Motivation is a funny thing: Without it we don’t function that well, but when we feel motivated we can do anything.

So, the best thing a boss could do would be to make his people motivated. There is just one problem: we all get our motivation from different things.

That’s why in this post it’s your turn to tell me what you think: What motivates you to wake up every morning, get to work and do your stuff? Check what others have said and share your thoughts in the comments.

And just to get you in a perfect brainstorming mood, here are some links and ideas that motivate some people:

1. Money
2. Getting promoted
3. Financial freedom
4. Having an impact on the money you make
5. Making a difference in the world
6. Making people smile
7. Being happy
8. Working with great people
9. Learning
10. Solving problems
11. A great working environment
12. Having fun while working
13. Being unforgettable
14. Meeting new people
15. Getting on TV
16. Being able to spend more time with your family
17. Reading e-mail
18. Becoming who you want to be
19. A better desk
20. Fear of punishment

Now it’s your turn. Go ahead, use the white space and tell me and the rest of the world what makes (or would make) you enjoy your work and feel motivated in doing it!

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How much money do you make per hour?

It’s a simple calculation: just divide your monthly salary by your working hours.

But we often forget that many of us work more than just the regular hours. It’s easy to stay half an hour or an hour late per day. Not to mention the crunch times at the end of projects.

We work overtime.

And for most of us that time is not compensated in money.

Taking that into account, recalculate your hourly pay. Did you notice a drop in your salary? That’s because you’re giving your employer some work for free.

You should stop doing that. Now.

Or maybe you are one of the lucky ones who get extra money for staying late at work. But even then overtime isn’t good for you. Life isn’t all about work, you know.

Why overtime is evil

My advice (I’m trying to follow it myself as well) is simple: just refuse to do overtime. Here’s why:

1. When working overtime, you are giving your work away for free.
2. If the deadline set for your project is set too tight but you manage to finish on time by doing overtime work, you can be sure that the next deadline will be as tight as this one. If not tighter.
3. Working overtime makes you lazy during the regular hours. You fool around because you think that you can always catch up by working a few extra hours. If you don’t count overtime as part of your daily routine, you’ll work on your tasks more efficiently.
4. Working overtime makes you tired. And when you’re tired, you are much more likely to make errors that you’ll spend the next morning fixing up.
5. Being constantly tired and working non-stop will just burn you out.
6. Your family and friends would like to have you around every now and then as well.
7. In most cases your boss exaggerates the importance of the deadlines set for your projects. If most of the software projects miss their deadlines and the industry is still rather successful, I would say that missing deadlines can’t be that crucial.
8. In fact, most of the deadlines you see in software projects aren’t deadlines at all - they are just goals or worse yet, dreams. Some managers even try to make your deadlines as tight as possible to pressure the poor developer. If you need to work overtime to reach your deadline, it’s not your fault, it’s just poor project management.
9. If you work overtime, you put pressure on the rest of your team to do the same.
10. Working overtime doesn’t really make you a hero - although your superiors like to make it look like that.

How to avoid overtime

Just say no.

You need to make a conscious decision not to do overtime ever again. As long as you still think somewhere deep in your mind that hard work makes you a hero, you won’t stop doing it. The first step is to learn the mantra: “Overtime is evil” by heart.

When you agree completely, you can move on to the following tips:

1. Set an alarm to go off when your hours are full. When the alarm rings, go home.
2. Don’t do other people’s work. Trust others to do it for themselves.
3. Delegate.
4. When at work, work. Don’t spend too much time chatting with your co-workers.
5. Avoid meetings.
6. Do the important tasks first. This way if your day ends before you have had the chance to finish all of your work, it doesn’t matter that much.
7. Come in early. In the morning the office is quiet and you can concentrate better. If you have a door, close it occasionally to get some efficient working time.
8. Let everyone know that you are not doing overtime anymore. This way they won’t expect you to be available at all times.
9. Try to get your work mates to quit doing overtime as well (tip: send them a link to this article)
10. Plan appointments after work. This way if you are asked to do overtime, you can just say that you cannot stay any longer because your friends are waiting for you.

If you have other proven tricks for avoiding overtime, please share them in the comments!

Remember that the real hero isn’t the one who sacrifices his life for the company’s sake, but the one who takes care of her life as a whole and stays stays fresh and productive by not working too hard.

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When my son was two weeks old I wrote one of my most popular posts so far, Getting things done with a baby in the house. In that post I explained my rather optimistic plans on how to continue with all my goals as a father. Now Oiva is two months old so it’s about time to take a new look at the topic.

The formula I presented in my original post was rather simple:

1. Simplify by dropping out the things you don’t find that important
2. Concentrate better by planning a good schedule for all of your tasks
3. Apply the schedule… and accomplish your plans

Sounds good… Until reality hits you.

You can get (some) things done

1. A baby sleeps for about 12-16 hours per day, sometimes even more.So wouldn’t you think that there’s plenty of time to do whatever you want? But there is a catch: my son only sleeps when he’s being carried by someone. Some kids prefer being pushed in their carriages. But what’s common to all of them is that they rarely just sleep and let their parents mind their own businesses.

   This means that you can get things done, just as long as you choose your things correctly.

   A few days ago we spent the whole day at the Finnish Housing Fair. We walked around a rather big fair area visiting different houses and collecting ideas for decorating our home. It was great, Oiva was like a little angel. Here’s the trick: I knew that Oiva likes to sleep when carried, so I took him on my arm and let him stay there the whole time.

2. Children (usually) have two parents. If you can get your spouse to take care of the child for some time while you concentrate on your tasks that will help you get them done. Once again the trick is to choose your tasks well!If the thing you want to get done is useful for your wife or husband as well, she will be OK with the arrangement. If it isn’t… well… it’ll take much more persuasion.

   Today I decorated our living room by covering one of the walls with wallpaper. It was something that my wife and I planned together and both wanted to get done so she happily took care of our son and I got the wallpaper in place.

Routine things are harder

But if you think about the list of things I described as my goals in my original posts you notice that neither of these examples was on the list. The problem is that most of the things I outlined in my original posts cannot be done in this manner. They all require me to concentrate, so doing them while carry Oiva around the house isn’t really an option. And they aren’t really things that my wife would choose if it would be up to her to decide how I spend my time.

So, after two months many of my plans have been dropped or delayed due to the lack of efficient time to spend on them.

I haven’t had a morning appointment with myself after the first few weeks as a parent and I haven’t even touched my thesis. But then again I have been blogging almost as actively as I had planned, and I’ve been able to follow some RSS feeds and even read some books (although it takes me much longer to finish a book nowadays than before Oiva).

Is there a solution?

Yes, and no.

1. You just can’t do it all. So the first thing to do is to simplify some more. From your original short list, choose what you really really want to do. To me this means postponing my thesis still a bit more. I can do it later just as well.
2. Find a flexible way to work on your number one goal. Babies aren’t looking at their watches and they aren’t exactly good in patience either. So, if the baby doesn’t wait for you to finish your work before getting your attention, you need to be the flexible one. For example in blogging, try to work on your posts when your child is sleeping in his bed. Write posts in advance so if you slip from your schedule you won’t be missing your posting slots, or make your posting schedule more flexible.
3. Be patient. If you can’t get your tasks done, don’t fall in despair. Think about your baby and the great family you have. And remember that the most important thing you can do is to be a mother or father. You can continue on your own goals when you have time. If you lose one or two days because your kid doesn’t sleep at all, don’t let it put you down. Be with your family and continue with your goals when you have a better moment.

And actually, if you think about it, what’s the problem?

I have a great son, so it’s just normal that he becomes the center of my world. If some of my own goals have to wait, it’s not a problem for which I need to be looking for a solution. It’s just the way life works.

Enjoy your children, and get something done!

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Harry looked from Cedric to the cup. For one shining moment, he saw himself emerging from the maze, holding it. He saw himself holding the Triwizard cup aloft, heard the roar of the crowd, saw Cho’s face shining with admiration more clearly than he had ever seen it before… And then the picture faded, and he found himself staring at Cedric’s shadowy, stubborn face.

“Both of us,” Harry said.
“What?”
“We’ll take it at the same time. It’s still a Hogwarts victory. We’ll tie for it.”

Cedric stared at Harry. He unfolded his arms.
“You - you sure?”
“Yeah,” said Harry. “Yeah… we’ve helped each other out, haven’t we? We both got here. Let’s just take it together?”For a moment, Cedric looked as though he couldn’t believe his ears; then his face split in a grin.
“You’re on,” he said. “Come here.”

Today is an important day for all of us Harry Potter enthusiasts all over the world. The seventh and last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be published in only a few hours from now. There are many open questions on every one’s lips: Who is going to die? Will Harry beat Voldemort? Is Harry going to get back together with Ginny? On which side will Severus Snape be in the end?

But there is one thing that we already know for sure: once again, just like in all the previous books, Harry Potter will continue to bravely do what he believes is right and not what other people expect him to do. By doing this he sets us a great example on how we should live both our personal and professional lives.

Here are some tips from Harry on how to live up to your values and make the best out of your life:

1. Hang out with friends who share your values: Ron, Hermione, and many other friends are always there for Harry to keep him true to himself and his dreams. Each of them have their distinct, important roles. So far in none of the books has Harry handled his adventures by himself.
2. Find mentors who support your values: Harry has been lucky enough to have studied in a school lead by a great wizard, Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore has taken lots of time to give Harry special training and support to prepare him for the battles that are still ahead. Most importantly Dumbledore has shown a great example in loving and trusting your friends.
3. Have good enemies: It’s not like Harry chose his enemy. Voldemort is not someone you’d pick if you were given a choice. But it’s clear that having a clear vision of who or what you’re fighting against will give you strength to fight it. When you know what will happen if you don’t fight for your values, and you don’t like what you see, you fight twice as hard.
4. …and don’t be too afraid to name them: This is something I’ve always admired about Harry. When everyone else is so afraid of Voldemort that they refer to him as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or You-Know-Who, Harry always just says his name - without even thinking about it.
5. Be curious: Curiosity brings Harry to trouble but it also gives him a chance to show his conviction and live up to his values. If he would have just sit back and wait see what happens, most of his adventures would never had taken place. This is something that I find really important: if you want to make a difference with your life, you should actively seek situations to do it.
6. Break some rules if necessary: When you see that a person you thought to be dead is wandering on your school’s corridors, it might make sense to put on your invisibility cloak and go check out what’s the deal. Even if it’s forbidden to walk around at night time.
7. Be loved and dare to love: In the books love is often mentioned as Harry’s greatest strength and the one thing that separates him from Voldemort. As a baby Harry survived Voldemort’s attacks because his mother loved him so much, and that love is still one his fondest memories that carry him through the darkest of times.

And finally, as Harry says in the movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: “I love magic”.

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Every Monday is a Perfect Workplace Monday at JarkkoLaine.com. Take a look at other posts in the series.

One of my bosses once said that a you know that a workplace is great when you can’t wait to get back to work after your summer holidays.

I think it’s a great definition.

And it makes a great test: If you feel the same way about your work as this guy does, your workplace might well be perfect. If not, maybe it’s time to either fix it or find a new one.

The first step to take when you notice that your workplace isn’t perfect is to figure out what your perfect workplace actually would be like. It’s not an easy question, but the better you know yourself the easier it becomes to answer:

Your perfect workplace is a representation of who you are.

In your everyday life you do everything according to who you are and who you want to be. So why would you spend eight hours a day doing something that doesn’t represent who you are? Just acting like a standard piece in a standard corporate puzzle.

Here’s what I think you should keep in mind when thinking about a perfect workplace:

1. A perfect workplace is something different for all of us: When I first saw images from the Threadless offices I was amazed. The place really looks different - unlike the default cubicles this office has a personality. But although I really love what the Threadless guys have done with their office I wouldn’t want to work there. It’s just not me. I can see that it’s great, but it doesn’t match my personality.
   
   In my dreams I have a completely different sight: a peaceful cabin in the middle of the nature. A place where I can hear the rain and feel the wind while working on my code:
   
   
2. In a perfect workplace you have your own spot that feels like home. It could be a typical desk that you decorate in a way that makes you feel good (maybe add your family portrait or fill your wall with graffiti), or it could be a corner in a coffee shop -like environment. Whatever makes you feel at ease. That’s the only way you’ll ever enjoy coming to work. If you cannot relax at your desk you most likely won’t enjoy sitting next to it.
   
3. In a perfect workplace you work with people you like. If you like working with like-minded people of same age, that’s fine. If you want to be working with people from different cultural backgrounds or different age groups, that’s great too. Even if you don’t like working with anyone else than yourself, that’s fine. Just make sure that your workplace meets your preferences. You choose your friends so why wouldn’t you choose your work mates? After all you spend more time with them each day than your spouse.
4. In a perfect workplace you feel like you own the place. Or maybe it’s more like it’s your dad’s place - a place almost like your own. That means that you believe in what the company is doing, and want to work 100% towards that goal. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want you to make yourself believe in your corporate mantra. What I’d want instead would be that you would work in a company you believe in. Another thing is that your dad would certainly give you responsibility over your work - and he’d always tell you how your work is affecting the place in a whole. After all, you’d be inheriting the place at some point anyway. So, no secrets!

To put it short and to the point:

In a perfect workplace people come first.

Now ask yourself the question: “What does my boss put first? Is it the money, the process, his career, or is it really us, the people?” By asking this question you make sure that the people you lend your skills to (your valuable skills that is) are worthy of using them.

This was the short version of my definition of a perfect workplace. In the upcoming weeks I will continue on my quest for defining what a perfect workplace is and isn’t by addressing different questions one by one. But now, if you feel like it, why not share your ideas of a perfect workplace as well? What do you value in a workplace the most?

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Imagine the following situation: You are at a wedding, sitting in a table with people you don’t know. You introduce yourself:
- Hi, my name is Johnny, nice to meet you.
- Well nice to meet you Johnny! Tell me, what do you do for your living?

Long silence.

This was the very question you were afraid people would ask. You knew they would, but you couldn’t prepare for it because you didn’t have an answer that would satisfy yourself.
- Well… I work with computers, you know… I’m a programmer… Coding… Computer Science… err… It brings the food on the table, you mumble.

The conversation moves on and you’re left with a feeling that you could have done better.

Or maybe you are one of the lucky ones and you even wait to hear that question. You are confident with your work and happy to tell people about it. You reply promptly:
- I like to talk to people and want to encourage others to do that as well, so I’m making people talk to each other more by working on this communication software.

Same job, two completely different descriptions.

The first Johnny was just doing a job - working on something to get the money and feed the family. Just like most of us. The second one was doing what he really enjoys, something that tells the world who Johnny is all about. Something that matches Johnny’s values.

What about you? What would you answer? I think that example is a pretty good test for finding out if you’re spending your working days being the best you can or if you’re just wasting your precious hours

Let me give you a few examples:

1. If you want to be fighting global warming, your company should be committed to fighting it as well. (Google is a great example)
2. If you want to help get rid of poverty, your company should be supporting people from developing countries either through their work or monetarily (and making sure that their business isn’t harmful for the poor).
3. If you want to make people friendlier, your company should have a friendly an open image.
4. If you want to take great care of your family, your company should let you work from home from time to time, and take time off when your children need you.
5. If you value freedom, your work should allow you to take responsibility on your actions and choose your ways of working yourself.

The list could go on forever as we all have different values and different values call for different jobs.

“That’s just some idealistic crap. We all know life doesn’t work that way”

Let me tell you something. The only reason why this sounds idealistic is because we’ve been programmed by Frederick W. Taylor and his successors to believe that work is only something we do to earn our living. In our philosophy we think that we sell our time to the Company and get some money in return. But that’s not how things are anymore (maybe they never were in the first place, I don’t know). Actually I think that it’s an old fashioned way of thinking that creates more problems than helps to solve:

1. When you work for money, you don’t find as much to enjoy in your work as you could. That leads to a lower productivity and happiness at work.
2. When you work for money, you won’t take responsibility on your company’s actions regarding important things such as taking care of the nature. While you take responsibility of your own actions in your free time, work is a completely different story.
3. When you work for money, it takes a toll from your free time. As human beings we have a need to work for our values, and if we can’t do it at work, we’ll do it after working hours - which should be the time for relaxing with the family.
4. Life is short. When you work for money, you slowly start to notice how quickly time goes by without you doing the things you think you are put on this planet to do. That’s a scary feeling.

This is what I’m saying: Make sure your values match with your work. If they don’t, try to find ways to change your work, or even get a different job. If you cannot find a job that suits you, create one yourself! Life is just too short for only chasing after money:

If we only got one try
If we’ve only got one life
If time was never on our side
Before I die I want to burn out bright

— Burn Out Bright by Switchfoot

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Every Monday is a Perfect Workplace Monday at JarkkoLaine.com. This is the first post in that series and we start by digging into the wonders of not having an office at all.

Last week I wrote about getting rid of your office for ecological reasons. I think I brought up some pretty good arguments for starting to work from home in order to save the planet, but regarding other reasons I barely scratched the surface. Yeah, I think that there is more to it than just what I had in that one blog post.

Disclaimer: I have been told that I sometimes sound like a black and white guy who doesn’t see all the shades of gray. So, to clarify things a bit, I don’t want to claim that I would know all about this topic. I just have been giving it some thoughts and am beginning to think that for many companies a way of working without having an office might actually be a really good and sustainable idea. Both for ecological and other reasons. If you disagree, I’d be happy to hear your take on the idea, and learn something new.

So, what I’m saying is that in the modern times of Internet and fast telecommunication channels we could improve our productivity and quality of life by leaving our offices. People could work from anywhere they would like: their homes, libraries, coffee shops or even summer cottages - actually they could be living anywhere around the globe! This idea is not new, but I think now could be the time to start putting it to practice.

“Why should we do that?”, you ask. Here are my most precious arguments:

1. Commuting: I’m sure you have better use for the time you spend every day traveling between work and home. The time can be more than two whole weeks each year, you know. Maybe you have a hobby you would like to spend more time on? Or maybe you’d like to pick up a reading habit.
2. Fresh at work: Also, if you’re a boss, you’d probably like to have your employees to get to work fresh and relaxed. If they wouldn’t have to spend 30 - 60 minutes in a bus every morning (or worse yet, in a traffic jam) but could use that time for sleeping or doing their morning rituals, I’d bet that they would be more relaxed and efficient when starting their work.
3. Be your own boss: When you are working at your place of choice you get a feeling of autonomy. Not your boss, but you choose how you work and when, so that your work actually fits your schedule and not the other way round. This might be scary for the employer as it forces him to trust the employees. But if he wouldn’t trust you, why would he have hired you in the first place?
4. Hire the best brains: We’re living in a globalizing world. My father-in-law likes to joke about how globalized I am, and how I don’t think about the world as countries that much, but rather as a single unit. Anyway, what this means is that now for the first time in history you really have the power to hire anyone you want! You don’t need to worry about where they live or if they want to relocate. Actually, if you don’t have an office, there is no place they could relocate to. You can hire anyone and let them stay where they are! Amazing!
5. Save money: I guess this is something every one of us would like to do whenever possible. If you don’t have an office you’ll be saving potentially a lot of money on things like rent, furniture, electricty, maybe even office supplies and computers as each of your employees would be taking care of their own offices. Doesn’t that sound exciting?

The biggest question that people pose is whether communication would suffer. My hunch is that there would be no significant change in the nature and amount of communication except that it might become more efficient:

1. E-mail: This is already how most of the communication is happening at information driven companies. It’s not that rare at all that the guy sitting next to you sends you e-mail instead of just talking to you. And if that’s how you communicate most of the time, he doesn’t need to sit next to you - right?
2. Phone calls: My closest work mate has been at our US office for a while now and a few days ago he called me to get some issue solved. I hadn’t been using a phone that much in my work before that, so at that moment I realized something. When we were having a phone call instead of just sitting next to each other and chatting we were working much harder towards finding a solution than normally. As people don’t want to make phone calls last too long they make phone calls more effective than regular meetings.
3. Chat rooms: I’ve mentioned Campfire before, but I really think it rocks so I’m mentioning it once more. Campfire is a tool that enables you to create a chat room and invite your colleagues to it. In that chat room you can have an instant face-to-face kind of discussion through your keyboard, but it doesn’t matter if everyone is not there at the same time. The chat is automatically saved so that when you enter the chat you immediately see what other people have been talking about when you were away. What a nice way to replace meetings.

Meetings, face-to-face discussions and general chatter can be easily replaced with the above tools, so the only thing preventing us from going full speed towards this goal is fear. Fear of trying something new, but most importantly the fear that the employees won’t perform well without monitoring. But we’re not living in a Taylorian world anymore: software developers take pride from their work and want to create the best possible end results, so maybe it’s time we start finally trusting each other and let go of our old fears?

What do you think? Would you be ready for a company without an office? Or could it be that you’re already working in one? In any case, feel free to share your thoughts.

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Have you ever been in a situation where you honestly don’t know if you’re doing what you’re expected to do or not? You don’t have a clear picture about what you boss wants you to do, or what are the criteria he’s using to track your successes and failures. Chances are that they are a mystery for him as well.

Or maybe you are a boss thinking about whether you dare give honest feedback to your developers. Maybe they’ll get mad and quit? Let me reassure you (although this is a subjective opinion from just one developer - it would be nice to hear about other people’s experiences in the comments too), giving feedback will make your people feel more relaxed and more interested in their work. And they will appreciate you more.

1. Clear expectations: One of the biggest demotivators related to feedback is that people don’t know what is expected from them. Or they know it on a superficial level, but when it comes to real everyday decisions, it becomes much fuzzier. If the developer knows the expectations, and they fit into her own career goals, she’ll work hard to meet them and make you happy. If the expectations don’t make sense, she might be more motivated if you kept the expectations secret. But then again, only a fool would set expectations that don’t make sense. Right?
2. Positive feedback: I think that positive feedback is important for two main reasons. I’m sure that psychologists would come up with many more, but here are my reasons: First, positive feedback creates a sense of security. It assures that you’re doing pretty well, and therefore you can take some risks and it makes you better prepared for negative feedback. And secondly, when correctly used, it improves the status of the leader. When the leader gives positive feedback at the right time he shows to the developers that he actually understands something about the nature of the work that is being done.
3. Constructive criticism: If the foundations are in a good shape (clear expectations and plenty of well-timed positive feedback) constructive criticism is the single most effective tool for either making or breaking the motivation of a talented software developer. Imagine a top notch software engineer called Lisa. Every day she gets to work, does pretty good work - maybe even outperforming some of her work mates. She gets lots of positive feedback, but deep inside she knows that she could be so much better, that she’s actually only giving 70% of her performance to the job. Because no one gives her negative feedback, slowly a moral dilemma grows in her mind: “why should I try to do my best when this much is already enough?” And once she decides that she actually shouldn’t, she starts to get demotivated.

So, if you are a boss in charge of software developers (or other creative workers) make sure you make your developers feel that in general they are doing a great job. Then whenever you notice that someone is not using her full potential, let her know that. Don’t just accept it thinking that she’s already doing as well or better than her colleagues. She will appreciate you for noticing.

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A paper free office is a great idea. It’s friendly for the environment, it’s less cluttered, it’s “web 2.0″ and it makes us feel like early adopters. Unfortunately the modern computer based tools are not always as efficient or user friendly as their old-fashioned paper based alternatives. So (this may sound strange coming from a software developer) although I’m usually in favor of using computers to help us as much as possible, there are some things that I rather use in analog format instead of the digital alternative:

1. Calendar: There are so many digital alternatives available that there must be something wrong about me if I cannot find any that suits my needs. I’ve been using Outlook, Google Calendar and Backpack Calendar and tried a few others during the past few years. All of them have some good features and most of them are pretty solid packages, providing me with lots of useful and some unnecessary features. But they all miss the one most important thing about a calendar: I can’t carry them with me all the time. If I want to simply check an appointment, I have to start my computer, and that takes at least 5 minutes. To fix this problem I have tried using my mobile phone. It has this one thing right, but about everything else is wrong. The user interface is clumsy, the screen is small, and synchronizing the calendar with Outlook is too much work. So, I’m opting back to paper. Although I haven’t yet bought my new paper calendar, here’s my new calendar of choice.
2. Diary: Following Scott’s advice I’ve started writing my thoughts down every morning. I also write any small idea that pops to my mind as soon as I think of it. In order to achieve these goals I have three notebooks: a tiny one that I carry in my pocket all the time for quick ideas, another one for my daily diarying and a deliberatePeople diary for writing down things learned from reading the Bible. I have tried diarying on a computer before, and the problem is that when you open your computer, you’re surrounded with so much distractions that you cannot concentrate to the diary anymore. A paper diary is quick to open to write a few words and close again. And the same way as the paper calendar, you can use your note book anywhere. One more thing to consider is that when your diary or note book looks nice you feel like writing more. That’s why my next diary will be a Moleskine.
3. Sketchpad: When working, I clear my head by writing down every idea that runs through my mind. I draw diagrams, mind maps and sometimes even just a few words here and there. In order to clean my desk from all the paper I have around me, I have tried doing this with Notepad, some graphics programs, even online mind mapping software. Although I think that online mind mapping and Backpack are pretty cool for stuff like this they are not perfect. Paper has one thing extra which is really important for creative thinking: the freedom to draw over the lines, cut off a piece of paper and so on. Basically you can do anything you want with your piece of paper.
4. Task cards: This is something I came up with a couple of months ago. It might not be a new idea, but what I’m doing is that I’m using my old business cards as task cards. On each card I write one clearly defined task and some additional information on what I need to keep in mind when working on the task. I have three piles of cards: empty cards waiting to be used, active task cards (in prioritized order) and used cards. Once a task is completed I take the card and put it in the used pile. It gives me visual feedback about getting something done. This approach needs still some more polishing, but even like this it seems to work much better than the Backpack task list or the Excel templates that I was using before switching to this system.
5. Books: There is one good thing about e-books: you can download them fast - you don’t need to go to a bookstore, a library or wait for the mailman to deliver your Amazon orders. But that’s about the only positive thing I can think of. Regular books are just so much better: You can easily take a book with you on a bus, in bed, in the toilet or wherever you need it. When working on your computer, you can keep the book open on the table next to you so you can look at it whenever you have something you need to check. If you were reading an e-book, you’d have to switch windows every time you need to look at the book. Also, book shelves look good and browsing books in a library or book store is a great feeling.
6. Time tracking: I’m currently using an Excel based time tracking, but the problem with it is that I always remember it only after I’ve turned off my computer. If I would have a note book on my desk for writing down my hours, I wouldn’t have to worry about that, opening the note book wouldn’t take long and I could write down my hours right when I remember to do it.

Now it’s your turn. Are there some paper based tools that you like better than their electronic counterparts? Or do you disagree with my list? Do you think there are improvements coming in the near future?

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In software engineering communication plays a very big role. It could even be argued that software work is more about communication than it is about programming or design. The biggest reasons for software project failures lie in the communication between the team members than in any technical aspects.

Usually when talking about communication problems people tend to think about not having enough communication. Most of us would say that it’s bad if people don’t talk to each other, and suggest that the more we talk the better we work. But it’s not that straightforward. People can go overboard with communication, talking so much that their days are spent writing, reading and waiting for e-mail, talking on the phone, talking in person and so on. And in the end no productive work is done. When there is more talking than doing, it’s time to change something.

1. Trust your co-workers: Your team mates are professionals, so you don’t need to make every decision together with them. You don’t even need to know about every decision they are making, and you definitely don’t need to know the rationale behind their every decision. If their code works, trust that it’s good and do your part.
2. Trust yourself and be brave: Another common reason for too much communication is the fact that we are looking for others to back us up. But remember: You were chosen to your position because of your skills. You’re a professional, and your employer trusts you to know how to do your work. So should you. Just make sure you know what is expected from you and then just do your work.
3. Ask and guess: In some cases you have to ask, but it takes time to get the answer. This happens to me a lot because many of my team mates are living on a different time zone (we have a 10 hour difference), so I don’t get an answer to my questions until the next morning. If I just sit and wait for the answer, I spend many days in some unproductive work. If you’re in a similar situation, I suggest that you send the question, then take a guess and continue based on your intuition. In most cases you guess right and receive a confirmation on the next day.
4. Do unit tests: Documentation helps a lot, but documentation takes time to maintain. Test driven development provides a different tool to do testing and documentation at once: Write good unit tests that test every piece of functionality you’re writing, and suddenly you have documented your code. Unit tests also back up your guesses: when you try to work based on your hunch, the unit tests will tell you when you’re going wrong.
5. Kill meetings: This is a common advice on the Internet, but sadly most companies still don’t get it. In a meeting in most of the cases at least half of the people present aren’t really needed for more than 10% of the duration of the meeting. So, if instead of calling the people in a meeting you talk to them individually, you’ll end up saving many people’s time, including yours.
6. Prioritize: Only ask the important questions, because if you don’t you’ll be not only spending a lot of your own time writing e-mail, making phone calls or chatting with your coworkers, but also spending their time. Also, often people might answer to your easy questions first, so by prioritizing your questions you’ll make sure you get an answer to your most important question and not some less important ones.

Remember that time is the most valuable asset you have. If you want to finish your projects on time you don’t want to go spending your time on unnecessary discussion. So, optimize your communication, trust yourself and your team mates and be brave. Guessing isn’t always as bad as it might sound.

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