“I’m on My Honeymoon, But If You Need Me…”
Friday, July 17th, 2009Right now I’m reading this book called “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. It’s basically a collection of his life stories that he put together from his “last lecture” that he gave on “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” at Carnegie Mellon. Unlike many professors who give “The Last Lecture” talks, this really was going to be Randy’s last because he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and would only have several months left to live. Among many of his stories and advice, I ran across a section about time management-one of the characteristics and skills he emphasized with his graduate students and in own his life.
Excerpt on time management from the “I’m on My Honeymoon, But If You Need Me…” section by Randy Pausch:
All my life, I’ve been very aware that time is finite. I admit I’m overly logical about a lot of things, but I firmly believe that one of my most appropriate fixations has been to manage time well. I’ve railed about time management to my students. I’ve given lectures on it. And because I’ve gotten so good at it, I really do feel I was able to pack a whole lot of life into the shortened lifespan I’ve been handed.
Here’s what I know:
Time must be explicitly managed, like money. My students would sometimes roll their eyes at what they called “Pauschisms,” but I stand by them. Urging students not to invest time on irrelevant details, I’d tell them: “It doesn’t matter how well you polish the underside of the banister.”
You can always change your plan, but only if you have one. I’m a big believer in to-do lists. It helps us break life into small steps. I once put “get tenure” on my to-do list. That was naive. The most useful to-do list breaks tasks into small steps. It’s like when I encourage Logan (his two-year old son) to clean his room by picking up one thing at a time.”
Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things? You may have causes, goals, interests. Are they even worth pursuing? I’ve long held on to a clipping from a newspaper in Roanoke, Virginia. It featured a photo of a pregnant woman who had lodged a protest against a local construction site. She worried that the sound of jackhammers was injuring her unborn child. But get this: In the photo, the woman is holding a cigarette. If she cared about her unborn child, the time she spend railing again jackhammers would have been better spent putting out that cigarette.
Develop a good filing system. When I told Jai (his wife) I wanted to have a place in the house where we could file everything in alphabetical order, she said I sounded way too compulsive for her tastes. I told her: “Filing in alphabetical order is better than running around and saying, ‘I know it was blue and I know I was eating something when I had it.’ ”
There are 3 more tips from Randy’s list which will be posted on the next blog.
Please feel free to add some of your own time management tips, whether humorous or serious!
-Jenny
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