In last week’s blog, I featured a quotation by Randy Pausch and it reminded me that I had read a book that he had written many years ago.

Randy was an American professor of computer science, human-computer interaction, and design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

He learned that he had pancreatic cancer in September 2006, and in August 2007 he was given a terminal diagnosis: “3 to 6 months of good health left”. He gave an upbeat lecture titled “The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” on September 18, 2007, at Carnegie Mellon, which became a popular YouTube video and led to other media appearances.

He then co-authored a book called The Last Lecture on the same theme, which became a New York Times best-seller.

I picked the book up this past weekend and opened the book at a random page. The page that I came across gave Randy’s different perspective and tips on time management, which I thought were worth sharing.

Here is what Randy had to say on the topic.

“All my life, I have been very aware that time is finite. I admit that 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 good at it, I really do feel I was able to pack a whole lot of life into the shortened lifespan that I have 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 to break life into small steps. I once put “get tenure” on my to do list. That was naïve. The most useful to do lists breaks tasks into small steps, like when I get my 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 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 spent railing against jackhammers would have been better spent putting out that cigarette.

Develop a good filing system

When I told my 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 that 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!

Rethink the telephone

I live in a culture where I spend a lot of time on hold, listening to “your call is very important to us.” Yeah right, that’s like a guy slapping a girl in the face on a first date and saying “I actually do love you.” Yet that’s how modern customer service works and I reject that. I make sure that I am never on hold with a phone against my ear. I always use a speaker phone, so my hands are free to do something else.

I have also collected techniques for keeping unnecessary calls shorter. If I am sitting whilst on the phone, I never put my feet up. In fact it’s better to stand as you are more likely to speed things along. I also like to have something in view on my desk that I want to do, so that I have the urge to wrap things up with the caller.

Delegate

As a professor, I learned early on that I could trust bright, nineteen year old students with the keys to my kingdom, and most of the time they were responsible and impressive. It’s never too early to delegate. My daughter Chloe is just eighteen months old, but two of my favourite photos are of her in my arms. In the first, I’m giving her a bottle. In the second, I’ve delegated the task to her. She looks satisfied. Me too.

Take time out

It’s not a real vacation if you are reading emails or calling in for messages. When my wife and I went on our honeymoon, we wanted to be left alone. My boss, however, felt I needed to provide a way for people to contact me. So I came up with the perfect phone message:

“Hi, this is Randy. I waited until I was thirty-nine to get married, so my wife and I are going away for a month. I hope you don’t have a problem with that, but my boss does. Apparently, I have to be reachable.” I then gave the names of my wife’s parents and the city where they live. I told them that if they call directory assistance that they could get their number and if they convince my new in-laws that their emergency merits interrupting their only daughter’s honeymoon, they have our number. We didn’t get any calls!

Some of my time management tips are dead on serious and some are a bit tongue in cheek. But I believe all of them are worth considering. Time is all you have and one day you may find that you have less than you think.”

This week why not take a few moments to think about how you are managing your time and consider if there are steps you need to take to improve the quality of your life.

Quote for the week:

“We cannot change the cards that we are dealt just how we play the hand” Randy Pausch

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