Time Management for System Administrators

Chapter 9. Stress Management

Stressed? Of course you are! You're a system administrator!

I'm not a doctor, and I'm not an expert on stress, but I will share with you what little I've learned over the years. I'm quite a stress puppy—ask anyone I've worked with. However, I think I manage it better than I used to.

This chapter is about some common sources of stress and what to do about them, some advice about vacation time, and a little story about how I learned to relax. It is advice that I've found myself giving time and time again, sometimes when lecturing on the road or when socializing with fellow system administrators or coworkers. A lot of this is more philosophy than science. It is not a complete or scholarly discourse on the subject, but it should give you some useful advice and point you in the right direction to find more information.

Stress is the wear and tear that our bodies and minds feel when things change. There is positive stress and negative stress. Positive stress adds anticipation and excitement to our lives, helps us be creative, helps us win a race or an election, or pushes us beyond what we previously thought were our limits. Negative stress is destructive. It causes heart disease, depression, and gray hairs. Managing stress is a big part of maintaining good mental health.

Oddly enough, the same situation can be positive stress for one person and negative stress for another. It's all about how we deal with it. For example, people have different reactions to compliments from a manager. For some, such a thing would be good. Others might have the opposite reaction. They might think, "Oh, now I'll always be expected to be so successful! I can't handle the pressure!" They might think, "He said that in front of everyone. Now they all hate me!" and worry that the rest of the group might be jealous and vengeful.

It is not what happens to us that causes stress, it is how we react to what happens to us. I've found Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (Collins) and The Feeling Good Handbook (Plume) to be extremely helpful and highly regarded books in the area of managing stress in productive ways. Many people have turned their lives around with the help of these books.

We must work hard at relaxing so that we get good at it. We have to intentionally set aside time to relax and develop the discipline to not postpone it. It's mental hygiene. You can skip brushing your teeth now and then, but in the long run you will suffer. Similarly, you can skip the things you do for mental hygiene now and then, but in the long run you will suffer. The more you practice relaxation, the better you get at it.

The smokers I know all seem to be so relaxed at work. I don't think it's all about the nicotine. I think it's the fact that they take themselves out of the office every couple hours (we don't permit smoking inside the building). That breaks up the day. Stress builds a little, then is reduced by going outside. Their stress builds, then they go outside. I'm not recommending smoking, but I do encourage you to go outside every couple of hours, stretch your legs, and get some perspective.

Figure 9-1.

Overload and Conflicting Directions

As a system administrator, I find my two biggest sources of stress are feeling overloaded and being given conflicting directions from management.

When I feel overloaded, I remind myself about the techniques for to do list management in Chapter 5. I close my office door (or steal a conference room), get some peace, and focus on The Cycle techniques. Soon, I realize that what got me feeling overloaded was that I was skipping steps. I go through the steps and plan the remainder of my day, moving to do items to the next day, and so on. It feels good to manage all of my tasks.

When I'm really overloaded, that doesn't work, and I have to seek a higher power, most particularly my boss. A good boss can help prioritize your workload when you are overloaded. It is not a weakness to confess that you are overloaded. Asking for help is a sign of strength. It takes a lot of courage to ask for help, and even more to accept the advice offered.

If your boss isn't around, anyone can help. Explaining the situation to someone can really help with the stress. Even if they don't have any advice, at least you feel like you've been heard. Often that's half the battle. Being heard by others feels good. However, they usually do have advice or can give you reassurance about the things that are unsettling. That always makes me feel better.

The act of explaining something out loud to someone helps us solve our own problems. How many times have you realized the solution to a problem while explaining it to someone else? Life is full of those moments when you tell someone, "So there's this problem, see? If I...." Suddenly you realize the answer, and there is no need to continue talking. It happens all the time.

The Practice of Programming (Addison Wesley) tells the story of one person at Bell Labs who was known for helping many people solve their highly technical problems. Sadly, he couldn't always stop what he was doing to listen to someone, so he had a teddy bear in his office. When he was busy, he would tell people to "talk to the bear." It worked very well. Soon he found people stopping by his office and going straight to the bear.

Detecting when you are so stressed that you need to pause and use these techniques can be a problem. When I'm super-stressed, I'm not able to recognize that this is the exact time to stop what I'm doing and destress. I once had an arrangement with a coworker where we had a code word we would use that would mean, "You're too stressed to see how stressed you are." It was a code word so that it could be said in front of others without embarrassment. He did it for me and I did it for him. It was very helpful.

Receiving conflicting directions is another common stressor for system administrators. Often, system administrators have more than one boss. Each boss gives you conflicting priorities. You try your best to please both, which is fine until you get overloaded.

In a perfect world, you can get both bosses into a room and let them duke it out. Sadly, that isn't always possible. If you are able to make that happen, it is a good idea to have your bosses write out your priorities so that you can refer to it the next time there is a conflict. Of course, if you have to refer to this memorandum of understanding too much, it may be better to seek out an organizational change that fixes the root cause of the problem. You might also consider talking to your favorite of the two bosses about working exclusively for him or her.

The inability to resolve such an issue is one of the leading causes of system administrators seeking employment elsewhere. And for good reason. Maybe a good stress reliever is to update your resume and read the employment section of a newspaper.

Sleep Mitigates Stress

Adequate sleep fixes a slew of problems. Everyone is different and needs a different amount of sleep. Getting the right amount helps you deal with stress better.

During a particularly stressful week, I find that if I get an extra hour of sleep I'm able to manage stress better. I feel better, I'm more relaxed, and I get along with people easier.

The problem is that getting an extra hour of sleep is difficult. We usually can't sleep an hour late, so our only choice is to go to sleep an hour earlier. That's hard! There's so much good TV to watch, books to read, chatrooms to play in, web sites to visit, games to play, and so on.

The only way I'm able to get myself into bed earlier is with a little help. I ask my significant other to be involved (in other words, force me to do it). If you don't have a significant other, have a friend call and nag you. Or, set an alarm that can ring to remind you to go to sleep.

I can't just go to sleep earlier. It's a process. I have to do nothing for a half-hour to wind down enough to be ready to sleep. It's pretty difficult for me to do nothing, but I usually get there in about 15 minutes. I think of it as a countdown. At T-120, I stop eating or drinking. At T-30, I wash up. At T-15, I start doing nothing. At T-0, I turn off the lights and crawl into bed. At T+5 I'm...zzzzzzz.