Routine - Keys to a Powerful Professional Life

   

 

    This is the first of a four part series that I want to write because I believe habits are powerful. If I can help anyone with healthy habits that make their daily life a little bit easier or better, that will be a win in my book.

    In this series, I will be writing about routine, mindset, maintenance, and non-toxic work habits. So stay tuned for the next articles!

Tooling

    Before I established my routine, I had to figure out the core tools that I can use for my job that help me to respond the quickest in the event of an emergency. Having the right tools, and specifically reducing your tools to only the fewest, most powerful (the best information with the fewest clicks) tools will make your work so much easier.

    My current role is my first senior engineer role, and at the time that I begin in this role a lot of things were breaking. As a result, while I was still trying to learn the network and gain awareness, a lot of things were thrown on my plate to fix randomly and rapidly.

    In my specific role as a Network Engineer at an MSP, here are some serious time savers that I found useful:

    Notepad++ (with the compare plugin) -  I use this for all of my note-taking now. Super useful, especially because it has tabs at the top and it makes comparing configuration text much simpler.

    Password manager - You could use a variety of things as a password manager, but having the ability to track logins and passwords, and the URLs or IP addresses (or even critical information like another device that those things need to be accessed from) is extremely helpful and time saving!

    SecureCRT (with sessions saved to every device that you may need to access) - it may take time to login to every network device in your network, but in the event of an emergency this makes your response time so much faster.

    Client-to-Site VPN access to client sites - Without this in many cases you may be powerless, or at the mercy of Auvik or your RMM. This has saved me a great deal of time. It can make the troubleshooting process much faster.

My Morning Process

    I have bookmarked all of the websites that I need to access and added to the taskbar (the bottom of where all the shortcuts exist in windows) all of the apps that I need to open.

    First thing in the morning, every morning, I open all of the tools that I need everyday and sign in (eg. Auvik, Connectwise Manage, etc.). Having these tools already up and on my screen saves me the time and mental energy of getting ready when an emergency of some sort hits (making my response time faster).

    Once all of my tools are open, I review Auvik alerts and OpenManage alerts to see what devices may need review or repair from the last night. I discuss with my team (to other engineers that sit nearby) what issues they see coming up and what they have on their plate for the day. This also helps me to be available in case they need help. This helps in the escalation process and for balancing load across my team (if they can't handle something or don't have time I know that I will need to step up for it). 

    After I reviewed the important tasks for the day I write a list in my notebook of every task that needs to be accomplished with detailed notes on maybe what questions or help I need from other teams, and what specific steps I will need to follow in the process.

    Here's an example of my list for the day. I regularly take photo backups of my lists so that I can keep track of the projects and tasks that I accomplish.

    After I finished all of this I have a morning engineering meeting and I can communicate with other teams if I need to get there help on something.

Product Ownership

     I have to be responsible for a lot of tasks being thrown at me on a daily basis. Sometimes these things that require investigation or work are only mentioned once! So it's critical that I pay attention and take notes on what things are being demanded of me.

    A short list (not exhaustive) of projects that I have had to own in the 4 months being with my current company:
Fortigate HA firewall add for a client

Repairing a failed HA environment with a Fortigate firewall

DHCP migration from local central servers

Firmware upgrades on all devices across all clients

Migrating from PA-200 and PA-220 to PA-440 (and deploying Palo Alto Expedition to see if it is a viable migration tool)

Zabbix deployment for Verizon servers

Network configuration in preparation for RingCentral phone migrations

ATS (camera systems) device deployment

    What has helped me with this is keeping a standing list of tasks that I need to accomplish or I need other team mates (including my boss) to accomplish to move any task or project forward. I know at any time what things I still am waiting for from other team mates and I check in with them weekly on their progress on the various tasks needing done

    Also, having a standing list of tasks that need done helps me to write a list of things that I need get done at the beginning of each day.

Why Routine Matters

    Reducing the thought that goes into normal work processes will naturally make you more productive as you don't waste time second guessing yourself or delaying between steps. You just do! Having a strong routine will help you to conserve mental energy in the event that an emergency happens and will help you to produce the most you possibly can.

    Please comment below routine tips that you have learned! I would love to learn from you too!