Time Management

by Randy Pausch
Carnegie Mellon University
http://www.randypausch.com
pausch@cmu.edu

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
Overcome stress and procrastination

A red star: = really important point

"Remember that time is money"

Benjamin 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

Outline

Why is Time Management Important?
Goals, Priorities, and Planning
TO DO Lists
Desks, paperwork, telephones
Scheduling Yourself
Delegation
Meetings
Technology
General Advice

One Good Thief is Worth Ten Good Scholars

Time Management for Teachers, Cathy Collins, Parker Publishing Company, 1987

CareerTrack Seminar: Taking Control of Your Work Day 1990

Why Time Management is Important

"The Time Famine"
Bad time management = stress
This is life advice

The Problem is Severe

By some estimates, people waste about 2 hours per day. Signs of time wasting: .

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

Hear me now, Believe me Later...

Being successful doesn't make you manage your time well.
Managing your time well makes you successful.

Goals, Priorities, and Planning

Why am I doing this?
What is the goal?
Why will I succeed?
What happens if I choose not to do it?

The 80/20 Rule

Critical few and the trivial many
Having the courage of your convictions
Good judgment comes from experience
Experience comes from bad judgment

Inspiration

"If you can dream it, you can do it"

Walt Disney

Disneyland was built in 366 days, from ground-breaking to first day open to the public

Planning

Failing to plan is planning to fail.
Plan Each Day, Each Week, Each Semester
You can always change your plan, but only once you have one!

TO DO Lists

Break things down into small steps
Like a child cleaning his/her room
Do the ugliest thing first

The Four-Quadrant TO DO list

From: The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic, by Stephen R. Covey, Simon and Schuster, 1989.

Can be viewed via PPT version

Paperwork

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
Touch each piece of email once; your inbox is not your TODO list

Images of Randy's Office and What is on his Desk

Randy's Desk

3 monitor workstation

Randy's Stage 3 lab

Example of TODO list (on one of the 3 screens)

Example of email inbox (on one of the 3 screens)

Example of Randy's Calendar program (on one of the 3 screens)

Close up of work space

Close up of Phone: Speaker phone: hands are free to do something else; stress reduction while on hold

Return address stamper

Tissues
Thank you cards.

Recycle paper box

Post-it Notes, Pad and Pens

OUT boxex
Image of Randy's Assistant's office. She uses all available horizontal space about an arm's length away. This allows her not to stack papers/files on top of each other and lose them.

Telephone

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.

Reading Pile

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

Office Logistics

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

Scheduling Yourself

You don't find time for important things, you make it.
Everything you do is an opportunity cost.
Learn to say "No"

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

Gentle Nos

"I'll do it if nobody else steps forward;" "I'll be your deep fall back," but you have to keep searching.
Moving parties in grad school. . .

Everyone has Good and Bad Times

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

Interruptions

6-9 minutes, 4-5 minute recovery --- five interruptions shoots an hour
You must reduce frequency and length of interruptions
Blurting: save-ups
E-mail noise on new mail is an interruption - TURN IF OFF!!

Cutting Things Short

"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

Time Journals

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

Using Time Journal Data

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

"Procrastination is the thief of time"

Edward Young
Night Thoughts, 1742

Balancing Act

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"

Parkinson's Law
Cyril Parkinson, 1957

Avoiding Procrastination

Doing things at the last minute is much more expensive than just before the last minute
Deadlines are really important: establish them yourself!

Comfort Zones

Identify why you aren't enthusiastic
Fear of embarrassment
Fear of failure?
Get a spine!

Delegation

No one is an island
You can accomplish a lot more with help
Most delegation in you rlife is from faculty to graduate student

Delegation is not dumping

Grant authority with responsibility.
Concrete goal, deadline, and consequences
Treat your people well
Grad students and secretaries are a faculty member's lifeline; they should be treated well!

Challenge People

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

Sociology

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

Meetings

Average executive: > 40% of time
Lock the door, unplug the phone
Maximum of 1 hour
Prepare: there must be an agenda
1 minute minutes: an efficient way to keep track of decisions made in a meeting: who is responsible for what by when?

Technology

"Computers are faster, but they take longer" --- Janitor, UCF
Secretaries are better than answering machines; where are the costs & benefits of a technology? (transcription)
Laptop computer (and docking station)
- You can scavenge time and work anywhere
- At CMU, you still have internet access
- One machine in your life is the right number
WWW; only do things once (post them)
Google (now with image search!)
ACM Digital Library (I haven't been in the library in over five years)

Randy's Magic E-Mail Tips

Save all of it; no exceptions
If you want somebody to do something, make them the only recipient. Otherwise, you have diffusion of responsibility. Give a concrete request/task and a deadline.
If you really want somebody to do something, CC someone powerful.
Nagging is okay; if someone doesn't respond in 48 hours, they'll probably never respond. (True for phone as well as email).

Care and Feeding of Advisors: Time management Advice

Get a day timer or PDA
Write things down
When's our next meeting?
What's my goal to have done by then?
Who to turn to for help?
Remember: advisors want results!

Care and Feeding of Advisors: Life Advice

They know more than you do
They care about you
They didn't get where they are by their social skills - take the initiative in talking with them!

General Advice: Vacations

Phone callers should get two options:
- If this can't wait, contact John Smith at 555-1212
- otherwise, please call back June 1
This works for Email too!
Vacations should be vacations
- It's not a vacation if you're reading email
- Story of my honeymoon. . .

General Advice

Kill your television (how badly do your want tenure or your degree?)
Turn money into time - especially important for people with kids or other family commitments
East and sleep and exercise. Above all else!
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

Action Items

Get a day-timer (or PDA) if you don't already have one
Start keeping your TODO list in four-quadrant form or ordered by priorities (not due dates)
Do a time journal, or at least record number of hours of television/week
Make a note in your day-time to revisit this talk in 30 days (www.randypausch.com). At that time, ask yourself "What behaviors have I changed?"

Time Management

Randy Pausch
Carnegie Mellon University
http://www.randypausch.com
pausch@cs.cmu.edu

Appendix

Stephen Covey's "Seven Habits"
Advice I have for working in groups

The Seven Habits

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.

Tips for Working in Groups

By Randy Pausch, for the Building Virtual Worlds course at Carnegie Mellon, Spring 1998

Meet people properly. It all starts with the introduction. Then, exchange contact information, and make sure you know how to pronounce everyoneÆs 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, itÆs much easier to then address issues where you have differences. 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 arenÆt lots of distractions. Make sure no one is hungry, cold, or tired. Meet over a meal if you can; food softens a meeting. ThatÆs why they ôdo lunchö in Hollywood.

Let everyone talk. Even if you think what theyÆre saying is stupid. Cutting someone off is rude, and not worth whatever small time gain you might make. DonÆt finish someoneÆs sentences for him or her; they can do it for themselves. And remember: talking louder or faster doesnÆt 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: ôthe troll bridge story,ö not ôJaneÆs story.ö

Praise each other. Find something nice to say, even if itÆs 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 it in writing. Always write down who is responsible for what, by when. Be concrete. Arrange meetings by email, and establish accountability. Never assume that someoneÆs roommate will deliver a phone message. Also, remember that ôpolitics is when you have more than 2 peopleö û 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; donÆt 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 thereÆs a problem, and talk with me if you think you need help. The whole point of this course is that itÆs tough to work across cultures. If we all go into it knowing thatÆs an issue, we should be comfortable discussing problems when they arise -- after all, thatÆs what this course is really about. Be forgiving when people make mistakes, but donÆt 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 ôI think we should do A, not B,ö try ôWhat if we did A, instead of B?ö That allows people to offer comments, rather than defend one choice.

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

Time Management

Table of Contents

Time Management

The Four-Quadrant TO DO list

Care and Feeding of Advisors: Time management Advice

General Advice: Vacations

Time Management

Tips for Working in Groups