I already knew Randy Pausch from his infamous "Last Lecture: Achieving your childhood dreams" so I already knew a little about his story. Pausch was a professor at CMU and was known for his great engaging teaching style. he has an ability to turn his personal experiences into meaningful life lessons that we all could benefit from. At the time of this time-mangagement lecture, he was battling cancer, which furthered his understanding of how limited and valuable time is. he later died from cancer.
in this lecture, Randy explains that time is the most important resource we have. unlike money, you cannot earn your time back, and hence we must manage it as carefully as we do with your time, if not more. one of his main points is that we should always have set goals and priorities. Instead of doing everything on our todo's, we should what happens if we do or don't do the task, and he mentioned the 80/20 rule, where a small number of tasks create the most result, and that is where you should focus your energy. It is more important to do the right things that to do things perfectly.
Another important idea is the four quadrant system. tasks should be divided to important-urgent, important-not-urgent, not-important-urgent, not-important-not-urgent. and we should focus on important but not urgent. this prevents them from becoming the first type.
he also talks about distractions. having your phone close, getting notifications, or unclean desks and work spaces takes an unexpected amount of time. that is why it is important to stay organized. and he also stresses the importance of learning to say no to stuff that are not important.
1. time is more valuable than money: I liked the idea that we should treat our time like our money. it makes it much easier to understand and decide if something is worth my time or not.
2. do the right things instead of doing everything or doing stuff perfectly: it is probably the most idea that would save me time. knowing when to give full effort and when to do just enough is something I really struggle with.
3. preventative action: do important stuff early before the become an emergency that would make stay up until 3:31 am, ahem ahem
4. Say no: say no to distractions, say no to tasks that are not important, and say no, politely, to people.
5. Say yes to enjoying life: BECAUSE TIME IS LIMITED, you should ENJOY your time.