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Changing Focus

I have many interests, too many to be certain. As I try to satiate my innate desire to know everything that I can, I end up knowing nothing because I can’t commit my mind to working on a single things for more than an even, or maybe (just maybe) a week.

So, starting April 1, 2014, I am going to take the next quarter of the year to focus on sysadmin stuff. I’m setting aside my iOS books and picking up system and network administration material instead.

This will also include working through my SUSE CLA material as well. If that goes well, I’ll start planning on the next step of my certification journey by looking at CLP and CLE certifications as well. By the time I get to that step I’m hoping that the training resources will be rewritten for the upcoming SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 (currently in private beta) and not be tied to Flash either (which makes using an iPad particularly difficult).

The change is really pushed by professional needs at the moment. Linux and system administration is something I do every day and I want to be able to do that better. It helps that I also tend to enjoy doing it quite a bit as well.

I’m sure I’ll have more to write about this in the future.

4 replies on “Changing Focus”

The problem with being an info omnivore is the focus issue. I admire your tenacity digging into your new role. Sys/Net adminning (if that can be a word) is an interesting role for a thoughtful person who can see the bigger picture and see how all the pieces work together. It can also be soul sucking. May the focus be with you!

I guess I’m less worried about the soul-sucking-ness than I am about the infinite number of rat roles that I can find myself in. Learning how to tell what is worth time and effort and what is not is going to be something I do via trial-and-error. I’m hoping that I am a quick study.

If you cannot quickly identify what you need to do and what is ‘dross’ you will find yourself failing to achieve anything.

Even now where I work there is a massive back log of ‘SysMin’ work that needs to be done, juggling that backlog is a tricky thing. It’s really easy to loose weeks at a time travelling down a rabbit hole to fix minor annoyances.

I would encourage you to make sure that A) everything is logged in a central place for prioritisation and that B) you maintain your own 3 things to do list. 3 things today, 3 things this week and 3 things this month / quarter (As appropriate).

It will help you focus on what is important in your job and sometimes can be the push you need to knock some of the lesser important work on its head.

You’ve hit the nail squarely on the head. One thing I have instituted recently is a weekly “cleansing” of my mind … setting down on paper all that I need to do for the next week. I should probably take that a step further with your 3-3-3 plan (maybe 3-3-3-3) to further quell my thoughts and keep me on-track.

Prioritizing is one of the major issues I have.

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