The Last Lecture on Time Management
March 26th 2008 10:53 pm
Randy Pausch, a professor, is a terminally ill with Pancreatic cancer. He wrote his “Last Lecture” entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. Over six million people have viewed the lecture online. He went on Opera and delivered a shorter version. Pausch is really inspiring. Interestingly he’s more proud of his lecture Time Management. He even posted the power point slides. If anyone needs to manage time well he does.
He mentions lots of ideas that you’ve seen on these pages: start with a dream, make plans and turn it into to do items. Break your to dos down (next actions) and do the “ugliest” thing first (the hardest). Use Covey’s 4 quadrants: Do the “important, not due soon”. Keep an empty inbox. File everything away. Use 2 monitors.
He also has some not so obvious tips:
- On your desk have only one task in front of you- no distractions.
- Get a speaker phone- now you can be productive when on hold
- Telephone
- Keep calls short; stand during call
- Start by announcing goals for the call
- Don’t put your feet up
- Have something in view to do next
- Have an excuse ready to get off the phone. Prepare something fun to do after the call so you are motivated to finish quickly.
- Group calls: 11:30am (before lunch) and 4:30pm (before quitting time) so people will not stay on the phone long.
- Write hand written thank you notes
- Office Logistics- Make your office comfortable for you, and optionally comfortable for others
- Scheduling Yourself
- You don’t find time for important things, you make it
- Everything you do is an opportunity cost
- Learn to say “No”
And lots more. Watch the video: Time Management.
Susan responded on 04 Jun 2008 at 2:27 am #
How inspiring Randy Pausch is! If you liked “The Last Lecture”, another fantastic memoir I just read and highly recommend is “My Stroke of Insight” by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. Her TEDTalk video (ted.com) has been seen as many times as The Last Lecture I think, and Oprah did 4 shows on her book, so there are a lot of similarities. In My Stroke of Insight, there’s a happy ending though. It’s an incredible story! I hear they’re making it into a movie.
Heshy responded on 16 Jun 2008 at 8:37 pm #
Susan,
You’re right it is an inspiring story. I’m also a big TED fan.
The Last Legacy: How To Live Forever | Success Making Machine responded on 28 Jul 2008 at 12:01 am #
[...] bring this up because Randy Pausch who I wrote about in The Last Lecture on Time Management is no longer adding to his [...]