I highly recommend watching the above video on Time Management. I think we can all learn a few things from it. If you do not have the time to go through the video, I have summarized several key points at the bottom of this page.

推薦觀看上面關於時間管理的講演。影片有中文字幕，英文的重點我記錄在本文下面。

背景及心得

以前沒有結婚沒有小孩時，工作起來可以沒日沒夜的。當時也沒多想什麼，反正在事務所，尤其是忙季時本來就這樣。下班以外的時間安排也沒有特別想法，休假25天很夠用啊。後來結婚有小孩後，因為覺得家庭生活也很重要，不想要犧牲陪伴老婆小孩的時間，結果上班時數沒有改變的情況下，就是自己睡眠時間變少了。

記得2014年二月舉辦的冬奧，正值事務所忙季，老大當時才三四個月大。為了兼顧到所有我認為重要的東西，我儘量工作上每天準時下班，六七點回到家吃晚餐，陪baby玩一下洗澡放上床後，再繼續跟老婆觀看冬奧比賽。十一點後再進書房開電腦，一路工作到清晨三四點是常有的事。 睡個四五小時就出門工作。 冬奧過後不久就發生318太陽花運動，當時極度震撼下也花了相當多精力關注這件事。 也差不多從那時起，我開始體會到時間不夠用。

大家都會說「時間就是金錢」，可是真正如此看待時間的人少之又少。從一個自知時日不多的人的身上，看他闡述時間管理的重要性，相當有說服力。

Randy的講演帶給我一個基本的、以時間管理為出發點的生活架構，強化了一些原本就了解但沒有認真細想的觀念。 在Randy提供的基礎上，我思考並試著找尋適合自己的工作及生活模式。 他也提供一些工作上的管理觀念，是我覺得也可以同樣應用在親子教養上。

影片中提到的關於分辨優先性輕重，專注工作，拖延，向上管理，向下管理等方面提出的觀念，跟其他讀到的文章及書上提到的觀念是一致的。建議延伸閱讀如下：

因為本影片而做了幾次的以半小時為單位時間日記，細細檢視後發現自己使用手機的時間遠超出自己的想像。 有時候晚上小孩上床後，為了放鬆放空，習慣性地拿起手機就開臉書亂看，先看看當日美國台灣政治新聞，接著花點時間觀看之前存在Evernote或Instapaper上的一些深入一點的報導或文章。然後還有臉書上小貓小狗、動物、泰國廣告、FailArmy系列等有的沒的影片連續播放。一整晚就過去了。

同時因為讀了一篇關於喜劇演員Aziz Ansari刪除手機上的網路瀏覽器及社群軟體的報導，第一次接觸到digital detox的概念之後，我在今年一月時從手機上刪除了臉書的app，多留給自己讀書的時間。

我手機裡另外下載了一個叫Moment的app用以記錄我的手機使用, 他可以記錄我一天下來手機使用多少時間，也可以記錄一天下來該手機被拿起來觀看的次數。 你可以藉此看看你是不是手機成癮。

Background

Randy Pausch was a Computer Science professor at Carnegie Mellon University (“CMU”). He previously taught at The University of Virginia (“UVA”) from 1988 to 1997. He was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer in September 2006, and given a terminal diagnosis in August 2007.

Randy was most famous for his speech “The Last Lecture” given at CMU, which became a popular YouTube video and published as a best seller book. I have never read or seen “The Last Lecture,” and I do not recall how I came about this video on Time Management. It was at a time when I had just left my previous job and was reflecting on my experience and how I wanted to do better. The speech was given in November 2007, at the time he had “a few months left of good health” according to his doctor. He died July 25, 2008. The speech took place in a packed Cabel Hall Auditorium at UVA.

My Specific Takeaways

If you are familiar with the book Deep Work by Carl Newport, or the concept of distraction-free, focused work, then you will be familiar with a lot of the advices given by Randy. For example, the concept of “distraction free” work practice. Finding a place and time that we can fully immerse in work can turn out to be most productive.

The speech touched upon many aspects of how to live a better life. It provides me with an overall structure, a starting point, where I can build up My Principles (to borrow the concept from another good read Principles by Ray Dalio) in life. In fact, the concept of asking others for feedback in order to continue to improve oneself is an important Principle described in that book.

As a parent of 2 little ones, I am always looking for ways to effective parenting. I can see his advice on delegation easily applied to parenting in my case. Whether you are dealing with juniors/subordinates at work or children at home, you have to learn to teach them how to get work done, and delegate tasks such as chores to them effective.

At home and at work, you will often find yourself being in a teacher role, teaching life skills to your kids and work skill to others at work. A lot of the principles that Randy discussed in the video applies both at home and at work.

Teaching kids to never break a promise, but negotiate if needed be was something new to me. Since my older daughter started pre-school, my wife and I have been instilling the idea of keeping one’s words and keeping promises. It can be really hard for a four year old to understand its importance. It can be equally hard for her to actually do it. So she may end up thinking “promises are too hard to keep and I just can’t do it.” Or she may think that if it seems impossible to keep her words, then our advice must be useless and crap and she will just ignore it. Before watching this video, I never considered that there is a middle ground somewhere, that she can negotiate if needed be, if circumstance truly warrants it.

I tried doing the time journal thing a few times, and even that on and off effort of recording the daily time journals helped me realize that I had been spending a ton of time on my iPhone and not enough quality time with other things I cared about. I liked reading and wanted to read, but always seemed unable to find time to read. After digging deeper, I also realized that the majority of my iPhone times are spent on certain activities that, in retrospect, did not benefit me or my family.

This, in addition to another article I read about digital detoxing by comedian Aziz Ansari, led me to delete the Facebook app on my iPhone back in January. I still log on to FB almost everyday using my desktop computer, but I no longer spend hours each day on it. I also started using an iPhone app called Moment that monitors how much time I spent on my iPhone each day. It records the time (hrs and minutes) and the number of times I have picked up the phone. You will be surprised when you find out how addicted, how much time, and how often you pick up the phone everyday.

Below are my summary of the video. They are what I thought was relevant to me. I have bolded the points that I see are most relevant and interesting to me.

In General:

  • Time is Valuable.  You can never get your time back.
  • Bad time management = Stress
  • Experience is one of the things that you can’t fake!
  • Three Phases: Goals. Priority. Planning.
  • Planning should be done at multiple levels. Plan each day, each week, each month (or semester or 3 months).
  • Have a To Do List
    • Break things down to small steps
    • Do the ugliest one first
  • Always ask, What Makes Me More Efficient?
  • But also need to consider effective vs. efficient. Sometimes being efficient is not enough coz it’s not effective. We should not work hard to do things right (doing the wrong thing beautifully is pointless), but instead strive to do the right thing.  
  • Thank you notes: its something tangible that makes people feel special and make them remember you when they get the notes. 
  • Find your Creative (Focused, Deep Work) Time, defend it ruthlessly.  It can be at home if you need to.  
  • Find your dead time, schedule your mundane stuff during those times. Have your calls and meetings then, do your emails. 
  • While at work, minimize interruptions. In his example, they are chit chats, talks, and calls that just keep going.
  • Keep a Time Journal (time log).  
    • Keep track of your time
    • Recommend it be in 15 min increments
    • count the number of hours you watch TV (or iPhone, or fb) in a week.
    • Once you have done your time journal for like a week, make a note for 30 days from today, and ask yourself,
    • “What have I changed??

Priority Matrix

Due SoonNot Due Soon
Important#1#2
Not Important#3#4
  • Most surprising thing to know from above matrix is #2. Most people would think, after doing something important and due soon (#1), that the next task is to do the other not important things that’s due soon (#3).
    • That is wrong, because if it’s not important, it’s not important. And you should always aim to do the things that are important.
    • By tackling the things that are important but not due soon (#2), you give yourself more time and it’ll create less stress down the road.

Work Life Balance:

  • Family is not a hindrance to work! In fact, he finds that a lot of people really achieve the work efficiencies when they have a family. Why?
    • Family motivates you to work efficiently so you can spend time with family.
    • Because now you’re conscious that what you do affects others (your family)

Procrastination:

  • Doing things at the last minute is really expensive
  • If you push things all the way to right up to the deadline, then that’s where stress comes from.
    • For example if you only leave 2 days to complete a task, and you need someone’s help, what if that person is not in office that day or the next couple days??
    • You really leave yourself no choice and no room for these types of delays.
  • Deadlines are important. If deadline is far away then make up an earlier fake deadline.
  • If you are procrastinating, then find a way to get back to your comfort zone. Identify when you’re not enthusiastic about something:
    • “Afraid that you’re gonna fail?”
    • “Afraid to ask someone for something?”
    • Sometimes you just have to ask.

Delegation:

  • Most people do it poorly and treat it as dumping. They say, “I don’t have time for this. You take care of it.” But after that, they micromanage.
  • Grant them authority with responsibility. Give them the whole package. 
  • Delegate but do the ugliest/dirtiest job yourself. 
  • Treat your people well. With dignity and respect and love.  Including your staff and secretary!!
  • If you want to get something done, you cannot be vague.
    • Specific date and time, specific thing.
    • Specific reward and punishment for them (not for you!).
  • Challenge people. “Delegate until they complain.”
  • Communication has to be clear.  “Get it in writing.”
  • Give people objectives, not procedures. 
  • Know the priority of the tasks given (as a subordinate). If you give someone 5 things to do, make sure you know and communicate which order of importance they are!
  • Reinforce behavior that you want repeated. When people do things that you like, praise them and say thank you!

Meetings:

  • Have an agenda: “Why are we all here??”
  • “One minute minute”
    • Always have meeting minutes prepared. At the end of the meeting, someone has to write down the key points.
    • “What decisions got make? Who’s responsible for what by when?”
    • And email everyone so people know.
  • Only use tech if it makes you more efficient. 

Managing from beneath:

  • Clear communication
  • Write things down
  • “When’s our next meeting?”
  • “What do you want me to have done by then?”
  • “Who can I turn to for help besides you?”
  • Remember your boss wants results not excuses. 

Final concluding thoughts:

  • Eat. Sleep. Exercise.
  • Never break a promise, but negotiate if need be. 
    • “Look, i know i told you I’ll give you this by next Tuesday (Friday now), but I’m really swamped right now and could really use an extension if it’s possible. If you could give me two extra days til Thursday that would be really great.  If not, I’ll still keep my words and get them to you, but just wanted you know that I have a lot on my plate now…”
  • Recognize that most things are pass/fail
    • That’s why there’s a term called “good enough”
  • Get feedback. Ask people in confidence what you can improve on.