Last week I learned of the death of one of the grownups from my childhood church, George Shores. Mr. Shores was my assigned mentor for an academic competition. Winning it may well have been the first event in a virtuous cycle1, setting me up for a tremendous amount of opportunity. Learning of his death made me reflect on the ways in which relatively small acts of altruism can make a huge impact.
Continue reading “The butterfly effect of kindness”
Protect your notification space. This is my #1 tip for managing time and attention.
My goal is to to only get notifications for things that require my timely action or awareness. Everything else needs to be out of my notifications, especially marketing and news. Unfortunately, enforcing this is a continuous job.
I want to talk about why I think this is critically important and then some concrete strategies I apply.
Continue reading “Silence is golden”In some ways, the story of my career is taking stretch opportunities that require me to jump into the deep end of unfamiliar territory. At this point, one of my key skills is knowing how to navigate situations where I have a lot of unknowns. I want to share a technique I have developed, which has been immensely powerful for me. Let’s call it mental model rewriting.
More than 2 years ago, I decided to try to create a brief, digestible manual on the expectations of management for senior engineers at my company who are considering making the shift. At the time, I had about 3 years of management experience, including two prior companies. Enough to feel like I knew how to do the job, but not enough to feel like I should be some kind of authority on management. After letting this marinate for a couple years, I’m ready to share what I have learned.
Continue reading “11 Principles of Engineering Management”
Never Down, Always Up 