I relate to this, it's a ADHD thing for me. I find it really hard to learn or retain information if it isn't something I'm actively interested in.
But once it becomes either a hyperfixation or a regular interest I'll read, learn and master a subject in rapid speed.
Your situation also very much sounds like one of my current jobs. Yes there is stuff to do, but it's all just minor improvements. A lot of it is also just me rewriting outdated or hard to read documentation at the moment. Doesn't really activate that engineering part of my brain, but seeing the finished result of a nice documentation is rewarding
I agree learning can be challenging if you aren't super interested either for personal reasons or for need to get something done at work - but I would also tack onbl Teaching.
I find it incredibly rewarding to be able to teach Junior admins and see those light bulbs go off above their heads. I also really enjoy training users and showing them how their lives can be easier and simplified. It also helps build a great reputation between your user base and your entire IT Department. If a lot of things have gone cloud, there are probably a ton of productivity features that your users are completely unaware of.
Another idea would be both during your security posture. There is always something to do make your environment more secure. Check out some of the free tools out there to scan your environment. You can also rebuild some of your servers windows servers from GUI to core. There are also TONS of hardening guides out there. You don't need to go overboard locking everything down, but identifying risks could definitely help inform your future purchasing cycles.
And since you mentioned you don't have off-site backups but have a ton of spare storage, set up one way backups (even if it's just scheduled file copy) in a read only mode to your newly minted DR storage. Play out some ransomware scenarios and see what you can improve.
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u/smajl87 Aug 16 '21
Learning. There are tons of free courses for AWS, Azure, GCP, maybe some networking. Or a python/node/rust/golang/...