Ok this may sound simple. It may seem like a “duh” moment. However, we’ve all been there, right? The pressure is freakin’ ON .. and .. either your an employee or heaven-forbid, an even more expendable consultant, but the world is on fire, mountains are crumbling and folks ranting. The guy or gal who last worked on this project is either dead and buried or “called in sick” and you’re lost. Everyone is looking at you saying, “Well it worked when I went home last night! How soon can we get this {insert name of the unbelievably important application here} back up and running??!?!”
So instead of freakin out into total-anti-social-nerd-meltdown, think about this. Asking yourself some reasonable questions like the one in the title of this article, during the middle of a sometimes-highly-stressful-situation does a few things for you:
- It makes you think about the problem from a non-emotional state. Often we get caught up in the heat of the moment and man Yoda was right, “Anger clouds the mind”. Focusing on the issue from a different standpoint kicks your brain into another gear and lets you concentrate deeper.
- It gives you a sense of control over the situation. When things get weird, trying to solve a problem that is starting to make you feel plain dumb – there isn’t anything better than having a sudden sense of control (as opposed to panic). Yoda said it right again, “Control, control, you must learn control!”
- The fallback plan. Developing habits like this always gives you a fallback plan. If you know you can fall back on a safety net like this you might be more apt to try new things in troubleshooting as well, understanding all the while that, if more problems arise, you can easily noodle your way out of the situation.
I get it that this is a simple concept when we’re talking about it here. However out there, back in the real-world, you’re sometimes hard-pressed to “just remember” things like this.
I recommend writing them down, perhaps in Evernote or your favorite note-taking application of choice. When you learn something new, that helped you through a task, add to your own notes. I’ll be adding my Personal Geek Protocols here shortly that you can have for free to help you get started. Check back soon!