Succeed in Your Chosen Engineering Career Path
By SDP/SI
General Motion Control Machine Building
Sponsored by SDP/SI
SDP/SI e-books teach how to avoid burnout, develop leadership fundamentals and improve creativity.
Established in 1950, by engineers for engineers, SDP/SI is a trusted source for small mechanical components, customized drive solutions, and engineering design data and reference material. Recognizing the many challenges engineers encounter daily in the workplace a series of self-help guides have been created by SDP/SI to help in navigating them.
Engineering is one of the most popular and competitive fields today with a wide variety of career choices. No matter where you are in your career, just starting out or an established leader in your field, it’s important to develop skills for self-development and career advancement. In this article, you’ll learn to take control of your time, leadership fundamentals, and how to improve your creativity.
Control Your Day with Time Management Methods and Learn How to Avoid Burnout While Developing Your Talents
Engineers face a barrage of competing priorities from customers, co-workers, managers, and vendors, all while still juggling family life and personal issues. Life satisfaction and productivity are on a steady decline for engineers because external pressure and digital distractions make it impossible to maintain creativity, focus, and a work-life balance. The daily demands at work, including emails, notifications, and text messages, are continually interrupting workflow, and diverting attention. Consistent productivity disintegrates as time spent deeply focusing lessens.
- Myth of Multitasking – Dispensing brain power on multiple tasks in a short timeframe decreases the ability to concentrate and produce quality work. Did you know that multitasking can take as much as 40 percent more time than focusing on one task, causing mistakes, missed cues, misspellings, and irrational decision-making?
- Soft Skills – Discover six soft skills every engineer needs to take their careers to the next level. Learn tactics to overcome communication mishaps and reduce stress in the workplace.
- Reinventing the Wheel – Understand when to analyze and when to act. Vast amounts of time and mental energy can be wasted defending ideas that are no longer valid.
- Technical Skills – Keep current with the technology that can enhance your work. Continual learning benefits both you and your organization.
Download Advanced Time Management for dozens of recommendations to increase productivity, and numerous resources for further education on time management techniques.
Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Leader?
Leadership Fundamentals is a basic guide to self-development and career advancement for engineers.
- Traits of a True Leader – Leadership is not a character trait that you are either born with or not, although certain innate characteristics are prominent among historically successful leaders.
- Two Essential Skills – Add these two primary skills to your toolbox before taking on the role of team leader. Here’s a hint: “begin with the end in mind.”
- Step into a Leadership Role with Confidence – Leadership is mostly a learned skill combined with character traits you already have.
We have the resources to help – download Fundamentals of Leadership.
Enhance Your Creative Abilities
There has never been a greater need for creativity in the workplace. Technology is advancing at an exponential rate, but the difficulty of problems is also growing. Individuals who can think abstractly and solve difficult problems are rare and valuable. In many businesses, competitive advantages are not found in equipment and capital but in the creative minds of their teams.
Improving creativity in individuals is a worthwhile investment. It takes effort, but it is not impossible to move an individual from an average level of thinking, creativity, and production to an elite level of thinking. And the science tells us that improving creativity not only enhances the productivity of work-related endeavors, but it can also enhance an individual’s overall life.
It may be helpful to think of creativity as a process that occurs over time rather than an innate trait. Think of your brain as a muscle. Supply it with the right amount of exercise, oxygen and nutrients and it will grow and improve its function. It will be able to perform longer and better than if it was neglected.
There are three brain care areas that effect creative performance—maintenance, diet, and exercise, and four brain skill areas—focus, relaxation, subconscious thinking, and work. Paying careful attention to and improving all seven areas even in an incremental way can improve creative output and work satisfaction.
Don’t just wait for the next innovative idea! Discover ways to improve your creativity using these scientifically backed methods, download our eBook, Improving Creativity for Engineers.
If you’re interested in the rest of the series, check out Mindfulness for Engineers and Focus Training Techniques – The Memory Game.
To learn more about SDP/SI visit our manufacturing capabilities webpage and take a quick tour of our facility.
