Is there an opportunity to get everybody in the same physical location for a day? Either way, maybe it would be good for you to have a clear the air session, communicate vision/direction/expectations, allow them to communicate their issues with you etc. In my experience as a manager, when I see team performance start dipping etc.. then I start to identify why and maybe introduce new ways of doing things, i.e. keep reinvigorating the team. Communication is vital in your team; have short audios on a daily basis if you can afford it. Keep track of issues. Inject some spirit into your team.
Hi, I think its a case of 'each to their own' in terms of what works best. I have just completed a masters over three years of part-time study.
- A4 Pad to write to do lists and general thoughts / ideas.
- Binders to store content worth printing.
- Online Bookmarking Application to store bookmarks to online content, tagged according to the course and assignment. I found the 'view later' type functionality of some apps to be useful because I could just mark a few documents for reading later when I got home from work.
- Google Calendar for noting seminar dates, submission deadlines and for loosely planning my output deadlines.
- Google Docs for writing assignments sometimes, but mostly MSWord on my PC.
- Notepad for the occasional bit of free-writing.
I would generally print my calendar off for any given month to keep me focused or remind me when I was falling behind. That would stay with me at all times, particularly for my dissertation. I tried the level of detail you suggest in point 1. but it never worked for me; I kept my planning at a higher level.
I have three girls under the age of six. I tend to work 8am=>4pm in the office, three hours with the girls, bath and bedtime stories and then I'll work between 8pm until midnight'ish, between Monday and Thursday. Friday/Sat/Syn nights are for me and my wife to spend time together and Sat/Sun days are for us all to spend time together. I sometimes need extra time at weekends, particularly recently completing a dissertation.
Get you and your family into ROUTINE. It feels like groundhog day sometimes, but when you go out of routine, it's not good. Achieving a routine means you will be able to plan the work you need to do, and understand how much time you have. If you don't have a routine, then you will suffer be warned!
If you need time to work extra which means your wife is taking care of the kids more often than not, then respond in kind and give her time off, treat her, look after her. I never blame my wife for my stresses, ever. You will argue no doubt. Develop broad shoulders and take it on the chin, don't hold grudges, be there to support your wife.
I think the accessibility of any language nowadays has the potential to create many more dicks than microsoft ever did. I also think Microsoft go to more effort to teach good programming practices than they are given credit for. I also don't subscribe to the view that I have to learn everything in order to pick up new tricks. I learn the languages, platform and tools which enable me to ship my chosen products in my chosen markets. I think too many assumptions are being made about microsoft programmers.
I wish that our corporate/internally based hosting service was as good as the best external hosting companies. Therefore, 3-4 days to deliver servers for a new application to be tested on; rather than 3-4 weeks. Not quite an answer to the question but I believe the it department could be alot more effective if it wasn't for process and bureaucracy