Time Management for IT Professionals



 IT companies are hard-pressed to complete the current projects in the shortest possible time with lowest budget at the same time ensuring quality product for the customer. Day by day the competition is becoming harder and harder. This naturally leads to a situation where the professional has to concentrate on the current project activities with all his resources and abilities to keep up with the project schedule.

Lack of Time and
Emerging Trends 







Changes are the order of the day in current life. Information technology industry is no exception. In fact the changes taking place in IT are more frequent than other fields. Web 2.0, mobile computing, cloud computing and social networking are examples of few segments where lot of changes are taking place in rapid manner. 



New projects generally incorporate emerging technologies in order to cut cost/development efforts. Unless the IT companies also follow the same path and keep itself up to date with emerging trends, profitability of the company is sure to suffer. How does then the company retain its premier place in industry? It has to rejuvenate by pumping fresh blood in the form of new entrants or train its old work force on areas where the changes are frequent.

How the old worker guards themselves against the competition from the fresh and determined new comer without the aid of training programmes which he/she missed due to very tight project commitments?. Answer lies in equipping oneself with information on new trends/ways of doing things appearing on the horizon by proper planning and management of time.

Time management is a process where one categories the activity which are to be done according to the importance and executes them. Hence it is absolutely essential to find time for keeping oneself up to date either during office hours or otherwise. By regular information gathering exercise on a permanent basis one could solve the problem of getting oneself obsolete.

The situation where the IT professional finds himself in, after a few years of working in an organization is not new. There are lots of things to be learned from grand mother’s narrations. Grand mother’s story is reproduced below for the benefit of those of you who haven’t heard so far.

Once upon a time there was a wood cutter who was very busy cutting a tree with an axe. He seemed to be very tired and exhausted. The tree was big, but he was a great wood cutter and not wasting a minute of his time was focused on the job of cutting the tree. His wife noticed it and said "Hi sweetie, I see that you are working hard, why don't you take a break for a while and sharpen your axe a little bit" To which the wood cutter said "I don't have time." and continued to work harder at cutting the tree.

Modern workers are definitely more intelligent and sure to keep up with the emerging trends and sharpen his skills even on the busiest day to keep him in the forefront always.