Randy Pausch Lecture Time Management
Summary
TLDRIn a heartfelt lecture at the University of Virginia, the speaker, battling pancreatic cancer, emphasizes the preciousness of time and shares practical advice on time management. He discusses setting goals, avoiding time wasters, dealing with bosses, and delegating tasks, all aimed at increasing productivity and reducing stress. With a focus on leading a life filled with enjoyment and purpose, he encourages the audience to equate the value of time with money and to manage it wisely for a happier, more fulfilling life.
Takeaways
- ๐ซ The speaker expresses deep appreciation for the University of Virginia and its tradition and history, particularly the honor code.
- โณ The speaker is battling pancreatic cancer and has been given a limited time frame of good health, which influences the context of his talk on time management.
- ๐ฃ The speaker emphasizes the importance of treating time as a valuable commodity, equating it to money and suggesting that people often undervalue their time.
- ๐ก He encourages the audience to consider the monetary value of their time, to better understand the cost of wasting it and the benefit of saving it.
- ๐ The speaker highlights the significance of setting goals, avoiding time wastage, dealing with a boss or adviser effectively, and delegating tasks as key aspects of time management.
- ๐จโ๐งโ๐ฆ The speaker mentions his family, including his niece and nephew, who are also part of the academic community, showing the personal connection to the university and the audience.
- ๐ He discusses the importance of managing time to reduce stress and procrastination, which are common issues in life that affect productivity and happiness.
- ๐ The speaker provides specific techniques and tools for better time management, rather than just offering general advice or platitudes.
- ๐ The talk is described as pragmatic and inspirational, aiming to give the audience actionable steps to get more done within their limited time.
- ๐ The speaker points out that Americans are particularly bad at managing time as a commodity, often neglecting its value compared to money.
- ๐ค The speaker challenges the audience to think long-term and change fundamental processes to address the systemic issue of time famine, rather than seeking quick fixes.
Q & A
What is the speaker's current health condition?
-The speaker is in relatively good health, despite battling pancreatic cancer and undergoing chemotherapy.
What is the significance of the University of Virginia's honor code mentioned in the script?
-The speaker admires the honor code at the University of Virginia and suggests that it should be studied by university administrators as a model for fostering integrity and trust among students.
What is the speaker's view on time management?
-The speaker considers time as the only commodity that matters and emphasizes the importance of managing time effectively, especially given the speaker's own limited time due to health issues.
Why does the speaker equate time and money?
-The speaker suggests that understanding the monetary value of one's time can lead to more efficient use of it, as it can help people realize the cost of wasting time in terms of potential earnings or productivity.
What is the speaker's advice for students regarding their time at the University of Virginia?
-The speaker advises students to focus on the value of their time spent at the university rather than the financial cost, emphasizing that time is irreplaceable.
What is the speaker's opinion on the importance of setting goals?
-The speaker believes that setting goals is crucial for effective time management and getting more done within one's finite time.
How does the speaker suggest dealing with a boss or adviser?
-The speaker plans to discuss specific skills and tools for dealing with a boss or adviser, although the script does not provide detailed advice on this topic.
What is the speaker's approach to giving this lecture?
-The speaker intends to give a pragmatic and inspirational lecture, focusing on concrete techniques for time management and productivity rather than general platitudes.
Why is the speaker giving this lecture despite his health condition?
-The speaker is giving the lecture because he had committed to it, is physically able to do so, and because the University of Virginia is not a foreign place to him but rather a place filled with family, both metaphorically and literally.
What does the speaker mean by 'time famine'?
-The speaker uses the term 'time famine' to describe the common feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it, likening it to a systemic issue that requires long-term, systemic solutions rather than quick fixes.
What is the speaker's ultimate goal for the audience in terms of time management?
-The speaker's ultimate goal is to help the audience lead a happier and more fulfilling life by managing their time effectively, with a focus on maximizing fun and enjoyment in their activities.
Outlines
๐ Reflections on Time Management and Life
The speaker begins by expressing gratitude for the introduction and shares his admiration for the University of Virginia's tradition and history. He highlights the honor code as a model for other institutions. The speaker then reveals his battle with pancreatic cancer, which has given him a unique perspective on time management. Despite his diagnosis, he remains in good health and continues to engage in meaningful activities, such as giving this talk. The speaker emphasizes the importance of setting goals, avoiding wasted time, and dealing with stress and procrastination, promising to share tangible advice on how to get more done within one's limited time.
๐ผ The Value of Time and Delegation
In this paragraph, the speaker discusses the American culture's poor handling of time as a commodity compared to money. He suggests that people should equate time and money to better manage their time. The speaker provides a practical example of how to calculate the value of one's time in terms of salary and company cost, urging the audience to consider the financial implications of their time. He also touches on the importance of delegating tasks and managing stress, offering a broader perspective on time management that extends beyond academic settings. The speaker encourages the audience to think about their time in monetary terms to make more informed decisions and to lead a more fulfilling life.
๐ Overcoming the Time Famine and Pursuit of Happiness
The speaker introduces the concept of 'time famine' and compares it to the systemic issue of hunger in Africa, emphasizing the need for long-term solutions rather than quick fixes. He argues that time management is not just about organizing one's schedule but also about improving life quality and reducing stress. The speaker advocates for a life filled with enjoyment and fun, using his middle child Logan as an example of someone who embodies this spirit. He concludes by stating that the ultimate goal of time management should be to maximize fun and happiness, rather than merely increasing productivity.
Mindmap
Keywords
๐กTime Management
๐กPancreatic Cancer
๐กHonor Code
๐กTradition
๐กGoals
๐กProcrastination
๐กStress
๐กDelegation
๐กPragmatic
๐กTime-Famine
๐กFun
Highlights
Introduction to the speaker's admiration for the University of Virginia and its honor code.
Speaker's personal battle with pancreatic cancer and the impact on his perspective on time management.
The importance of treating time as a valuable commodity, similar to money.
Calculating the monetary value of one's time to better understand its worth.
The concept of 'time famine' and the need for systemic solutions to manage time effectively.
Advice for students on valuing their time in education over monetary concerns.
The speaker's commitment to delivering a pragmatic lecture on time management.
The speaker's family connections to the University of Virginia and their academic pursuits.
The goal of the lecture to provide concrete methods for managing time and stress.
The importance of setting goals and avoiding wasted time in achieving them.
Strategies for dealing with a boss or adviser to optimize time usage.
The role of delegation in managing time more effectively.
The speaker's emphasis on the importance of fun and enjoyment in life and work.
Inspiration from two key books on time management, distilled into practical advice.
The speaker's personal anecdotes and experiences to illustrate points on time management.
The significance of the honor code at the University of Virginia as a model for ethical conduct.
The speaker's tips for dealing with stress and procrastination to make better use of time.
The importance of considering the long-term impact of time management decisions.
The speaker's encouragement for the audience to reflect on their own time management practices.
Transcripts
welcome to Carnegie melon online for
more multimedia from carnegi melon
University visit
www.cmu.edu
[Music]
multimedia thank you that that's very
kind but never tip the waiter before the
meal
arrives um it's uh thank you Gabe and
Jim I I couldn't imagine
uh being more grateful for an
introduction these are two people that
I've known a long long time uh I taught
here at the University of Virginia I
love this school it's just an incredible
Place filled with tradition and history
and respect uh the kind of qualities
that I really admire that I want to see
preserved in American society and this
is one of the places that I I just love
for preserving that I think the honor
code alone at the University of Virginia
just is something that every University
administrator should study and look at
and say say you know why can't we do
that too so I think there are a lot of
things about this place to love uh I'm
going to talk today on the topic of time
management uh the circumstances are as
you probably know a little bit unusual
uh I think at this point I'm an
authority to talk about what to do with
limited
time uh my uh my battle with pancreatic
cancer started about a year and a half
ago fought did all the right things but
it's you know as my oncologist said if
you could pick off a list that's not the
you'd want to pick so on August 15th uh
these were my CAT scans you can see that
if you scroll through all of them there
were about a dozen tumors in my liver
and the doctors at that time said uh you
are likely to have three to I love the
way they say it you have three to six
months of good health Left Right
optimism and and positive phrasing it's
sort of like when you're at Disney what
time does the park close the Park is
open until
8 so I have 3 to six months of good
health well let's do the math today is 3
months and 12 days so what I had on my
daytimer for today was not necessarily
being at the University of Virginia I'm
pleased to say that we do treat with
paliative chemo they're going to buy me
a little bit of time on the order of a
few months if it continues to work uh I
am still in perfectly good health um
with Gabe in the audience I'm not going
to do push-ups because I'm not going to
be shown
up Gabe is really in good shape uh but
uh I I continue to be in relatively good
health I had chemotherapy yesterday you
should all try it it's great uh uh but
it it just sort of beg the question I
have finite time uh some people have
said you know so why are you going and
giving a talk well there are a lot of
reasons I'm coming here and giving a
talk uh one of them is that uh I said I
would right that's a pretty simple
reason and I'm physically able to
another one is that uh going to the
University of Virginia is not like going
to some foreign place people say aren't
you spending all your time with family
and by coming back here for a day I am
spending my time with family both
metaphorically and literally because it
turns out that many of you have probably
seen this picture from the talk that I
gave um these are my niece and nephew
Chris and Lara and uh my niece laara is
actually a senior a fourth year here at
Mr Jefferson's University so Laura could
you stand up so they see what you you've
gotten taller there we
are and I I couldn't be happier to have
her here at this University um and the
other the other person so that's Laura
the other person in this picture is
Chris uh and uh Chris if you could stand
up so they see you've gotten much
taller and they they have grown in so
many ways not just in height and it's
been wonderful to see that and be an
uncle to them uh is there anybody here
on the faculty or PhD students of the
history Department we have any history
people people here at all okay anybody
here's from history find Chris right
after the talk because he's currently in
his sophomore year at William and Mary
and he's interested in going into a PhD
program in history down the road and
there aren't many better PHD programs in
history than this one so so I'm pimping
for my nephew here all right let's be
clear all
right so what are we going to talk about
today we're going to talk about you know
this is not like the that you may have
seen me give before this is a very
pragmatic lecture and one of the reasons
that I had agreed to come back and give
this is because Gabe had told me that
and many other faculty members had told
me that they had gotten so much tangible
value about how to get more done and I
truly do believe that time is the only
commodity that matters so this is a very
pragmatic talk and uh it is
inspirational in a sense that it will
inspire you by giving you some concrete
things you might do to be able to get
more time more things done in your
finite time so I'm going to talk
specific specifically about how to set
goals how to avoid wasting time how to
deal with a boss originally this talk
was how to deal with your adviser but
I've tried to broaden it so it's not
quite so academically focused uh and how
to delegate to people uh some specific
skills and tools that I might recommend
to help you get more out of the day and
to deal with the real problems in our
life which are stress and
procrastination I mean if you can lick
that last one you're probably in good
shape and really you don't need to take
any notes so I'll presume if I see any
laptops open you're actually just you
know doing I am or email or
something uh if you're listening to
music please at least wear headphones I
would always say uh but all of this will
be posted on my website and just to make
it really easy uh if you want to know
when to look up uh any slides that have
a red star on them are the points that I
think you should really make sure that
you you got that one all right and
conversely if it doesn't have a red star
well all right so the first thing I want
to say is that Americans are very very
bad
at dealing with time as a commodity
we're really good at dealing with money
as a commodity I mean we're as a as a
culture very interested in money and how
much somebody earns is a status thing
and so on and so forth but we don't
really have time elevated to that people
waste their time and it just always
fascinates me and one of the things that
I noticed is that very few people equate
time and money and they're very very
equatable so the first thing I started
doing when I was a teacher was asking my
graduate students
well how much is your time worth an hour
or if you work at a company how much is
your time Worth to the company what most
people don't realize is that if you have
a salary let's say you make $50,000 a
year it probably costs that company
twice that in order to have you as an
employee because there's Heating and
lighting and other staff members and so
forth so if you get paid $50,000 a year
you are costing that company they make
they have to raise $100,000 in revenue
and if you divide that by your hourly
rate you begin to get some sense of what
what you are worth an hour and when you
have to make tradeoffs of should I do
something like write software or should
I just buy it or should I Outsource this
having in your head what you cost your
organization an hour is really kind of a
staggering thing to change your behavior
because you start realizing that wow if
I free up three hours of my time and I'm
thinking of that in terms of dollars
that's a big savings so start thinking
about your time and your money almost as
if they are the same thing and of course
Ben Franklin knew that a long time ago
so you got to manage it and you got to
manage it just like you manage your
money now I realize not all Americans
manage their money that's what makes the
credit card industry possible uh and and
that's and apparently mortgages too
so but most people do at least
understand they don't look at you funny
if you say well can I see your monetary
budget for your household in fact if I
say your your household budget you
presume that I'm talking about money
when in fact the household budget I
really want to talk about is probably
your household time budget uh at the
entertainment Tech Technology Center at
Carnegie melon students would come in
and during the orientation I would say
this is a master's program everybody's
paying full tuition and uh it was
roughly $30,000 a year and and the first
thing I would say is if you're going to
come into my office and say I don't
think this is worth $60,000 a year I
will throw you out of the office I'm not
even going to have that discussion and
of course they would say oh God this P
guy's a real jerk and then they were
right but what I Then followed on with
was because the money is not important
you can go and earn more money later
and what you'll never do is get the two
years of your life back so if you want
to come into my office and talk about
the money I'll throw you out but if you
want to come into my office and say I'm
not sure this is a good place for me to
spend two years I will talk to you all
day and all night because that means
we're talking about the right thing
which is your time because you can't
ever get it back a lot of the advice I'm
going to give you particularly for
undergraduates how many people in this
in this room Are undergraduates by show
of hands okay good still young ah
um a lot of this uh what did Hans and
fron on Saturday Night Live if you're
old enough hear me now but believe me
later right uh a lot of this is going to
make sense later and one of the nice
things is I gab Gabe is volunteered to
put this up on the web i' I understand
that people can actually watch videos on
the web now so this
is uh so a lot of this will only makes
sense later and uh when I talk about
your boss if you're a student think
about that as your academic adviser if
you're a PhD student think of that as
your PhD adviser and uh if you're you
know if you're watching this and you're
a young child think of this as your
parent because that's sort of the person
who is in some sense your boss and the
talk goes very fast and I as I said I'm
very big on specific techniques I'm not
really big on platitudes I mean
platitudes are nice but they don't
really help me get something done
tomorrow the other thing is that one
good thief is worth 10 good Scholars and
in fact you can replace the word
scholars in that sentence with almost
anything all right uh so almost
everything in this talk is to some
degree in inspired which is a fany fancy
way of say saying lifted uh for from
these two books and I I found those
books very useful but it's much better
to get them in distilled form so what I
basically done is is is collected the
nuggets for your
behalf I like to talk about the time
famine I think it's a nice phrase does
anybody here feel like they have too
much
time okay nobody excellent and I like
the word famine because it's a little
bit like thinking about Africa I mean
you can airlift all the food you want in
to solve the crisis this week but the
problem is systemic and you really need
systemic Solutions so a time management
solution that says oh I'm going to fix
things for you in the next 24 hours is
laughable just like saying I'm going to
cure hunger in Africa in the next year
you need to think longterm and you need
to change fundamental underlying
processes because the problem is
systemic we just have too many things to
do and not enough time to do them the
other thing to remember is that it's not
just about time management that sounds
like a kind of a lukewarm you know a
talk on time management that's kind of
you know milk toast
but happen of the talk is how about not
having ulcers right that catches my
attention uh so a lot of this is life
advice this is how to change the way
you're doing a lot of the things and how
you allocate your time so that you will
lead a a happier more wonderful life and
I loved in the introduction that you
talked about fun because if I've brought
fun to Academia well it's about damn
time uh I mean you know if you're not
going to have fun why do it
right that's what I want to know I mean
life really is too short if you're not
going to enjoy it you know people who
say well I'm you I've got a job but I
don't really like it and I'm like well
you could
change well that would be a lot of work
you're right you should keep going to
work every day doing a job you don't
like thank you good night right uh so
the overall goal is fun um my middle
child Logan is is my favorite example I
don't think he knows how to not have fun
now grant that a lot of the things he
does are not fun for his mother and me
but he's loving every second of it and
he doesn't know how to do anything that
isn't ballistic and full of life and
he's going to keep that quality I think
he's my little Tigger and uh I always
remember Logan when I think about the
goal is to make sure that you lead your
life you know I want to maximize use of
time but really that's the means not the
end the end is maximizing
fun people who do intense studies and
and log people and videotape them and so
on and so forth say that the typical
office worker wastes almost two hours a
day right their desk is messy they can't
find things misao pointments unprepared
for meetings they they can't concentrate
does anybody in here by show of hands
ever have
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