You can't manage what you can't measure. A lot of my consulting work centers around helping people deal with the business consequences of that sentence. Giving businesses real-time data about what is going on can solve a lot of problems, just because it gets things out in the open where they can be seen and discussed. A good example of personal data that ignores this little truth is your electric bill. Electric bills aren't real time--you get them once each month. By the time you see how much you owe, you only have a vague idea about what might have produced those dollar figures. You might see a low bill and think "Oh yeah, we were gone most of the month." You might see a high … [Read more...] about Managing Electricity (and everything else)
problem-solving
Don’t Repeat Yourself
In software engineering there is a principle known as DRY -- Don't Repeat Yourself. The idea is this: If you are going to solve a problem, do it only once. Don't solve the same problem again and again in different parts of your code. In software, this means that you take your solutions to these common problems and code them in a way so they can be used from wherever necessary. The DRY principle can also apply to your personal work habits as well. Over the course of a week, a good portion of our time can be taken up by unnecessary tasks or overly complicated processes. Proactively looking for areas where we are "repeating" ourselves can unearth these areas where we can … [Read more...] about Don’t Repeat Yourself
Worry vs. Problem-solving
There are some circumstances that you have no power to change. Worrying about these types of circumstances is pointless. On the other hand, you shouldn't give up looking for a solution just because you don't see an immediate solution. It is important to be able to differentiate between worry and productive problem-solving. Worry usually has the following characteristics: It involves repeating the same thoughts over and over. Any "solutions" deal with things that you don't have the power to change. It focuses on changing things that have already happened. Problem-solving on the other hand has the following characteristics: It doesn't involve thinking about the same thing … [Read more...] about Worry vs. Problem-solving