Crafting the Perfect Email

If you are working to craft the perfect email or text to make sure you cover all of the bases and ensure there is no misunderstanding then you need to make it a phone call or a meeting.

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Two Types of Quality Work

There are two types of quality work. The first type is meeting expectations (like no errors). This type is when the outcome is clearly understood. The second type is the type that means going above expectations and always trying to do better. This is applied to pushing your limits in tasks with unclear endpoints. An…

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Your Manager Is Not Always Right

Your manager is not always right (that includes me as a manager too). They have good intentions and think they know what is best based on their experience and knowledge but a lot of it is based on their opinion.

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Emailing like a Child

When a child wants something they blurt it out. It does not matter what is going on. You could be in the middle of a conversation or asleep. They don’t consider the situation or if what they have to say is important. They are impulsive and lack discipline in their communication. Many of us are…

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Artist Version of Activation Evergy

Those of us in the technical world are not the only ones who struggle with activation energy in projects. Artists do too. Steven Pressfield wrote a book called The War of Art. In it, he calls it The Resistance, almost like an anti-muse. Artists are trying to make a career of the big projects but…

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Overcoming the Activation Energy

There are methods to deal with the activation energy of big projects. You can lower the activation energy by listening to good music while working, putting yourself in a good environment, and cleaning your calendar of obligations. You can conserve energy to apply to the project by doing this work first or when your energy…

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Activation Energy of Work

Tasks have an activation energy. The amount of energy that must be expended to start the task. Checking email has a low activation energy and developing a project plan has a higher activation energy.

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Why Are Projects Hard?

Sometimes projects are hard because they are big. Sometimes projects are hard because checking email and completing your to-do list is easier.

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You Need a Department Handbook: Make Your Job Easier

An independent business operates differently than you do as an employee or as your department does in a larger organization. Though there are some aspects of an independent business we should copy. One of those aspects is a department handbook. A department handbook can capture the standards you want to set for your team and…

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Three Primary Skills Employees Need to Develop

I have been a first-level manager for a few years now and I have identified a handful of skills that employees need to develop. The interesting thing is that employees are aware of their shortcomings in these skills but leadership has never made it a priority to develop these skills.   Communicating project status. It…

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Knowledge-Work Processes Should Flow Like Water

The first step in improving a knowledge-work manufacturing process is defining the workflow. I have always understood that the steps and order of a process had to be defined, but I did not fully grasp the concept of flow (I have never been the smartest tool in the shed). Recently I read an article that…

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Managing Conflicting Goals in Challenging Work Environments

The employee’s goals at my company stay pretty constant. However, there is a temporary situation where the team members have to take a significant amount of additional training for a few months which hinders their ability to meet all of their standard goals and this frustrates them. In many cases, they are put in a…

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You Will Always Have More to do Than Time to do It

This post is a message to myself that hopefully, you can use. I am off from work for the holiday and every day I have the urge to check my email or do some work “get caught up”. Over my career, this pull has become more pronounced, especially since became a manager. The problem is…

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