20 Things You Can Do In 20 Minutes to Be More Successful at Work

12. Should You Stay or Should You Go Now?
Good leaders, like good captains, often think their job is to carry on no matter what, even to the point of going down with a sinking ship. But sometimes the best thing to do is to find a lifeboat and paddle to an inviting shore. "If you find the job no longer excites you, it's time to seek another," says Steve Yates, KeyBank CIO. "When you find it grinding on you, you're done."

It should take less than 20 minutes to see if you've passed the point of no return. Grab a pen and a pad of paper (yes, do it the old-fashioned way; it'll help ground you) and set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes. (Hourglasses are optional, but recommended.) Draw a line down the middle. On one side write the reasons you should stay; on the other, the reasons you should go. If your go list is longer than your stay list, it's time to go. Finding a new job is no harder than showing up for a bad one, day in and day out.

"The CIO job is demanding," Yates says. "You have to feel good about coming to work to be able to handle all the twists and turns of politics, technology, organization change and more."
If you've burned out, your people will notice sooner or later, and it'll only be a matter of time before the decision of whether to sail for new shores is taken out of your hands.
-Al Sacco

13. What's So Funny About Company Peace, Love and Understanding?
Many I.T. staffers don't have a lot of interaction with other departments. By inviting the head of finance (or marketing, sales or HR) to give an informal 15-minute presentation at your next staff meeting, your IT department can become familiar with the structure, needs, current initiatives and challenges of other groups within the company.

There shouldn't really be heavy lifting on either side, as department execs tend to have canned presentations about their department and their current needs-presentations they often give to the board of directors or within their own departments. The benefit to participating execs: The better IT understands their world, the better IT will be at servicing them, says Peter Kretzman, IT executive and author of CIO/CTO Perspectives Blog.

"These presentations may be the only structured opportunity that a lot of people in IT have been given to learn and ask questions about other company areas," says Kretzman. "Through these sessions, the exec in charge of those areas becomes more than just a name and a face, and real understanding and positive working relationships tend to ensue." He adds that it's often a reciprocal arrangement, one that offers a huge opportunity to evangelize what IT does and why.
-Shawna McAlearney

14. Set Up a Facebook Account
Maybe you don't like Facebook. Maybe you think it's for kids.
But maybe you're wrong and by being wrong you may be missing out on an opportunity to learn a little something about social networking. After all, with 64 million users, Facebook is the fastest-growing social network on the Web. The company claims that its over-25 demographic has grown the most rapidly. So take 20 minutes and set up an account.

Mark A. Lappin, director of IT for Lee Michaels Fine Jewelry-which owns eight retail shops in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi-has maintained an account since the site opened in 2004. "We don't allow access at work," says Lappin, "but [my] people use it on their own time at home frequently."

Lappin believes CIOs can learn from Facebook in order to build successful social network equivalents for employees behind the corporate firewall. "That," he says, "is a goal on our intranet down the line."
-C.G. Lynch

15. Encrypt Now or Regret It Later
When an employee or contractor loses a notebook PC and it turns into a data breach and PR nightmare, what are you going to say when your CEO asks why you hadn't encrypted the company's notebooks? That won't be fun. So start investigating encryption options.

"A lost PC without encryption is truly getting caught with your pants down," says Forrester Research senior analyst Natalie Lambert. "However, you would be surprised at the number of businesses that have not encrypted their mobile devices." Price used to be a concern, but encryption technology has become practically a commodity item, Lambert says. For advice from CIOs who have encrypted their mobile fleets, see "How to Lock Up Laptop Security."
-Laurianne McLaughlin

16. What Users Want
Are you sure you're making the right IT investments? Here's a novel idea: Why not ask?

According to David Hatch, research director at consultancy Aberdeen Group, IT management spends way too much time researching the latest technologies and virtually no time asking users what they want. There's a huge disconnect between strategic thinking at the senior management level and real-world usage and adoption among end users, he says. That's why Hatch recommends taking 20 minutes to conduct an informal, anonymous e-mail survey of all company employees that asks the following questions:

• Which of our apps are most useful to you? Why? (Be sure to provide a list.)
• What app is so critical that you simply couldn't do your job without it?
• Which app don't you use at all?
• Which app causes you the most problems?
• What new business application or capability, currently not provided, would instantly make your job easier and improve your performance?

-Diann Daniel