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2015

On Managing Stress, Multitasking and Other New Year's Resolutions Jan 1, 2015 Configuring Master-Slave Replication With PostgreSQL Jan 31, 2015 Trying to Replace Cassandra with DynamoDB ? Not so fast Feb 2, 2015 On apprenticeship Feb 13, 2015 Where AWS Elastic BeanStalk Could be Better Mar 3, 2015 Finding Unused Elastic Load Balancers Mar 24, 2015 Do not apply data science methods without understanding them Mar 25, 2015 Microsoft and Apple Have Everything to Lose if Chromebooks Succeed Mar 31, 2015 Two developers choose to take a class Apr 1, 2015 What can Evernote Teach Us About Enterprise App Architecture Apr 2, 2015 Exploration of the Software Engineering as a Profession Apr 8, 2015 Ordered Sets and Logs in Cassandra vs SQL Apr 8, 2015 Building a Supercomputer in AWS: Is it even worth it ? Apr 13, 2015 Apple is (or was) the Biggest User of Apache Cassandra Apr 23, 2015 My Brief Affair With Android Apr 25, 2015 Why I am not Getting an Apple Watch For Now: Or Ever Apr 26, 2015 The Clarkson School Class of 2015 Commencement May 5, 2015 The Clarkson School Class of 2015 Commencement speech May 5, 2015 We Need a Cloud Version of Cassandra May 7, 2015 Guaranteeing Delivery of Messages with AWS SQS May 9, 2015 Smart IT Departments Own Their Business API and Take Ownership of Data Governance May 13, 2015 Big Data is not all about Hadoop May 30, 2015 The longer the chain of responsibility the less likely there is anyone in the hierarchy who can actually accept it Jun 7, 2015 Your IT Department's Kodak Moment Jun 17, 2015 Attracting STEM Graduates to Traditional Enterprise IT Jul 4, 2015 Book Review: "Shop Class As Soulcraft" By Matthew B. Crawford Jul 5, 2015 The Three Myths About JavaScript Simplicity Jul 10, 2015 Social Media Detox Jul 11, 2015 Big Data Should Be Used To Make Ads More Relevant Jul 29, 2015 On Maintaining Personal Brand as a Software Engineer Aug 2, 2015 Ten Questions to Consider Before Choosing Cassandra Aug 8, 2015 What Every College Computer Science Freshman Should Know Aug 14, 2015 We Live in a Mobile Device Notification Hell Aug 22, 2015 Top Ten Differences Between ActiveMQ and Amazon SQS Sep 5, 2015 Setting Up Cross-Region Replication of AWS RDS for PostgreSQL Sep 12, 2015 I Stand With Ahmed Sep 19, 2015 Banking Technology is in Dire Need of Standartization and Openness Sep 28, 2015 IT departments must transform in the face of the cloud revolution Nov 9, 2015 Operations costs are the Achille's heel of NoSQL Nov 23, 2015 Our civilization has a single point of failure Dec 16, 2015

On Managing Stress, Multitasking and Other New Year's Resolutions

January 1, 2015

One of my resolutions for 2015 is to reduce the stress and manage my workload. I have an obsessive compulsive workaholic personality that often makes it difficult for me to work a day without stressing out or overloading myself with tasks I cannot accomplish on time.




Prioritizing



There is a lot of work that needs to be done but not all of it can be accomplished in a given day. Work needs to be prioritized by:




  1. What is important for my employer/customer/project for today ? Obviously, no sense in doing tasks that are not important for your project.

  2. Is the task going to make me more productive going forward ? Sometimes one may be asked to do something that may seem like make work. In our line of work, however, seemingly make-work tasks can have silver lining depending on the approach - find a way to fulfill this task such that if asked in the future you either don't have to do it at all, or you can do it faster.

  3. Is the task going to move my project forward ? No sense in doing things that result in spinning wheels and treading water.

  4. Is working on this task going to improve your skill set, help you learn something new, and improve your marketability ?



Another thing to note is that every job has its "chores." For example, one of the reasons I chose not to pursue Ph.D. program was because I realized that majority of each professor's time was spent on mundane things like teaching freshman courses and grading home works. Likewise, in my line of work in the private sector there are "chores" that everyone has to do such as installing software updates, builds, etc. Many of these tasks can be automated.



Taking a deep breath



One thing to remember is that every job, every project, is going to have its ups and downs. As long as the project is moving in the right direction (i.e. it is not in Reactive Maintenance, and it follows the general best practices ), setbacks are not a good reason to damage your health.



As I progress in my career I find that I need to work with people less experienced than myself. I have to remind myself that earlier in my career someone had to patiently explain things to me. As a senior member of the team I have to remember to be patient with the junior members as well.



Stop multitasking



Reality is that multitasking does not work. Somehow we all decided that ability to multitask is a desirable quality in a knowledge worker. It is not! On the other hand, ability to manage and prioritize tasks is what is important.



Taking charge of my health



I work from my home office. I find myself sitting at my desk for hours on end. I solved this problem by purchasing a Varidesk Pro Plus. There is plenty of studies out there proving health benefits of working while standing up. I have never felt better – did you know that simply standing up for a few hours exercises your core muscles too ?



I work with computers. Many of my hobbies also involve working at the computer – photography for instance. I need to spend less time at my desk and more time outdoors. One thing I plan on doing in 2015 is buying myself a 128 Gig iPad Mini and using the iPad for all of my photography and other hobby work. I am working on an improved photography workflow that does not involve me sitting at my desk. I want to enjoy my hobbies, not be tied to a computer.



Finding a balance



I colleague said to me the other day: "Why are you so stressed out ? Take a deep breath, it is just work!"



Some of us, like myself, seek to find a greater purpose in work. Are we making the world a better place ? Are we advancing the state of the art in our field ? Are we investing in the future ? Are we improving our lives an those of our family members ?



Of course, work is a means to earn a living. But work is also a means of self-fulfillment. It is possible to earn a living and feel fulfilled, but not all jobs are fulfilling. Working for a living is all about finding balance between maintaining a lifestyle, saving for retirement, and building a fulfilling career.



Since it is highly unlikely that work will always be fulfilling the best way to find a balance is to develop hobbies and personal projects and dedicate some time to them. I have a list of things I want to accomplish and I hope to get to it.



Drawing a boundary between work and private life



I subscribe to the school of thought that believes in boundaries. On the other hand there are studies that show that working with friends improves productivity and happiness.



When I was single in my 20s I networked a lot with both coworkers and professionals outside, and to be totally fair I developed some life long friendships. Since then, however, I got married, I have family, two wonderful kids, and obligations outside of work.



I do not friend coworkers on Facebook. I keep my twitter account purely professional. I use linked-in to connect with colleagues. If I happen to work with someone I am already friends with on Facebook I put them on a restricted list where they don't see every update from me.

Last updated January 20, 2026. Return to home.