Lessons Learned in May
May’s been an interesting month for me. We’re busier than ever at work. Our new house is almost done. I’ve experienced levels of stress I hadn’t thought possible. But I’m still alive. I thank God for that. There’s a lot I’d love to try and write about, but time isn’t as readily available as I might like.
- Backups are Essential. I’ve been lucky enough to only have one major hard drive up until recently. We had a mission critical drive fail on us here at work that didn’t have a recent, viable backup and we had to send it out to a data recovery service. It really sucks when a drive you manage dies and it affects those you work with. Keeping regular backups is absolutely critical. I found this out the hard way this month. If you’re going to be obsessive over one thing, it should be in how you keep copies of your work. Backup, backup, backup. I can’t stress it any harder.
- Make decisions that glorify Christ. This isn’t always the easiest thing to do, but it’s amazing to see people that have truly let Christ rule their decision-making process. The flesh can corrupt our decision-making process, because it’s the easy thing to do. When we consider Christ in our decisions, we challenge ourselves to the difficult thing. We take the road less travelled, if you will.
- Lead by example. I have an amazing boss, that I truly admire. The best way to get the job done is to lead by example so that others might take up your lead. Jeff does this on a daily basis. He empowers his employees in such a way that they are able to do their job to the best of their ability. He continually puts others ahead of himself. He builds people up instead of tearing them down. That’s leading by example, and it’s definitely a model I should strive to get better at.
- Design is collaborative problem solving. Designers are problem solvers, yes, but they are nothing unless they truly understand the problems they are trying to solve. The only way to do this is to collaborate with clients and/or other designers to make their work better. When you involve the client, you’re ensuring their voice is heard.
- Patience is a virtue. Six month olds don’t know any better. When they fight going to bed, laugh about it. You were probably like that as a kid, too. Yeah, you probably want to sleep, too, but that doesn’t really matter anymore. After all, his smiles, his coos and his giggles are well worth the sleep depravation.
- Find balance. This is something I continue to struggle with in my personal and professional life. It’s hard to strike a balance between your home life and your work life. I keep in the back of my mind what I learned when I read Choosing to Cheat. You have to find a balance. You’ve got to make time for the things that are really important.
- Jump on hand grenades. I read about this concept some time ago, but it’s relevant each and every day here at work. We’re all going to have hand grenades thrown at us. It’s how we deal with them that truly makes the difference.
