not sure about what you mean...
if you want to skip load X during boot, change the default runlevel on inittab.

once you're at terminal, you can do whatever you want/need
what are you looking for ?

If you're working at the console, get used to the constant switching between either virtual consoles or virtual windows within a screen session. You can have a workable number of windows open, you just can't have them all fully open and visible at one time.

When I'm working on a headless server, I find it most convenient to do so via ssh from a machine with a decent gui; I'll have maybe half a dozen ssh sessions open, all in xterms, just so I can have one or two desktops set up with all the views I need into the target machine. 'top -c' in an 100-column 80-line xterm is a lot more informative than it is in an 80x24 terminal screen. Remember to keep an extra window open for man-pages; I don't care how accustomed I am to a command, I usually check to make sure A> I've got my arguments syntax right, and B> that what I want from the program is available on that machine.

Find and get used to a console-mode file-manager you like. I use ytree mainly, because I'm used to that style of tool from my DOS days, but I also have mc on hand for things ytree won't do (such as, move a subtree -- and all its dependencies -- from one point on the filesystem tree to another).

If you're not fond of vi, you'll want to add or edit EDITOR= and VISUAL= lines in your ~/.profile to specify your preferred text editor. If you don't have one you like, look around and choose one -- jed, nano, joe, etc. -- because you will be spending a lot of time in it. Those lines in ~/.profile control what editor is invoked by 'crontab -e', visudo, less (when you hit the 'v' key to edit what you've been viewing) and other system and admin programs.

Get used to writing a lot of little twiddle scripts to automate the things you do often. It's more than just laziness, it's Murphy-proofing your typing and thus safeguarding the machine. Those scripts can have console-mode popup widgets; 'man dialog' for details.

I don't do admin for a living, so look for better advice from those who do, but these are my recommendations.

As root, grep id: /etc/inittab
id:5:initdefault:

change that number to 3 then save.