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7 Things that Randy Pausch Knows About Time Management

June 30, 2011
/Ky Ekinci
/Expert Advice
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This blog post previously appeared in the Old Office Divvy Blog

Most people saw Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture through the YouTube videos going around in 2009, 2010.

His book The Last Lecture gives a little more depth to his presentation, his principles, and his life. An interesting chapter in his book is when he talks about what he knows when it comes to time management.

Here are the 7 things he outlines (with some added thoughts):

Time must be explicitly managed like money: Hard to argue against this one; basically his advise is not to invest time on irrelevant details.
You can always change your plan, but only if you have one: Dwight D. Eisenhower says “The plan is useless but planning is essential.” Randy is a big believer in to-do lists (and most successful people are) because it helps us break life into small steps/projects to get what we want (or have to) done.
Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things? You may have causes, goals, interests. Are they worth pursuing?
Develop a good filing system: Sounds a bit trivial; but indeed having a good filing system (whether it’s in your file cabinet; or in some cloud-filing-solution) proves efficient and leads to increased productivity and decreased frustration.
Rethink the telephone: Living in a culture of excessive holds, voice-mails, conference calls; it’s best to have strategies to deal with these situations. There is a very funny cartoon-story by Oatmeal, check it out: 10 Reasons to Avoid Talking on the Phone.
Delegate! We all know that we have to delegate more. Some know more than others; that helps in life and business to learn to delegate better.
Take Time Out: It’s not a real vacation if you’re reading email or calling in for messages.

Randy Pausch says:

“ Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think.“

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Ky Ekinci

I'm a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Office Divvy. I am an entrepreneur, a trusted advisor, a world traveler, a Coworking advocate, and an appreciator of fine cigars.