How can a team lead combine work in IT with life?
I wanted to describe the content of the article with some meaningful quote. But Jason Statham's quotes are no longer in fashion, so I had to turn to artificial intelligence. And this is what he gave me when I downloaded the text of the article:
I started my journey in IT as a developer, rose to become a team leader and at the same time learned how to manage a team at GeekBrains. Now, as a manager, I help my team leads set up development processes and form teams. I am responsible for resources, the introduction of new technologies and the strategic development of web development in the company.
What problems do novice team leads most often encounter?
So, you have become a team lead and your range of responsibilities has grown significantly. Now there is no one clear development task, but a backlog of dozens of requests without clear priorities: from elaborating the architecture to vacation schedules for your team.
The volume of incoming important information has increased. Its sources are also multiplying: this is not only your manager, but projects, business customers, analysts, devops, developers, etc. All requests need to be taken into account and processed. As a result, you are constantly distracted from your tasks and do not get anything done. Your team also fails to deliver tasks on time. You don’t understand why, because you distributed the load according to all the rules.
Since you are a responsible person, you start overtime and work on weekends. But you still don’t have time to do anything. But your anxiety level increases and problems appear in your personal life. At this pace, sooner or later the body becomes exhausted and you burn out. The team loses its leader, and your project is doomed to failure.
Many team leads went through this, became disillusioned with their profession, gave up everything and returned to development.
The main reason for the problems is that we are not that good at management in the beginning., we are poorly able to organize our time and distribute tasks. While we were developers, no one taught us this.
Without planning, organizing and systematizing tasks, you are simply wasting your time.
I will share some techniques that will help the team leader work optimally with tasks, saving his time. There are many of them, but I have highlighted the most important ones in my opinion.
Let's start with how to optimally analyze the backlog, which includes not only work, but also personal goals.
Eisenhower Matrix
We will always have many tasks and interests: from filling out a weekly report to opening a startup. You need to be able to determine what is most important and urgent right now. The Eisenhower matrix will help with this.
Created by the 34th President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, this table sorts tasks by importance and urgency. It helps in prioritizing and planning work and free time.
How to fill it out?
You need to make a list of all your affairs and tasks and pass them through the filter of two questions:
It is important? Not really
This is urgent? Not really
Then, divide the sheet into four squares, as in the picture below. Go through all the tasks and, depending on the answers about importance and urgency, fill out the table.
How to use
There are three main strategies:
A → B → C → D
We deal with the emergency, then with the planned, solve the urgent routine and then rest.
B → A → C → D
First, only planned tasks, then urgent ones.
A → C → B → D
Urgency comes first, and then importance.
There will likely be a lot of problems on the Eisenhower table, and this can be intimidating. Helps you cope with chaos and set clear goals and plans SMART method. First of all, you should take away all routine tasks from SMART, so that at least in this part you control the flow of incoming tasks. But this method is not always applicable, for example, if tasks depend on the human factor.
Manage your time – who, if not you?
So, the tasks are sorted by priority. Now you need to figure out how to effectively spend your time completing them.
Let's say you definitely need to solve important tasks today, otherwise they will become urgent and important. But the team lead’s day is structured in such a way that someone or something is constantly trying to distract: answer an urgent question, evaluate an important plan, etc. You put off your main task, solving a few smaller ones. And at the end of the working day you sit at a broken trough with the thought: “Again, I didn’t manage to do anything.”
Time management tools will help here. There are a great many of them, but the most popular and convenient in my opinion is the “Pomodoro Method”. It was invented and named after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer by Francesco Cirillo. The essence of the method is to divide the working day into time intervals, or tomato sessions. During work sessions, no one and nothing should distract you.
How to work with Pomodoro:
Dividing time into intervals. The work is broken down into short intervals, or pomodoros, usually 25 minutes long.
Focus on the task. During each pomodoro, you focus on just one task or project, ignoring distractions.
Regular breaks. After completing each pomodoro there is a short break, usually about five minutes. This allows you to relax and regain concentration.
Long breaks. After completing a certain number of pomodoros (usually after four), you should take a long break, about 15–30 minutes. This helps prevent fatigue and maintain productivity over the long term.
But when should you answer your colleagues’ urgent questions? In between tomato sessions. I recommend using this method to solve problems that require concentration.
If the Pomodoro Method is not for you, here you will find 14 more cool time management practices. Try it!
Taking care of yourself is not selfish, but necessary.
No matter how many books you read on time management and effective management, it will not help until the team leader begins to value himself as a person.
Below I have collected four main tips that will help the team leader work effectively, but without harming himself.
The best memory is a notepad
Don't keep ideas and tasks in your head. You risk forgetting something important.
By creating a physical task list, you visualize your goals and organize your thoughts and actions. Record everything in a tool convenient for you. A regular paper notepad can be more convenient and more effective than popular task trackers.
Guard your mind from uninvited guests
Control the factors that steal your attention. For example, you are sitting on a complex task, working on the architecture of the application, and then “tilin-tilin” – a notification about a “super promotion” arrives on your phone. And now the concentration is lost, some part of the brain is already thinking about discounts, and not about architecture. Therefore, it is worth minimizing the influence of distracting stimuli. For example, I deleted all “noisy” applications and reduced the number of notifications in instant messengers, leaving only critical ones.
We work not 8 hours a day, but with our heads
You have a sprint backlog in front of you, and you give yourself and your developers exactly eight hours of tasks a day. What's the result? You are constantly late at work for several hours, fail to meet deadlines, and quality suffers. Why? Because effective brain work lasts only six hours. Anything more, the head is not able to effectively digest.
I am not calling for changing the length of the working day. Just reduce the number of tasks you plan per day and distribute them over six hours rather than eight. You will have some reserve for creativity, communication and sudden urgent tasks.
A small break brings more than hours of continuous work
Does it happen that you are struggling with a difficult problem, but the solution just doesn’t come to mind? This means you need to distract yourself and relax your brain. In our department, it’s normal to take a break and go to a pickup point, a supermarket, or drink coffee on a bench near the office. While you are doing something distracting, your brain is in the background searching for a solution to a difficult problem.
Overtime and weekend work: how to overwork and not burn out
No matter how hard we try to avoid overwork, it still happens: carry out an important overnight update, pick up the product that fell over the weekend, make urgent business changes.
To prevent forced overtime from burning you out, you need to discuss two issues with management in advance:
Ready for overtime:
You understand that overtime happens and are ready to accept it by agreeing on compensation.
You are ready for overtime, but subject to a duty schedule. For example, if there are several team leads in a team, they can create an overtime calendar – who is ready to work on what days if necessary.
You will not agree to overtime for anything.
Any answer is normal. It is important to convey your position to management.
Example: Many projects have an SLA, when the team lead is responsible for the performance of the sales. This is rewarded with a good monthly bonus. But at the same time, you are always with a laptop: in the theater, in a bar, in the country. And if Zabbix calls, then you need to put everything aside and urgently correct errors. You need to honestly answer the question: are you ready for such inconvenience, but for a good reward?
Overtime compensation:
Additional days off.
Double rate for overtime hours.
Bonuses for overtime duty.
Don't just burn yourself out. Overtime for you and your team should be voluntary and regulated. If overwork is uncomfortable, this is the fastest way to burnout.
How to recover after overwork
It happens that overtime lasts for several days. During such periods, you need to help your body cope with forced stress. Here's what I recommend:
Reading fiction. Science fiction books help me when my thoughts fly away to another universe and you relax after a long period of mental stress at work. It is important to read fiction, and not about patterns. So as not to think about work 24/7.
Informal chats and interest clubs. There you can dump all the negativity and discuss something that isn’t working. My colleagues started a chat called “Oralnya”. Its essence is that you can “scream out” in it after a difficult task or an unpleasant meeting. At the same time, the remaining participants necessarily express their support. Take note 🙂
Sports, yoga and any physical activity will help restore strength.
Healthy sleep. Even if you have to overwork, do not neglect your daily routine and sleep hygiene, because this is the main natural source of energy.
It is important to remember that your health and well-being are more important than any job. If overtime or working on weekends becomes a constant occurrence and negatively affects your physical or emotional well-being, then the work processes in the company are severely disrupted and it’s time to change something.
Total
Let's recap:
Let's prioritize the backlog using the Eisenhower matrix.
We concentrate on the task using the Pomodoro or any other time management technique.
We turn off notifications and don’t store everything in our heads.
We determine comfortable processing conditions.
We restore strength through sports, reading, communication and sleep.
I’d be happy to discuss your ways to manage stress and distribute workload in the comments. Share life hacks, funny and not-so-situations from the team lead’s work and life. I regularly write about this topic in my tg channel “Team lead notes“- subscribe if interested.
