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Organization/Productivity/Time Management

5 Big Mistakes Engineers Make on the Job

July 26, 2017 By EMI

This is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee.

5 Big Mistakes Engineers Make on the JobEngineers 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.

Mistakes Engineers MakeWhy 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.

Mistakes Engineers Make

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.

[Read more…] about 5 Big Mistakes Engineers Make on the Job

Filed Under: Blog, Organization/Productivity/Time Management Tagged With: common mistakes, disasters, failure, Failure to Admit, Failure to Ask, Failure to Assess, Failure to Consider, Failure to Understand, Mistakes Engineers Make, Nader Mowlaee

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.

ProductiveWhen 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.

The link between effectiveness and productivity

[Read more…] about What a One-year Old can Teach Engineers about being Productive

Filed Under: Blog, Organization/Productivity/Time Management Tagged With: How can you be productive in an effective manner, One-year Old can Teach Engineers, Patrick Sweet, productive, The link between effectiveness and productivity

Systems Thinking for Engineers: Three Ways to See the Bigger Picture

March 28, 2017 By EMI

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

systems engineering

This may not come as a big surprise, but it takes a very different approach to engineering when you’re designing a space shuttle than when you’re designing a guitar amplifier (No offense, Marshall fans). The challenges and issues are simply different in nature when you tackle a mega-project. There’s more to integrate, there are more people involved, and much of what gets done has never been done before. These differences have lead to the emergence of a number of new techniques and processes in a discipline of engineering called systems engineering.

In its simplest form, systems engineers lead and guide teams in the development of complex systems. As systems become more complicated and more tightly integrated with other systems, the need for specialized engineering knowledge becomes more and more obvious.

So, even though the approach to engineering a big system is different than when you are tackling a smaller product or project, there are still lessons that can be learned from the world of systems engineering that can apply to anyone in engineering.

Today, I’ll share three ways to think like a systems engineer to improve your designs – no matter what the scale.

[Read more…] about Systems Thinking for Engineers: Three Ways to See the Bigger Picture

Filed Under: Blog, Organization/Productivity/Time Management Tagged With: design decisions, emergent behavior, Patrick Sweet, systems engineering, systems thinking, verification and validation

Looking Back on 2016: How Multitasking Negatively Impacted Engineers’ Productivity

December 19, 2016 By EMI

This is a guest blog post by Carol Evenson

Science has done its due diligence, and the research speaks for itself; multitasking is officially out as a productivity tool. In fact, the latest data shows that multitasking can actually decrease productivity.  Clearly, as a busy engineer, a decrease in productivity is the last thing you want and need.

In this post, I’ll show you how to take a look at your habits over the last year and convince you to make your first 2017 resolution to leave multitasking behind for good.

Three Types of Multitaskers

[Read more…] about Looking Back on 2016: How Multitasking Negatively Impacted Engineers’ Productivity

Filed Under: Blog, Organization/Productivity/Time Management Tagged With: Carol Evenson, Desperate multitaskers, Impulsive multitaskers, multitaskers, multitasking, projects, Proud multitaskers

Three Methods to Stop Stagnation and Accomplish your Engineering Career Goals

April 29, 2016 By EMI

This is a guest blog post by Skye J. Coleman, PE

Engineering Career Goals

Today we have for you Three methods to stop stagnation and accomplish your engineering career goals…

A few years back I had a decent life, I was working at a good company with great pay and a lot of responsibility.  But I’d been doing the same job, more or less, for several years and it was starting to get a bit boring.

giphy

Photo Credit – Giphy.com

Alright, so maybe not that bad, but I wasn’t getting a lot done.

The truth was I kind of felt slighted, I was doing 90% of the electrical engineering for the firm and didn’t have a title to match my job duties.  Instead of figuring out how to make the job better and position myself for the raise I thought I deserved, I tried hijacking a negotiation. It failed miserably, but it got me focused.

When I came to my next firm, I was determined to ensure that I wouldn’t ever be in that position again, but I had no idea how to get the help I needed. [Read more…] about Three Methods to Stop Stagnation and Accomplish your Engineering Career Goals

Filed Under: Blog, Career Goals and Challenges, Organization/Productivity/Time Management Tagged With: accountability partner, mentorship, roadmap for success

When Accountability Is Not The Best Strategy To Achieve Your Goals

April 11, 2016 By EMI

This is a guest blog post by Daniel Hayes, PE, PMP

goals

Accountability is all the rage.  Goal setting literature is full of articles, features and columns, touting the benefits of finding an accountabilibuddy, one whose job it is to keep you on track, moving forward on your goals, performing what you planned and promised.  While I agree that having someone hold me accountable makes perfect sense, the idea has never worked well for me.  I have always struggled being on the hook to someone else; so much that resistance to accountability often pushes me off course.  I find myself pushing back on accountability because of this.


I’ve always wondered if there was something wrong with me.  Why do I push back on those trying to support me?  Why does my work suffer when I am held externally accountable?  Does this inclination and behavior of mine have to sabotage my career and personal development?

[Read more…] about When Accountability Is Not The Best Strategy To Achieve Your Goals

Filed Under: Blog, Career Goals and Challenges, Organization/Productivity/Time Management Tagged With: accountabilibuddy, Accountability, achieving success, Daniel Hayes, engineering career success, goal setting, personal development

The 3 D’s of Productivity or How to Work Smarter not Faster as an Engineer

October 26, 2015 By EMI

This is a guest blog post by Skye J. Coleman, PE

3 D’s of ProductivityThese days, the modern engineering office is filled with cubicles stacked right next to one another. Two monitors sit on each desk and low-profile dividers barely separate one person from the next. For 8 to 10 hours a day, Monday through Friday, engineers young and old sit pensively at their assigned work station, cranking away at their to-do lists trying to meet or beat their next deadline. It’s time to change things up and get to know the 3 D’s of productivity.

So, if you’re an engineer in one of those offices, I hate to tell you… but your work output is pathetic.

Chances are, most of those deadlines will not be hit and if they are the resulting project work will only be partially finished. Distractions and fires from previously “completed” projects will take priority and the proverbial can will be kicked down the road to construction phase services where you’ll have to answer immediate RFI’s from the field distracting you from the design project assigned to you at that time. [Read more…] about The 3 D’s of Productivity or How to Work Smarter not Faster as an Engineer

Filed Under: Organization/Productivity/Time Management Tagged With: learn to delegate, productivity steps, Skye Coleman, work smarter

Skyrocket Your Productivity with These 5 Apps for Your Smartphone

October 19, 2015 By EMI

 Skyrocket Your Productivity with These 5 Apps

This is a guest blog post by Dave Willenberg, LEED AP

Let’s talk about how technology has advanced productivity over the years…

 

Eighty million and eight hundred thousand.

The Apollo Guidance Computer did a great job of putting people on the moon, but that’s how many of them you’d need to match the processing speed of an iPhone 6 (in instructions per second). In terms of overall performance, that little chip inside Apple’s latest flagship could guide 120,000 Apollo 11 missions at the same time.

That’s a lot of small steps for man…

…but no giant leap if it’s only used to check Facebook on your lunch break.

That comparative supercomputer in your pocket is a tool which offers infinite ways to boost your productivity. Why not unleash its potential?

Whether you’re part of an engineering team or a fellow solopreneur, fire up your app-store and start increasing your efficiency with these 5 smartphone apps for productivity. [Read more…] about Skyrocket Your Productivity with These 5 Apps for Your Smartphone

Filed Under: Organization/Productivity/Time Management Tagged With: boomerang, Dave Willenberg, glympse, productivity apps, pushbullet, regularly, tasker

Effectiveness vs. Efficiency: Picking A Productivity Mindset That Boosts Your Results

October 12, 2015 By EMI

productivity

“Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.” – Peter Drucker

Our mindset drives everything we do. In Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, the reader is introduced to two mindsets: fixed and growth. From her research, Dweck has shown the mindset with which a person operates will determine their success in learning new material, dealing with failure, assimilating new skills, and defining success.

A similar two-track mindset exists in productivity as well, and the one we pick to apply will determine the level of impact we have in achieving long term success and overall accomplishments.

Effective vs. Efficient Productivity Mindset

Here’s a quick explanation of effective and efficient productivity mindsets: [Read more…] about Effectiveness vs. Efficiency: Picking A Productivity Mindset That Boosts Your Results

Filed Under: Organization/Productivity/Time Management Tagged With: effectiveness, efficiency, Productivity

Don’t Leave Anything for Chance When Engineering Your Workflow Routine

October 5, 2015 By EMI

100515 Workflow routineI spent a very long time, writing down the tasks I wanted to do each day in a notebook as the main part of my workflow routine for a long time.  I finally realized a few things one day that made me question my approach.  I would forget to do things that I have to do on a regular basis, and there was a lot of chance in my approach which assumed I would remember everything. [Read more…] about Don’t Leave Anything for Chance When Engineering Your Workflow Routine

Filed Under: Organization/Productivity/Time Management Tagged With: workflow routine

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