Randy Pausch on Time Management
If you'd like to take in the well-received advisory talk on time management that Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science in Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, delivered at the University of Virginia on November 27, 2007, you have a range of options.The video version is below (76:22). The meat of the talk begins at 4:25.
A "close enough" transcript is here (pdf).
A podcast is here.
The PowerPoint slides in low-res are here (ppt). Full-res slides are here (ppt).
It would be mistake to pick any one point Pausch makes as the core of what he's saying, but I'd still call particular attention to his emphasis on always knowing why you're doing something, i.e., knowing the goal of your efforts. This is fundamental to getting important tasks accomplished in a way that achieves desired results.
A corollary of this principle is recognizing how to set priorities. Pausch adopts Stephen Covey's view that your priorities should look like this:
- Tasks that are important and due soon
- Tasks that are important and not due soon
- Tasks that are not important and due soon (may not need to be done at all!)
- Tasks that are not important and not due soon (may not need to be done at all!)
Labels: Productivity
posted by Karen Nelson @ 11:01 PM
<< Home