IT Job Advice: Small Habits That Save You

In the world of IT, there are lots of things you can do that are small, but should be able to save you a lot of time. These are habits save you by keeping everything save you by keeping everything under control and clear. It's a very good idea to make these very strong habits.

One of the biggest habits is to ask questions clarifying everything, and re-clarifying if necessary. It is very likely that while troubleshooting or talking to a user, new details will surface and it's always like it was either assumed you knew or it wasn't important. By constantly asking questions and re-wording questions may seem annoying, but it will definitely save you. No matter how clear anything seems, just keep questioning everything.

Another big habit is to keep the scope in mind. What I mean is specifically asking yourself "what do I need to do to resolve this/complete this?" It's not uncommon for extra tasks to be added on to tickets or projects as a situation develops and I've been stuck in meetings before with hours of what turns into irrelevant aside. Whenever stuff comes up, always re-state the scope of what it is you are supposed to be doing. If anything extra needs to be added, it needs to be understood that is changing the scope and can eat up more time, or it can just be done as a separate ticket or project. If you're fixing web access and there's also a printer problem, fix the original task first, then start a new workflow for the next. It may be annoying at first, but it will save you hours in the long run.

Tracking information is also super important, so make it a habit to take notes. Carry around something for note taking, whether it's a notebook, laptop, tablet, or voice recorder. If anything comes up that isn't written down, get it written down to track as much information as possible. You might even note potential scope creep to anticipate a future project or ticket that may come across your table.

Finally, an important habit for projects, track your dependencies. If things happen out of order, stuff could fail. If something you need is not done yet, you could end up wasting hours trying to figure out why something isn't working only to find that something like a service isn't up yet or a network isn't available.

There are plenty of other small habits that you can have depending on where you work or what you do more specifically, but these can be generally applicable to everything. Hopefully it's helpful.