The flu outbreak made me pause and consider another powerful contagion.
Lately, you can't turn on the TV without hearing about a flu outbreak. Most people can relate to being busy at work and hesitating to take a sick day, but this often cuts even deeper for entrepreneurs. Big corporations can typically float the costs of an ill employee's decreased productivity or absence better than a small business--let alone a solo shop.
So, similar to deciding when the physical symptoms of an illness require a day off, how can you determine when your employees' attitudes are just too negative to come into the office? Let's all admit it, there is a time and a place for taking "mental health days."
Here are my thoughts on when to hit pause at work due to stress or bad attitude, as inspired by a list of tips from WebMD on when one's "Too Sick To Work."
Threat Level 1: Proceed with caution.
How well can you carry out your work duties?Although I generally have a sunny disposition, sometimes I wake up feeling "off." So just as I pop vitamin C when I feel an unidentified tickle in the back of my throat, I similarly take a moment to nip nascent negativity in the bud before it can proliferate. Typically, this is as straightforward as addressing a residual concern that I haven't been able to shake: squashing a small argument with my husband, scheduling a meeting with one of my sons' teachers, or putting a card in the mail to a friend who's been on my mind. Once I resolve such issues, my mind is more at ease, and I can re-focus on work.
Threat Level 2: Limit interaction.
Are you contagious?At other times, I discover that my mood is so funky as to likely "infect" my staff and clients. Even if I feel like I can't afford to disconnect 100%, I force myself to at least take a break...which on hectic days takes herculean effort! Often I can remedy things with a quick and dirty fix: rearranging my day to limit interaction. I focus on solo projects; postpone meetings; disconnect from email; and if possible, work outside and soak in the healing benefits of sunshine. The feeling that we can't afford to unexpectedly disconnect means we've either lost perspective by overestimating our importance, or that our business model is dangerously askew. CEOs shouldn't be so critical to daily operations that our staffs can't step up and handle such unforeseen breaks! Plus, our staffs will be thankful that we had enough regard for their health that we didn't allow our funky attitudes to spread.
Threat Level 3: Quarantine yourself.
Will resting at home help your body to overcome the illness? OK, I admit it: there have been days when my attitude renders me almost completely ineffective. Thankfully, this only happens once or twice a year, and when it does, the decision is made for me...I take a day off and re-calibrate! I implore fellow entrepreneurs who find themselves feeling this way to take at least one day to get it together. Just like driving when you're angry, working when your mind's not right can be downright dangerous. It may feel like you can't afford a day off for a mental, vs. physical, issue. But in fact, "working when awry" can cause much costlier damage. We are much more likely to make rash (and potentially costly) business decisions, lose our tempers, or give an unsuspecting new client the false impression that this temporary foul attitude is part of our modus operandi. In hindsight, the mental health days I've taken have been worthwhile--without fail.
When entrepreneurs aren't feeling well mentally, we must protect ourselves, our teams, and our businesses by "treating others as we would want to be treated." Do you have strategies for preventing bad attitudes from infecting your company? Please share a comment below, or on Twitter or Facebook.
I know it’s easier said than done. There are at least as many articles on this as there are stars in our galaxy. Or may be more.
But the hard truth is that the world’s still full of people who find no time to code their pet project into a full-fledged app. And it’s more or less a self-discipline issue.
Finding time to code is one of the hardest things to do if you’re working full-time and doing the code in your ‘free’ time, which is typically the evenings/nights and the weekends. Quite a lot of hobbyists find it easy to code simple “hobby projects” that won’t see the light of day on the App Store (or even GitHub) but when it comes to serious coding, trouble starts at the time-management level.
There’s always a time to code. “I haven’t got the time to code/test/debug” isn’t a good excuse even when you’re in a full-time job and it all boils down to two things: sacrifice and self-discipline.
I’m sure most of what you are going to read is advice you’ve heard (possibly a million times before). For the benefit of those who’re starting the first lines of their app and for those who’re struggling to manage time to code, here are some things you should always, always remember:
If there’s one lesson I’ll take to my grave after having spent a considerable chunk of my lifetime writing code, it’s this: there’s nothing called ‘code in small chunks’. This ‘do it in small measures’ thing might work elsewhere but no, sir, not when you’re coding.
A few lines of CSS and jQuery can take away more than an hour of your time even if you’re smart and can write semantic code on paper like Steve Wozniak.
If you think you’ll come back from office, do a little of this and that and then sit to code for about an hour, I suggest you forget that idea. Code is something that takes away a lot of your time and if you want to get it done, you’ll need to, more often than not, forget time. That means forget setting time limits to code.
Evening visits to the gym can be shifted to the mornings if you code well in the night. A handful of weekend parties can be skipped. Webinars/Seminars on development can be missed. Or if things come to a head-on, a dine-out can be sacrificed for those few hundred lines of code that’ll fix the core part of your project.
There’s always something that you can sacrifice. For me, it has been – for sometime – reading books in the night. Club that with a couple of other things like an evening stroll (about an hour) and TV and you probably get more than enough time to code your way to heaven.
Figure out your routine. Then, cut out stuff that can be sacrificed for precious coding time.
There’s this thing called Zero Clutter work zone. It’s basically about de-cluttering your work-zone so you can work distraction-free. And while Leo stops at the physical level of de-cluttering, you can (and should, definitely) take it to the next level: your screens.
When you are coding, have nothing more than one thing in focus: the IDE that you’re working on.
It takes a lot of self-discipline not to:
- check email every two/five/ten minutes
- constantly compile the code every time you make a minor change
- open and refresh Facebook/Twitter/App.net or HN every once in a while
- flip your phone to check messages
- munch on a bagel or fries (drink water; that’s a healthier practice)
Everything other than the IDE is a distraction. If you’re writing a caching program, do just that till you get to a point where you start debugging the code (once it’s totally complete). If you’re writing a regex, finish that totally (test, debug) before you even think of opening a new window in Chrome.
Use a blocking program to keep you off from Gmail, Facebook, HN etc. Keep the phone away – preferably in a different room so you get up only to pick a call.
Little but effective disciplinary changes can help you a lot in focused coding: which translates into less time, more code.
Like I said, it all boils down to self-discipline. And of course, a few hacks like a distraction-free environment (Sublime Text 2, may be?) and a lot of burning the midnight oil (or, if you’re a morning person, getting up a lot earlier than before).
Image by Flickr User Toni Verdú Carbó
]]>