Time Management
Table of Contents
Introduction
One Good Thief is Worth Ten Good Scholars:
Outline
To Do Lists
Why Time
Management is Important
Scholars are Really in
Trouble
The problem is severe
Hear me now,
Believe me Later...
Goals, Priorities,
and Planning
Questions To Always Ask:
The 80/20 Rule
Inspiration:
Planning is Important
Separate Planning
from Action
TO DO Lists
The four-quadrant TO
DO list
On My Desk
Paperwork
Reading Pile
Telephone
Telephone
Vacations
Office Logistics
Scheduling Yourself
Learn to say No
Gentle Nos
Everyone has Good
and Bad Times
Interruptions
Cutting Things Short
Time Journals
Using Time Journal Data:
Procrastination
Balancing Act
Avoiding Procrastination
Comfort Zones
Delegation
Delegation is not
dumping
Challenge People
Sociology
Meetings
Technology
Technology
General Advice
Care and Feeding of
Advisors
General Advice
THE SEVEN HABITS, BRIEFLY
Randy Pausch
Human-Computer Interaction Institute
School of Computer Science
School of Design
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
pausch@cs.cmu.edu
"Remember that time is
money"
Advice to a Young Tradesman
Benjamin Franklin 1748
•Time must be explicitly managed, just like money
•Much of this won't make sense until later (too late?):
that's why the handouts...
•Faculty vs. Grad Students
•Lightning pace, heavy on techniques
Time Management for Teachers
Cathy Collins
Parker Publishing Company, 1987
CareerTrack Seminar:
Taking Control of Your Work Day 1990
(303) 447-2300
Why is Time Management Important?
Goals, Priorities, and Planning
The Office: desks, paperwork, telephones
Scheduling Yourself
Delegation
Meetings
Technology
General Advice
•"The Time Famine"
•Bad time management = stress
•This is life advice, not job advice
- Academia has not kept up. Teachers: only white collar
worker without telephones
- Never before have we had so little time in which to do so
much
- Fireside Chat, February 23, 1942 Franklin Delano
Roosevelt
- Signs of time wasting: By some estimates, people waste
about 2 hours per day.
- messy desk and cluttered (or no) files
- can't find things
- miss appointments, need to reschedule them
- late and/or unprepared for meetings
- volunteer to do things other people should do
- tired/unable to concentrate
- Being successful doesn't make you manage your time well.
- Managing your time well makes you successful.
- Drucker's Dictum: Doing things right is not as important
as doing the right things
- Benefit/Cost analysis
- Lou Holtz: list of 100 things before I die
- why am I doing this?
- what is the goal?
- why will I succeed?
- what happens if I chose not to do it?
- critical few and the trivial many
- Having the courage of your convictions
- Good judgement comes from experience
- Experience comes from bad judgement
"If you can dream it, you
can do it" Walt Disney
- Disneyland was built in 366 days.
- Failing to plan is planning to fail.
- Plan Each Day
- Plan Each Week
- Plan Each Semester
- Update your plans
- Pause to think, but remember:
- break things down into small steps
- like a child cleaning his/her room
- do the ugliest thing first
(From: The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People:
Restoring the Character Ethic, by Stephen R. Covey, Simon and
Schuster, 1989.)
- An OUT BOX
- Box of Tissues
- Wall Calendar for year
- Work order form (see example)
- Envelopes
- Post-it Notes
- Thank you cards
- Clutter is death; it leads to thrashing. Keep desk clear:
focus on one thing at a time
- a good file system is essential
- touch each piece of paper once
- correspondence: answer on the letter itself
- only read something if you'll be fired for not reading it
- note that this refers to periodicals and routine reading,
which is different than a research dig
- Keep calls short; stand during call
- Start by announcing goals for the call
- Don't put your feet up
- Have something in view that you're waiting to get to
next.
- When done, get off: "I have students waiting"
- If necessary, hang up while you're talking
- group outgoing calls: just before lunch & 5pm
- your message-taker should give two options
- if this can't wait, contact John Smith at 555-1212
- otherwise, please call back June 1
- Make your office comfortable for you, and optionally
comfortable for others
- No soft comfortable chairs! I have folding chairs, some
people cut off front legs
- People respond to physical objects
- signs vs. window shades
- You don't find time for important things, you make it.
- Everything you do is an opportunity cost
- Learn to say No
- Will this help me get tenure?
- Will this help me get my masters?
- Will this help me get my Ph.D.?
- keep "help me" broadly defined
- "I'll do it if nobody else steps forward;"
"I'll be your deep fall backk," but you have to
keep searching\
- Moving parties in grad school; "Honey, the washer
& dryer. . ."
- Find your creative/thinking time. Defend it ruthlessly,
spend it alone, maybe at home
- Find your dead time. Schedule meetings, phone calls, and
mundane stuff during it
- 6-9 minutes, 4-5 minute recovery --- five interruptions
shoots an hour
- you must reduce frequency and length of interruptions
- blurting: save-ups
- "I'm in the middle of something now..."
- start with "I only have 5 minutes" --- you can
always extend this
- stand up, scroll to door, complement, thank, shake
- Clock-watching; on wall behind them
- it's amazing what you learn!
- monitor yourself in 15 minute increments for between 3
days and two weeks
- update every 1/2 hour: not at end of day
- What am I doing that doesn't really need to be done?
- What am I doing that could be done by someone else?
- What am I doing that could be done more efficiently?
- What do I do that wastes others' time?
"Procrastination is the thief
of time" -Edward Young, Night Thoughts,
1742
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its
completion
Parkinson's Law
Cyril Parkinson, 1957
- doing things at the last minute is much more expensive
than just before the last minute
- deadlines are really important: establish them yourself!
- Identify why you aren't enthusiastic
- Fear of embarrassment
- Fear of failure?
- Get a spine!
- No one is an island
- You can accomplish a lot more with help
- Mostly Faculty to grad student; listen to this advice
from your perspective
- require responsibility, accountability
- grant authority
- treat your people well
- I vacuum the lab myself
- grad students & secretaries are your lifeline
- People rise to the challenge: You should delegate
"until they complain"
- Communication Must Be Clear: "Get it in
writing" --- Judge Wapner
- Give objectives, not procedures.
- Tell the relative importance of this task
- beware upward delegation!
- reinforce behavior you want repeated
- Ignorance is your friend --- I do not know how to run the
photocopier or the fax machine
- average executive: > 40% of time
- lock the door, unplug the phone
- maximum of 1 hour
- prepare: there must be an agenda
- 1 minute minutes: who is responsible for what by when?
- "Computers are faster, but they take longer"
--- janitor, UCF
- If it's not spell checked, stop reading it!
- Secretaries are better than answering machines; where are
the costs & benefits of a technology? (transcription)
- Electronic mail
- VIRGO & LEO: I haven't been in library in 3 years
- Speed dialing speaker phone: hands are free to do
something else --- "You're on one of those
things"... "Yes I am"
- kill your television (how badly do you want tenure or
your degree?)
- turn money into time --- especially important for people
with kids or other family commitments.
- get a day timer (pocket calendar)
- write things down
- when's our next meeting?
- what do you/I need to have done by then?
- who to turn to for help?
- never break a promise, but re-negotiate them if need be
- if you haven't got time to do it right, you don't have
time to do it wrong
- recognize that most things are pass/fail
- feedback loops: ask in confidence
From: The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People: Restoring
the Character Ethic, by Stephen R. Covey, Simon and Schuster,
1989.
1. 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 eulogists 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 TO 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 your 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 sounds 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
includes service, empathy, synergy and intrinsic security.
Finally, the physical element includes exercise, nutrition
and stress management.
Randy Pausch
Human Computer Interaction Institute
School of Computer Science
School of Design
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
pausch@cs.cmu.edu