How can System Administrators increase their confidence in their work?

1 Learn from your mistakes

Mistakes are inevitable in any profession, especially in system administration, where you have to deal with dynamic and unpredictable environments. Instead of letting mistakes undermine your confidence, use them as opportunities to learn and improve. Analyze what went wrong, how you fixed it, and what you can do better next time. Keep a record of your mistakes and solutions, and review them periodically to avoid repeating them. Also, seek feedback from your peers and managers, and be open to constructive criticism and suggestions.

2 Automate and standardize

One way to reduce errors and save time is to automate and standardize your tasks as much as possible. Use tools and scripts to perform repetitive and routine operations, such as backups, updates, monitoring, and reporting. Create and follow standard operating procedures (SOPs) for common and critical tasks, such as installations, configurations, migrations, and recoveries. SOPs can help you ensure consistency, quality, and compliance across your systems. They can also serve as reference guides and training materials for yourself and others.

3 Test and verify

Another way to increase your confidence is to test and verify your work before, during, and after you execute it. Testing can help you identify and prevent potential issues, errors, and risks. Verifying can help you confirm and document the results and outcomes of your work. For example, before you make any changes to a system, you should test them in a sandbox or a staging environment, where you can simulate the real conditions and scenarios. After you make the changes, you should verify that they work as expected, and that they do not affect the performance or functionality of the system.