Resources for IT Managers
Stress at work is a killer. Many studies have shown stress can have a detrimental affect on your health. When you are stressed at work you are less productive and more likely to make mistakes. Stress can not be eliminated, but it can be controlled. Learning what causes and stress management is the key. The main causes of stress are work, home, and personal problems. Some stress is actually good … [Read more...]
Do you feel your work has taken over your life? Work can seem like a giant time sucking machine that will take as much time as you give it. There is always something to do and there never seems to be enough time to get everything done. Learning to manage your time, set your priorities and set limits on what you take on can help you get back to a reasonable work-life balance. Working long hours … [Read more...]
To-do lists, task list, don’t forget lists. We all use lists of some type to remind us and organize our tasks. Learning how to create and better use these lists will make them more usable to us and more efficient to create. Gina Trapani author and founding editor of Lifehacker wrote an excellent article for Fast Company. Work Smart: How to Write a To-Do List first shows you the differences … [Read more...]
For managers note-taking is a skill used every day and like any skill it can be improved on. By developing your own set of note-taking best practices your notes will be more effective and less time consuming to properly utilize. In an article to follow I will layout an information management system that will show you an efficient and effective way to manage your notes and other forms of … [Read more...]
At work you may come up with ideas, but lack the time or concentration to expand on them. There is a method you can use on the weekend, away from the distractions of work that will allow you to work on these ideas and also come up with some great new ideas. Brainstorming is a technique of gathering large numbers of ideas. Usually the ideas are aimed at solving a specific problem and done in a … [Read more...]
As managers we often face long-term projects and initiatives that test our metal. Our IT department is near the end of an initiative that has evolved over a seven-year period. It has encompassed many projects, many departments and a lot of my time. Now with less than 10 weeks left until the end of this initiative the end is finally in sight. Over the next few months I plan on sharing some of … [Read more...]
For busy managers time management is essential to getting things done. Time management is about controlling your most valuable resource, your time. Time management is a process and just like any process you can improve it. As I mentioned in the post Management Tools – Time and Problem Management Simplified I am a big fan of using lists to manage time, tasks and problems. My method is … [Read more...]
In the IT world working under pressure is a daily occurrence. Knowing the steps to take when faced with an issue can greatly reduce the stress of working under pressure. Deadlines, project changes, unforeseen obstacles, critical outages are only a few of the stressful issues that can arise in the IT world. We face these circumstances often and can feel a great deal of pressure to get them taken … [Read more...]