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During a decade working in hypergrath tech companies like Meta and Pinterest, I continued to struggle with laxity. I would be assigned an important project, but I could not just start myself. My source of distraction varies – I constantly examine my email, read random documentation, or even scroll through my social feed. But the result was the same: I felt a deep feeling that I was not progressing on things that meant.
At the end of the day, time is the only resource that matters. With every minute, you are deciding to spend your life. Most of the ways people spend their time. Especially in the technical world, our tasks and equipment are constantly changing, so we must be able to customize. What separates the best engineers from the rest of the pack is that they create systems that allow them to be constantly productive.
Here is the main idea that changed my attitude on productivity: Action leads to inspirationNot the other way around. When you wait for inspiration, you should not check your email or scroll Instagram. Instead, just start doing something, anything that progresses towards your goal, and you will find that the inspiration will follow.
For example, if I have a high-purpose, complex bug-fixing challenge at work, my approach is to disintegrate the problem in some very simple. Was i just done Add a log statement that prints the value of a relevant variable? At this point my goal is not to solve the bug, it is only to pursue a small step.
This creates a powerful flywheel: you are productive → you feel good → you are more productive.
Unfortunately, many engineers are trapped in the opposite flywheel, a downward spiral of laxity: you are unproductive → you feel bad → you are unproductive.
The idea that inspiration naturally follows with progress, lets us reduce the activation energy required to enter the spiral upwards. Writer and inspiring speaker Tony Robins talks about a related concept that “motion creates feelings.” The tasks we do, and even the way we move our body affect how we feel. Once you feel that you can control your inspiration, you can get stress-free productivity.
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There is a shortage of technical workers. Currently, most of these roles require university degrees, but focused, skill-based micro-circular courses can provide special training an option and expand the workforce. IEEE’s microcradelents program offers credentials that focus on the skills required to become a technician, electrician or programmer regardless of the academic background.
Unlike many engineers, Carolina Cruise-Nera was very little interest in technology as a child. Instead, he dreamed of becoming a professional Balarina. But when an injury forced him to pive her, Cruise-Neera succeeded in computer science, eventually included her interests in art and science as a pioneer in virtual reality.
