At this talk you will learn to:
• Clarify your goals and achieve them
• Handle people and projects that waste your time
• Be involved in better delegation
• Work more efficiently with your boss/advisor
• Learn specific skills and tools to save you time
• Over come stress and procrastination
Remember that time is money
Ben Franklin, 1748
Advice to a young tradesman
Introduction
• Time must be explicitly managed, just like money
• Much of this won’t make sense until later (too late?): that’s why this is on the WWW
• Faculty vs. Grad Students vs. Undergrads
• Lightning pace, heavy on techniques
4
Outline
• Why is Time Management Important?
• Goals, Priorities, and Planning
• TODOLists
• Desks, paperwork, telephones
• SchedulingYourself
• Delegation
• Meetings
• Technology
• GeneralAdvice
5
One Good Thief is Worth Ten Good Scholars:6
Why Time Management is Important7
The Problem is Severe8
Hear me Now, Believe me Later9
Goals, Priorities, and Planning10
The 80/20 Rule11
Inspiration12
Planning13
TO Do Lists14
The four-quadrant TO DO List (From Covey's 7 habits. He used the term Urgent for Due Soon
Due Soon | Not Due Soon | |
Important | 1 (fire) | 2 (vision) |
Not Important | 3 (interuptions) | 4 (killing time) |
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16
Paperwork26
Telephone36
Reading Pile37
Office Logistics38
Scheduling Yourself39
Learn to say “No”40
Gentle No’s41
Everyone has Good and Bad Times42
Interruptions43
Cutting Things Short44
Time Journals50
Using Time Journal Data51
Procrastination52
Balancing Act53
Avoiding Procrastination54
Comfort Zones55
Quit Making Excuses...56
Delegation57
Delegation is not dumping58
Challenge People59
Sociology60
Meetings61
Technology62
Technology63
Randy’s Magic E-Mail Tips64
Care and Feeding of Advisors65
Care and Feeding of Advisors Life Advice66
General Advice: Vacations67
General Advice69
Recommended Readings70
Action Items71
Time Management Randy Pausch Carnegie Mellon University http://www.randypausch.com72
Appendix:73
The Seven Habits1. BE PROACTIVE: Between stimulus and response in human beings lies the power to choose. Productivity, then, means that we are solely responsible for what happens in our lives. No fair blaming anyone or anything else.
2. BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND: Imagine your funeral and listen to what you would like the eulogist to say about you. This should reveal exactly what matters most to you in your life. Use this frame of reference to make all your day-to-day decisions so that you are working toward your most meaningful life goals.
3. PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST. To manage our lives effectively, we must keep our mission in mind, understand what’s important as well as urgent, and maintain a balance between what we produce each day and our ability to produce in the future. Think of the former as putting out fires and the latter as personal development.
4. THINK WIN/WIN. Agreements or solutions among people can be mutually beneficial if all parties cooperate and begin with a belief in the “third alternative”: a better way that hasn’t been thought of yet.
5. SEEK FIRST OT BE UNDERSTANDING, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD. Most people don’t listen. Not really. They listen long enough to devise a solution to the speaker’s problem or a rejoinder to what’s being said. Then they dive into the conversation. You’ll be more effective in you relationships with people if you sincerely try to understand them fully before you try to make them understand your point of view
6. SYNERGIZE. Just what it sound like. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In practice, this means you must use “creative cooperation” in social interactions. Value differences because it is often the clash between them that leads to creative solutions.
7. SHARPEN THE SAW. This is the habit of self- renewal, which has four elements. The first is mental, which includes reading, visualizing, planning and writing. The second is spiritual, which means value clarification and commitment, study and meditation. Third is social/emotional, which stress management includes service, empathy, synergy and intrinsic security. Finally, the physical includes exercise, nutrition and stress management.
[ Randy for got to mention, learn new tools ]
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Tips for Working in Groups• Meet people properly. It all starts with the introduction. Then, exchange contact information, and make sure you know how to pronounce everyone’s names. Exchange phone #s, and find out what hours are acceptable to call during.
• Find things you have in common. You can almost always find something in common with another person, and starting from that baseline, it’s much easier to then address issues where you have difference. This is why cities like professional sports teams, which are socially galvanizing forces that cut across boundaries of race and wealth. If nothing else, you probably have in common things like the weather.
• Make meeting conditions good. Have a large surface to write on, make sure the room is quiet and warm enough, and that there aren’t lots of distractions. Make sure no one is hungry, cold, or tired. Meet over a meal if you can; food softens a meeting. That’s why they “do lunch” in Hollywood
• Let everyone talk. Even if you think what they’re said is stupid. Cutting someone off is rude, and not worth whatever small time gain you might make. Don’t finish someone’s sentences for him or her; they can do that for themselves. And remember: talking louder or faster doesn’t make your idea any better.
• Check your egos at the door. When you discuss ideas, immediately label them and write them down. The labels should be descriptive of the idea, not the originator: “the troll bridge story,” not “Jane’s story.”
• Praise each other. Find something nice to say, even if it’s a stretch. Even the worst of ideas has a silver lining inside it, if you just look hard enough. Focus on the good, praise it, and then raise any objections or concerns you have about the rest of it.
• Put if in writing. Always write down who is responsible for what, by when. Be concrete. Arrange meetings by email, and establish accountability. Never assume that someone’s roommate will deliver a phone message. Also, remember that “politics is when you have more than 2 people” – with that in mind, always CC (carbon copy) any piece of email within the group, or to me, to all members of the group. This rule should never be violated; don’t try to guess what your group mates might or might not want to hear about.
• Be open and honest. Talk with your group members if there’s a problem, and talk with me if you think you need help. The whole point of this course is that it’s tough to work across cultures. If we all go into it knowing that’s an issue, we should be comfortable discussing problems when they arise – after all, that’s what this course is really about. Be forgiving when people make mistakes, but don’t be afraid to raise the issues when they come up.
• Avoid conflict at all costs. When stress occurs and tempers flare, take a short break. Clear your heads, apologize, and take another stab at it. Apologize for upsetting your peers, even if you think someone else was primarily at fault; the goal is to work together, not start a legal battle over whose transgressions were worse. It takes two to have an argument, so be the peacemaker.
• Phrase alternatives as questions. Instead of “I think we should do A, not B,” try “What if we did A, instead of B?” That allows people to offer comments, rather than defend one choice.
Previous URLs:
http://www.alice.org/Randy/timetalk.htm
http://wonderland.hcii.cs.cmu.edu/Randy/timetalk.htm