I got to the point where I was constantly fighting fires and never really getting anything "useful" done. So, I decided that I would stop fighting the fires. Instead, I decided that they would eventually burn themselves out whilst I was getting on with getting things in good shape (i.e. fixing the underlying causes of those fires). To my surprise, the decision did not cause as big a problem as you would think. As I fixed the causes, my life got easier and easier. It became easier to do everything I needed to do (in the end, I was the only SQL DBA, managing 40 SQL Server installation (all quite similar installations) and about 10 other SQL Server installations that were unique).

So, get the right level of automation in place and you really can do some amazing things (and go home at a reasonable time of day, every day)