Good luck finding the civil engineer with an overabundant quantity of time on their plate. So it’s a workplace imperative to focus on quality of time.
Getting more done in less time is the name of the game these days.
Last month’s Thursdays@3 conversation featured a panel of civil engineers discussing their strategies for managing this magic trick of efficiency.
Here are some tips and tricks for more efficient time management and work taken from their talk.
You can also register for next month’s Thursdays@3 conversation.
Shirley Clark
Acting dean of the Penn State–Harrisburg School of Science, Engineering, and Technology; president of ASCE Environmental and Water Resources Institute
“As people move up in jobs and get into management-level positions, or you start your own firm, you’ll find that you’ll be pulled in 15 different directions very quickly – everything from HR issues to client issues to technical issues. …
“So, I have a cabinet next to me, and I have sticky notes. I just write the different tasks on the sticky notes, and the ones that are closer to my line of sight are the ones that are due first.
“It’s a different way of doing that ‘To Do’ list. And it’s a stress relief when you watch those things go away. The notes go up there, but boy, they go down too, and I need that.
“It’s a way to keep myself on track. … and this way, I don’t have to write a new ‘To Do’ list every day.”
Ari Daniels
Senior water resources engineer, Stantec, Charlottesville, Virginia
“A lot of the way that I approach productivity is just thinking about the process. Was this workflow efficient for us?
“… If I do (some work) and hand it off for review, and then they catch something that requires 20 hours of rework or something like that, wouldn’t it have been better to do that work in stages? (So instead, you say) ‘Hey, we’ll give one piece of this as a sample first review,’ and then after they build that out, give the big chunk for review, etcetera.
“Rework … and task-switching are killers. There’s no reason to have to do the exact same thing multiple times. …
“Another (idea) – and this one is probably a little bit goofy or an uncommon answer, but – I have a walking pad. I have a treadmill under my desk. … It helps me focus, that bilateral stimulation of walking – as long as I’m not walking so fast that it screws up my typing and my ability to use my trackball. Walking slowly or at a moderate pace while I’m doing most kinds of work is pretty good for my focus.
Salvador Bentolila
Principal business consultant, Autodesk, Miami
“The way I handle productivity is through planning a lot in advance every day.
“At the end of my workday, I take about 10 minutes to plan for the following day. I do that by looking at my calendar, seeing what meetings I already have scheduled, and then looking at my ‘To Do’ list and filling in whatever tasks I need to get done in between the meetings.
That allows me to … be very productive with my time because then I know specifically what throughout the next day I need to focus on, rather than have to decide in the middle of the day.
“If you haven’t tried that, try, and you’ll see how impactful it is.”
The next Thursdays@3 discussion is 3-4 p.m. ET, Thursday, Aug. 22. The topic, timely with a new school year near, is “Foundations for Success: Navigating New Semesters in Civil Engineering.” Register today.
