Taimur Rizwan

In the talk, Randy Pausch talked about the Importance of Time Management. He stressed the relation between performance and time management and said that success follows management. He gives an example of how he fit into the faculty at the universities he taught; not by being smarter, but by being a good manager of time. He advises us before everything we do, we should think of the irreversibility of the next hour. He equated time to money, which very few people consciously do. He maintained that we should have fun in what we do, because then it’s worth doing. He advised us to be specific about the goals of everything we decided to do, and the implications if we didn’t do it. Instead of thinking how to do things, we should first question whether it was the right thing to do or not, and then do only the right stuff. If we made a mistake in choosing the right thing, that could always be changed. Randy Pausch also urges us to do the ugliest thing first so that, it’s relatively plainer sailing afterwards. We should use organisers, whether paper or electronic, on which we label the importance of our “things to do.” Randy also advised us to keep our paperwork neat, otherwise just thinking of sorting it out would make us lazy. Instead of keeping undone tasks in the complete dark, we should skim everything over so as to get an idea of it. Putting reminders of future meetings on a mobile, or computer or paper also helps a lot. Randy also tells us of his speaker phone and headphone system; he could multi-task while talking on the phone. In all the hustle of our lives, very few people actually take out time to write Thank You notes. He advises us that we all should; it makes a mark. Also, he tells us we shouldn’t throw away our trash straight away, but after a few days, just in case anything important gets thrown away. Added to these physical improvements, mentally thinking of ways to improve our efficiency, as well as effectiveness, was something he strongly advises us. Randy tells us that while doing multiple things, one has to forego some things for the more important ones. Otherwise one will never find time for them, if one doesn’t take out time. To monitor our time, we should have a rough if not neat, time journal, to account for all our time spending, to monitor it. Randy advocated taking our private time just to be alone in our creative space. That is our time. He also advised students to make up a class if they didn’t have one, or make up a fake deadline if something was too far away. So that time isn’t wasted. Randy said procrastinating is taking a chance; it can be well lethal. Prevention is better than cure. And if we are doing it, we should logically identify the reason and do something on the lines of getting our enthusiasm back. Randy Pausch on the topic of delegation said that the topic was mostly misunderstood. We should do the ugliest job ourselves, and when delegating the rest, we should give the other responsibility of that work, with some openly visible reward or punishment, and to a deadline. Unless people are challenged by either the amount or the subject matter of the delegated work, they will not put their mind into it fully. They should be free to use any method they wanted to achieve the delegated objective. Moreover, Randy advised us to put all very important things down in writing, because of the lesser chance of ambiguity and misunderstanding. Another thing Randy stressed on was the duration of our interactions, whereby on phone or in person. We should cut down on unnecessary and redundant chitchat; meetings should be to the point, and we should be firm when we can’t spare time. Same goes for telephonic conversations, says Randy. We should not stand while making normal phone calls, so we don’t sit until we hang up. Also, we should be tactful if we don’t have time to do other people’s work, and not deny or entertain them outright. Unless we show that our time is valuable, people will take it for granted. Randy stressed upon the uselessness of technology if we don’t do things faster with it. He said that all our important papers should be in one place, so we have no trouble finding them. Also on his list of advice was that multiple delegation should not be done in front of the others. That way, each will think the other will do it. When it is a vacation, we should not work, but be effective vacationers; no e-mail. In our daily lives, we should minimize television viewing, says Randy. Also, for those having young children, this is the most crucial time for their children’s upbringing, and they should spend a lot of time with their children. Promises should not be broken, but negotiated, if possible. Randy also introduces an interesting maxim and I close with this: If you haven’t got time to do it right, you haven’t got time to do it wrong.

 

 

 

For more on Randy Pausch, feel free to browse through the following links:

 

50 years and Computer Science (video)

 

A Final Farewell

 

Wikiquote page

 

Randy's website