at the root of the problem by maintaining communication with the sources of the conflict or by bringing the involved parties into the same room at the same time for dialog.
Relaxation is something that can be managed and practiced. You can manage it by setting aside time to purposefully relax with techniques like yoga, meditation, and massage.
You need to work hard at relaxing so that you get good at it. Just as it takes time to change the oil in your car, you must set aside time to intentionally relax.
Vacation time is not a gift from your employer. It is part of your relaxation regiment and stress-reduction program. It is what you do to maintain your mental health. Postponing vacation time is like postponing brushing your teeth. It may seem convenient to skip it now, but in the long term it is not healthy. If you squander your vacation time by using it for a day off to run errands, it does not serve its stress-reduction purpose.
I hate to be gruesome, but good SAs assume that a truck may hit them tomorrow and the company should be able to continue in their absence. Taking a long vacation is one way to test the coverage plan and system documentation without suffering bodily harm. You want to discover the gaps in coverage when you are away for a week or two on vacation so that you can fix them when you return.
Take a break. Breathe. Nobody's last words were ever 'I wish I had spent more time at the office.' Relax—it's only 1s and 0s.
Chapter 10. Email Management
How we manage our email says a lot about how we manage our time. Most system administrators let email manage them, not the other way around. This chapter discusses dos and don'ts for managing email. I propose a better way to manage email, how to deal with the backlog you may currently have, and other email-related issues.
Managing Your Email
Your email reader is not the most effective time-management tool. Anyone who has tried to use his inbox as his to do list quickly discovers this. It works great for a day or two, then suddenly you get a flood of emails, and it all goes to hell in a handbasket. Messages are
