I don’t just make to do lists, I make a plan of attack. A plan of attack may look like a to do list but it differs in a very significant way: activities are broken up like so…

Sample Plan of Attack:

2 sections of internal audit procedure
test one bag of switches
add 4 vendors to list
finalize vendor selection and approval criteria, send for release
organize emails
pay credit card
finish xyz board edits
2 sections of internal audit procedure
test one bag of switches
…

You’ll notice that most of these pertain to working (with a personal errand thrown in). I like to intersperse all the work activities with short isolated personal items so that I will psychologically think I got ‘everything’ I needed to get done finished and not just harping on work the entire time. Doing a plan of attack this way, I tend to work from when I wake up in the morning (a bit before 8 AM) to before I have to leave for a night time activity or start my exercises or break for dinner (between 4:30 P.M. and 6 P.M.) Additionally, sometimes my work plan of attack merges into my night-time personal plan of attack with very few, if any, work activities thrown in.

The key to a plan of attack is to create shorter and manageable activities and break up the long slog of writing a procedure or testing 500 boards. You will remain alert, excited, and productive. The key is to know the amount of one activity to put in your plan of attack. Sometimes I organize the plan by time slots but most of the time it’s by amount I want to accomplish.

The plan of attack is a constantly changing plan, don’t feel obligated to stick to it completely, you can move around things or add on to each part of the activity. Sometimes when I’m on a roll I’ll just continue with one thing until I’m sick of doing it.

My other important tip for staying so productive: If you find yourself procrastinating on a project because you don’t want to do it, find something harder that you want to do even less than the first project and voile that first project won’t seem so bad and you’ll get it done (in lieu of the harder project)

New to Altium? Here is a wonderful tutorial I found which has great pictures and does an excellent walk through of all simple and *useful* functions from the schematic to the PCB:

http://pcb.castle-st.com/files/Tutes/TutePart2PCB.pdf

Now re-read that title… It says to bring “a” child to work day not to bring “your” child to work day.

Have you ever asked a young person what they want to do/be when they grow up? Not too long ago I used to be one of those “young persons” and do you know what my answer was? Usually it was that I didn’t know. Or, when I grew tired of hearing that question, my answers would become more and more humorous or absurd, such as “drop out of school and have ten kids” or “underwater basket weaving.” However, if you ask some young kids/teens what they want to do/be they might have a solid and unchanging answer. My question for those kids is, “how do you know for sure?”

Here is my answer: Bring a child to work day. Bring your kid, bring your neighbor’s kid, bring a kid from the local school. Bring a kid who wants to do your job when they grow up. Bring a kid who is undecided. The point is to expose them to a realistic job experience. 

Why bring someone else’s kid? One of the one jobs I was certain I did NOT want to do when I ‘grew’ up was be a teacher (my mother’s profession). Plus, because she was a teacher and my mom, I was already exposed to that career’s characteristics. If you bring a kid who thinks they want to be a teacher, it will be more beneficial for them versus your own kid who already knows they don’t want to be a teacher or already knows the ins and outs of being one.

One step further: What about a program from the business end where businesses sort of sponsor the bring a child to work day and partner with schools to provide this type of experience? If it does well enough, it could even be for longer than a day, kind of like a mini internship.

Whatever the case may be to cause the yawn, it inevitably will happen. But yawning in a meeting is rude and unless you are in a college style lecture with hundreds of other people, the yawn will probably A. Be noticed, B. Be frowned upon, and C. Be rude!

How to keep from yawning you ask? Well, if you have a solution then let me know because I don’t know how to suppress one of those jaw opening mouthily functions. I do, however, know some techniques to mask or hide the yawn.

The first technique involves clenching your teeth together and attempting to keep the rest of your face from twitching as the yawn escapes between your teeth. If you can clamp down your teeth tight without it contorting your face, this technique should work for most yawns that are not too powerful.

The second technique is similar to the first except instead of clenching your teeth you hold your lips together (you can bite your lip as if you’re thinking about the lecture/meeting/person talking).

The third technique is for those all-powerful yawns that consume your entire upper body. If that is the case you must make an excuse to move, either by shifting your position in your chair at the same time or bending down to pick up something/scratch your foot/etc. If this shields your face then let out the yawn. If this does not shield your face, then the only polite thing left to do is cover your open mouth.

If the meeting is extra boring/extra long/extra monotone/extra lacking in coffee and you continue to yawn and yawn, try to switch up the techniques as much as possible without appearing too shifty or disinterested.