“It’s not a 9-5 job. It’s an every moment you’re awake job because you actually enjoy the work that you’re doing.” – Jeffrey Kalmikoff

Somebody stopped me on the street this morning. I was just walking, wearing jeans, a t-shirt, my backpack on, headphones and a gray woolly hat… a coffee in one hand, a smoke in the other…
I guess I was also kind off dancing, you know when you walk shaking your head because you’re listening to something nice…

This guy just stopped me and he said “Hey, what are you listening too?“, I tell him. He says “Are you going to work?“… I’m already thinking “maybe I know him”.

He says “Dude, you must really have a nice job, and you must really like it. You look so relaxed, it’s 10 AM, you’re not in a hurry and you look happy… Anyway, have a beautiful day“. Then he just left.

He is absolutely right, although lately it’s been really crappy(cotton picking, sugar-cane cutting crappy), I still really like my job…

“Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.” – Walter Lippmann (1889 – 1974)

I have always considered the induction process used in companies a joke when applied to technical employees, especially to software developers.
Getting the new guys and gals to learn and follow procedures such as purchase requests or others related to the internals of the company is OK, teaching them about technologies, code style, general programming and design principles is also OK, reshaping the way they think forcefully is just stupid.

The uniqueness of every technical resource in you team must be harnessed and used to benefit the project.
If you are coordinating a project try to nurture creativity, don’t force your idea on how to implement a certain feature, let your developers invest fresh ideas into the products they are working on.

This way you create a win-win situation, your project benefits from fresh ideas and your developers relate better to the project they are working on.
Technical people devote more of their time and passion into the things they enjoy, such as following their own plan. The most important thing about letting your team members be creative is to stop them when they are wondering off.

You can also use this in brainstorming sessions. Never let any of your team members just listen without interacting. Ask them what they think and what would be their solution to the problem at hand.

What they consider to be a dumb idea could be the best approach to your problem.

This week I had the pleasure of reading Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog!, one of the best productivity shorts I’ve ever read. I’m not that into reading self-help books, but I do enjoy reading short ones on how to improve personal productivity.

The book isn’t fresh (2002 vintage) but it does cover a lot of aspects in a funny way, starting from the title and ending with the chapter quotes.

One example of a funny parallel is the one that gave the book it’s name:
“If the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long!”

You can find it on Amazon (Eat that frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time), I found mine in a mall bookstore I buy my SF books from and managed to read two-three chapters a day on my way to work.

One of the best lessons to learn, not only in software development but also in everything you do, is “don’t give up“. Never. It pays off. Really!

This is one of those things that you have to teach yourself, each and every day. If you get hit, hit back, harder.

Why I am writing this? Well, I am writing this from my laptop, which until 20 or so minutes ago had no wireless connectivity; basically it was offline (yes, the dark side). The wireless access point was visible, so I knew it had to be some configuration issue that I had to fix.
I’ve been trying to fix it for a week now, every day, for about 10-20 minutes. I’ve never spent more than that because I know that after the first 10-20 minutes, if the problem seems simple, you may loose a couple of hours and still not get it fixed, and I value time. If you leave large time gaps between tries, you have a better chance of fixing it, especially if it’s not really an urgent problem, like using your laptop at home, where you also have one or more functional desktops . Okay, back to the point!

“Don’t give up” or “Never quit!“, lessons that prove their worth daily for millions of people. Why not you?