Time management is a constant struggle with many people, including myself. So today, I saw an interesting lecture from a Computer Science professor, Randy Pausch, at the Carnegie Mellon University. Although I am doing about 60% of what Mr Pausch talked about, I feel like I could always use a refresher.
He mentions creating a priority of things that need to do today, this week and this semester. In many ways, technology can be very helpful in getting this done. For example, I use Microsoft Outlook and my windows mobile phone to do something similar to this. I have tasks layed out for what day of the week, and the good thing about this task on my calendar is that if I do not get it done on that day, it automatically goes to the next day and turns red to indicate that I am late at performing that task. What I need to learn from this part of time management is to establish weekly and quarterly goals to have the big picture in mind but work on little milestones.
He gives an example about his 4-year son and how he struggled to get his room cleaned, he gave up and said this to too much, I can’t do it. Therefore, Randy suggested that he makes his bed first, Done! Put away all the toys, Done ! Put away all the cloths, All done, and now the room is clean. His son responds, that is it?
This is a great example how breaking down a big task into smaller more achievable goals makes the task look much simpler. I work as a dietitian in a dialysis clinic, and getting my patients to achieve phosphorus goals seems to me very difficult. Just telling them get your phosphorus back to normal makes it look like a big talk, so I ask them to control their diet in a small achievable manner, stay away from cheese for a week, and take the necessary medicines when you eat to lower the phosphorus and we will check your progress in 2 weeks. This has worked a few times, but I need better motivators.
I shall not detour from the time management conversation. This summer, I read the book “The Seven habits of highly successful individuals” By Stephen R. Covey, and in this book he talks about the 4 quadrants, urgent, not urgent, important and not important.
He mentions how people forget the 3rd quadrant since its urgent, but not important. I make the same mistake, since reading this book, I have made myself aware of this quadrant, but still I need to work better at this.
Writing about time management on my first blog really makes me rethink all these years behind me, I have wasted so much time, I will never be 18 again, I will never take that biochemistry class again, I will never do that research project in organic chem. class again. Time is money, and I have truly learned its value because the opportunity cost of wasting time is simply not affordable.
-Vishal Bagchi
He mentions creating a priority of things that need to do today, this week and this semester. In many ways, technology can be very helpful in getting this done. For example, I use Microsoft Outlook and my windows mobile phone to do something similar to this. I have tasks layed out for what day of the week, and the good thing about this task on my calendar is that if I do not get it done on that day, it automatically goes to the next day and turns red to indicate that I am late at performing that task. What I need to learn from this part of time management is to establish weekly and quarterly goals to have the big picture in mind but work on little milestones.
He gives an example about his 4-year son and how he struggled to get his room cleaned, he gave up and said this to too much, I can’t do it. Therefore, Randy suggested that he makes his bed first, Done! Put away all the toys, Done ! Put away all the cloths, All done, and now the room is clean. His son responds, that is it?
This is a great example how breaking down a big task into smaller more achievable goals makes the task look much simpler. I work as a dietitian in a dialysis clinic, and getting my patients to achieve phosphorus goals seems to me very difficult. Just telling them get your phosphorus back to normal makes it look like a big talk, so I ask them to control their diet in a small achievable manner, stay away from cheese for a week, and take the necessary medicines when you eat to lower the phosphorus and we will check your progress in 2 weeks. This has worked a few times, but I need better motivators.
I shall not detour from the time management conversation. This summer, I read the book “The Seven habits of highly successful individuals” By Stephen R. Covey, and in this book he talks about the 4 quadrants, urgent, not urgent, important and not important.
URGENT | NOT URGENT | |||||||||||||||||||||||
IMPORTANT | I
| II
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
NOT IMPORTANT |
III |
IV |
He mentions how people forget the 3rd quadrant since its urgent, but not important. I make the same mistake, since reading this book, I have made myself aware of this quadrant, but still I need to work better at this.
Writing about time management on my first blog really makes me rethink all these years behind me, I have wasted so much time, I will never be 18 again, I will never take that biochemistry class again, I will never do that research project in organic chem. class again. Time is money, and I have truly learned its value because the opportunity cost of wasting time is simply not affordable.
-Vishal Bagchi
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