Focusing on my Productivity took me from Marine to System Admin

I can sum up my military experience in two words…

follow orders

Spending half my time as a Junior EnIisted Marine resulted in me waiting for instructions and trying to follow them to the letter. The times when I could be creative were few, but would be a chance to show I would be a good leader someday. That day finally came when I became a Corporal.

My Promotion Warrant

Non-Commissioned Officers (or NCOs) are often called the “backbone of the Marine Corps”. They’re the ones that take the orders and create the execution plan. The 18 months I spent as an NCO would prepare me in some ways for the rest of my life as being a leader..

or so I thought

September 13, 2013 I left the Corps and started my first day as a System Administrator. The feeling was like when I stepped on the famous “Yellow Footprints” at Perris Island, South Carolina and began Basic Training. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know anything about my boss or his expectations of me. I didn’t understand the priorities of the company or my department. Just like a Junior Marine, I waited for orders.

“Here are your servers, take care of them…”
Me: “Ummm, Okay?”

That’s was it!? No “Do this first” or “This is the priority”? Just make sure the servers stay up and improve them were possible? How the heck do I do that!?

I thought I would have time to come up with a plan. A quick review of event logs and the massive pile of errors I found there said otherwise. The company needed things to happen and they needed it quick. I didn’t know where to start. It was like looking at a jumbled Rubik’s cube for the first time. There were so many ways I could start nothing seemed to lead to an end.

I had to find a way to make sense of the madness. I started asking for advice from my coworkers.

“In your opinion, what is the biggest priority?”, I asked each of my teammates. I received seven different answers from six different people. That didn’t help at all. What was I going to do. I tried just doing things. Some progress was better than no progress right? Not in this case. I was just spinning my tires but not going anywhere.

My initial review was approaching. If they didn’t like my work, I was going to be fired. I had to do something.

So I panicked! Then I cried. Then panicked some more.

During that second panic session, I wrote down everything I had to do to prove that I couldn’t manage it all. The list was enormous, it made a few columns and looked very overwhelming.

While staring at the large list, I remembered some advice a more senior NCO had given me.

A Piece of What that list looked like!

“Break things down to bite size chunks and pass them out to your Junior Marines.”

I made three other lists.

1. “Do these now or you’ll get fired”
2. “Do these eventually or you’ll get fired”
3. “None of these will probably get you fired. Try to get someone else to do them or just do them after everything else.”

I started moving the items from my big list to the others. I did some research for list management tools and found Trello. With Trello, I was quickly able to see the priority and start Keeping Junk Managed.

My Work Trello Board

I took the first item on the “Do it Now!” list and made a checklist going through the steps. Then I started working my way down the checklist until the task was down. Then I moved to the next item. Once all of the items were done I dragged a card from the “Do it Later” List and started working on that. If someone asked about a task I would check the list. If it wasn’t on there I would add it to the appropriate list and return an appropriate response.

Do it Now - “Alright I’ll get right on it!”
Do it Later - “Sounds good. I’m working on <current task> and a few other super important things, but I’ll add it to my to-do list and get to it as soon as possible.”
Not Important - “Umm, right now I’m working on <current task> and I have a few other really important things. I can try to get to it soon, but can you check with . Perhaps they could get to it sooner”

Now my gigantic list didn’t seem so big. I made a quick turn around at work and started feeling less anxious.

I finally felt like a system admin.

I started trying to figure out ways to be even more productive. This became a hobby for me. Now I work to help others be more productive through the online community Productivity in Tech where I host the Productivity in Tech Podcast.

My Advice to You

If you are making a big change in your life or things are starting to seem overwhelming. Take a few minutes and come up with a plan. Be intentional about your productivity and map out the instructions for you to execute. The anxiety will start to fade and you will find more joy and success in your tasks.

So be your own NCO and come up with the gameplan. Then just follow the orders.