In December 1998, I was asked to speak at the Tau Beta Pi initiation banquet. Looking for something to say, I made a list of 20 things that I found useful enough to pass along. Several people have since asked for a copy, so here they are.

Dr. Wolff’s advice for success in engineering life:

1. Learn something about time management.

• Read Alan Lakein, How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life
• Read R. Alec Mackenzie, The Time Trap
• Take time for planning; probably about five percent of your time should be planning what you are going to do and not just doing
• Prioritize your tasks as A's B's and C's
• Don’t do C’s; they are not important and sometimes they go away
• Categorize urgent vs. non-urgent and important vs. unimportant. There are four combinations. Which one should you work on? Which one do we work on?
• Find your prime time. At what time of the day do you do your best work?
• The Pareto principle, or 80/20 rule. 20 percent of the effort achieves 80 percent of the job, and 80 percent of the effort achieves the other 20 percent of the job.

2. Organize your workspace.

• Put things you use where they are handy
• Get things out of your way that you don't need
• Get your reading separate from your active work pile

3. Find a really good system for tracking names and phone numbers, and use it.

• I love my PalmPilot; for you it may be a Rolodex or something else.

4. Keep track of people

• Maybe this is the same thing as number 4. Look these people up when you have something of interest to them or need something from them.

5. Read John Molloy' Books

• John T. Molloy’s New Dress for Success,
• The Women’s Dress for Success,
• Live for Success

• Molloys' books are based on research, not on someone’s perception of style and fashion.
• What is the most effective raincoat color? Twenty actors are asked to deliver a package, past the secretary, directly to the president of a company. Ten wear black coats and ten wear beige. Who gets in?
• For which professions are bow-ties acceptable ? (waiters, clowns, college professors and commentators).
• How should tables and chairs be arranged for sales, meetings, etc?

6. Read Deborah Tannen

• You Just Don’t Understand – Women and Men in Conversation
• Tannen researches male-female communication and cross-cultural communication.
• How do men and women react when told of a problem? Provide empathy vs recommend a solution
• Rapport-talk and Report-talk
• That’s Not What I Meant!
• Males and females socialize differently – this has implications for the workplace.

7. Always work to improve your writing.

• Make sure your sentences have a subject, verb and object. Scratch everything else and see what it says.
• Read Kate Turabian.
• Read Strunk and White, The Elements of Style.

8. Avoid acronyms and discipline-specific slang.

• The ISO 9000 CQI team will be sending out a DF ASAP!

9. Don’t write unnecessary memos – but write carefully crafted ones when you do.

10. Learn a bit about typography – how to look good in print

• We have powerful tools that can make our work look powerfully ugly!

11. Listen for the first half of a meeting. Then toss in your ideas, even if you are new.

12. Question authority

13. Be willing to take on any task, at least once, even if not related to your education.

14. You only need to know a few things, but you must know them very well. (from Milton Harr, my major professor)

15. To teach, you must entertain (also from Milton Harr)

16. Be a one-stop, full-service operation – guarantee your work.

17. Get to know the clerical/technical staff

• Question on a nursing exam: What is the name of the woman who cleans this building?

18. Read Steven Covey

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. – Time management, personal management, goals, and all that stuff rolled into one.
• Be proactive
• Begin with the end in mind
• Put first things first
• Think win/win
• Seek first to understand, then to be understood
• Synergize
• Sharpen the saw

19. Read Scott Adams

• The creator of Dilbert
• The Dilbert Principle, Chapter 14, "Engineers, Scientists, and Other Odd People." Includes advice for those married to engineers
• Its totally unfair to suggest – as many have – that engineers are socially inept. Engineers simply have different objectives when it comes to social interaction.
• To the engineer, the world is a toy box full of sub-optimized and feature-poor toys.

20. Learn about personality types – everyone is not an ISTJ engineer!

• If you don't know what ISTJ means, study up on Myers-Briggs personality types.