Organization/Productivity/Time Management

Work From Home Productivity Tips for Engineers

March 13, 2020 By EMI

Due to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, many engineering companies across the United States and beyond are implementing travel restrictions and work from home directives.

I have had the opportunity to work from home, on and off, over the last ten years, and as nice as it sounds, one of the biggest challenges with doing it effectively is staying focused and productive. I’ve accumulated some of my own work from home productivity tips over the years and thought this would be a good time to share them.

Please leave comments or questions below and I will respond to them.

5 Modern Strategies to Integrate AEC Disciplines in 2020

January 3, 2020 By EMI

This is a guest blog by Daniel Quindemil

One of the biggest challenges we face in construction is integrating all of the AEC disciplines in our projects so their valuable input can positively affect the project.

There are many people involved in a project, including the Owner, Architect, Engineer, General Contractor, Subcontractors, Lenders, Owner’s Representatives, and more. How can you start a project the right way and then integrate the Owner, Architect, and the others during construction?

The key disciplines that need careful integration are the Architect, Engineer, and Contractor (AEC). These are the organizations that design the projects and carry out their execution.

This Is How Engineers Can Build a Good Work-Life Balance

December 9, 2019 By EMI

This is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee

To have a good work-life balance, you can’t live your life to work. It should be the other way around: Work so you can have a good life. That may sound too good to be true for you right now, but don’t allow—not even for one second—any doubt to settle in your heart or your mind that you can’t have that. We have all been there at least once, working on projects 50 to 60 hours per week and still feeling like we’re spinning our wheels.

I understand that deadlines don’t often change, and that in tough times we must go all-in to finish projects on time. But this means that you’re getting deep into working overtime while at the same time training yourself and everyone around you that you are capable of working more than you should—and since you want to be a good sport, you can work overtime while keeping a good attitude.

Maximizing Productivity Hacks for Engineering Professionals

May 20, 2019 By EMI

Maximizing Productivity Hacks for Engineering Professionals is a guest blog by Kyle Umlauf, P.E.

Effective and successful engineers have something in common. They are capable of effectively managing their time. As a consulting engineer, your time is a precious commodity. Your clients are paying for your knowledge and time. Therefore, the action of maximizing your time, focus, and overall productivity, will equate to more money. Learning to master your time can do wonders for your engineering career and personal life.

In your career, managing your time will help you take on more tasks, delegate tasks as needed, and become a more productive member of the company. This will increase your value to the company and help you climb the ranks more quickly. In your personal life, better time management will help to maximize every hour of the day and make you feel in more control of your own life. This article is adapted from a previous article on my personal blog. [Read more…] about Maximizing Productivity Hacks for Engineering Professionals

How Not to Lose Focus and Concentration During Working Long Hours

January 2, 2019 By EMI

How Not to Lose Focus and Concentration During Working Long Hours is a guest post by Kurt Walker

Focus and concentration are very important factors that effective professionals always prioritize when working. It is necessary for getting the work done. However, with the increasing development in technology coupled with other factors taking place around the world, it has become so easy to lose concentration while working on a task, simply because we are now surrounded by various pleasant distractions. This piece outlines some essential tips that you can use to maintain focus while working long hours.

Focus on Your Planning to Be Productive in Your Engineering Career

December 27, 2018 By Christian Knutson, PE, PgMP, PMP

Most engineers I know are interested in achieving a relatively high level of productivity in their professional and work activities. Since most are working long hours, they aren’t interested in spending time on none-value added activities. Those who are successful in optimizing their productive time, do so through focusing on developing a plan of action.

Productivity is associated with creating value. While you can feel productive attending project meetings, reviewing designs, or obtaining closure on a long-standing issue, it may or may not result in value beyond making you feel productive. In my mind, productivity (a.k.a. creating value) comes only in achieving movement towards the accomplishment of a defined goal.

With this concept in mind, let’s unpack how to get from focus to productivity in your engineering career.

80/20 Principle as One of the Most Effective Ways to Increase Your Productivity

December 4, 2018 By EMI

80/20 Principle as One of the Most Effective Ways to
Increase Your Productivity is a guest post by Samantha R. Gilbert

In 1895, Vilfredo Pareto, the Italian economist, became aware that people could be divided into two groups. The first one was the “vital few” that made up the top 20% regarding influence and money, and the second referred to the “trivial many” that made up the bottom 80% of the population. Then, he realized that all economic management reflected this principle, that 20% of the population controlled 80% of the Italian capital in that period. Pareto asserted that this principle could be implemented everywhere. Practically, the rule suggests that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of your outcomes. Therefore, this means you can apply this rule to enhance your productivity and achieve your goals in less time. Just follow these five steps and learn how to apply the 80/20 principle in your life.

5 Reasons Why You Should Encourage Flexible Engineering Work Hours

February 21, 2018 By EMI

5 Reasons Why You Should Encourage Flexible Engineering Work Hours
is a guest blog post by Olivia Ryan

Flexible working has been one of the main topics in the business world in the last couple of years. This trend has reached the engineering field too, with 77% of firms offering some kind of flextime to their employees. Seeing that we are now living in the world where the newest employees are millennials, employees demand more flexible work arrangements even if the firm has not considered them in the business strategy.

“As a former engineer at a big company, I really enjoyed the sense of control you get when they allow you to set your work hours. Of course, we did not enjoy full liberty, but the employer allowed us to set our own start and stop times, and choose if we want to spread our work hours to the weekends, too, or do the entire shifts from Monday to Friday and get weekends off.” – says Keith Jackson, now an engineering writing expert at aussiewritings.com.

If you are still wondering whether you should introduce more flexibility into your work routine or that of your engineers, here are five big reasons why you should consider this:

5 Big Mistakes Engineers Make on the Job

July 26, 2017 By EMI

This is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee.

Engineers are expected to perform at their best, if not all the time, most of it at least. Room for error in this type of career is small of course, as it can have huge negative impact on an individual project or the lives of millions of people.

It is essential to learn from our mistakes as it can help us become better engineers in our chosen paths, and the first step towards that is understanding how to become self-aware.

Everyone makes mistakes in things they do, such as daily actions and activities, their opinions towards someone or something, or judgements towards techniques and processes that result in poor outcomes, poor reasoning, and overall carelessness.

No matter how good of an engineer you are in your field, there is always going to be a time where you will make a mistake, as the famous saying goes, “Nobody is perfect.” Even machines make mistakes over time.

Why is it important to discuss these common mistakes? Well, prevention is the best solution to avoid mistakes, and we must talk about and accept the fact that we all can be in one of these following five situations at some time during our career.

There are mistakes that you have probably committed but didn’t realize because they happened on a subconscious level and required you to push outside of your comfort-zone, but you failed to do so and hoped and prayed that nothing bad would happen, but it did. Here’s how to avoid disasters from happening again.

What a One-year Old can Teach Engineers about being Productive

April 11, 2017 By EMI

This is a guest post by Patrick Sweet, P.Eng.

Productive When she was about one year old, my daughter, Charlotte, started mimicking what my wife and I did in a big way. If we did it, she wanted to do it. If I stirred my coffee, she wanted to stir her milk. If my wife went to play the piano, Charlotte wanted to play the piano. If I changed the channel on the TV, Charlotte wanted to try to do it, too. It was adorable, and I almost always got a chuckle out of it. Monkey see, monkey do.

Charlotte’s favorite thing to do, though, was to clean. This kid was a neat freak. The problem though, was that she was terrible at cleaning. After all, she was a one-year-old. She’d smear milk all over the table. She’d wipe her stuffed animals’ paws with a dirty dishcloth she stole from the counter. She’d use the carpet to wipe off her boots… you get the idea. The world was a much cleaner place when Charlotte wasn’t trying to clean it.