WEBVTT

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[percussion music plays]

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Welcome
to Carnegie Mellon Online.

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For more multimedia
from Carnegie Mellon University,

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visit www.cmu.edu/multimedia

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[audience applauds]

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Thank you,
that’s very kind,

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but never tip the waiter
before the meal arrives.

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[audience laughs]

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Thank you,
Gabe and Jim,

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I couldn’t imagine being more grateful
for an introduction.

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These are two people
that I have known a long, long time.

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I taught here
at University of Virginia.

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I love this school.

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It’s just an incredible place filled

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with tradition and history
and respect,

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the kind of qualities
that I really admire,

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that I want to see preserved
in American society.

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And this is one of the places


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that I just love
for preserving that.

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I think the honor code alone
at the University of Virginia

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just is something
that every university administrator

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should study and look at,
and say, you know,

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"Why can’t we do that, too?”

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So I think there are a lot
of things about this place to love.

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I’m going to talk today
on the topic of time management.

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The circumstances are,
as you probably know,

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a little bit unusual.

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I think at this point I’m an authority
to talk about what to do

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with limited time.

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[audience laughs]

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My battle
with pancreatic cancer started

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about a year and a half ago;

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fought,
did all the right things,

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but it’s, you know,
as my oncologist said,

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if you could pick off a list,
that’s not the one you’d want to pick.

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So, on August 15th,

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these were my CAT scans.

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You can see if you scroll
through all of them,

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there about a dozen tumors
in my liver.

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And, the doctors
at that time said,

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“You are likely
to have three to—”

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I love the way they say it,

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“You have three to six months
of good health left.”

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Right?
Optimism and positive phrasing.

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It’s like when you’re
at Disney,

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“What time
does the park close?”

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“The park is open until 8.”

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[audience laughs]

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So I have three to six months
of good health.

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Well, let’s do the math.

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Today is 3 months
and 12 days.

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So what I had on my Day-Timer
for today

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was not necessarily being
at the University of Virginia.

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I’m pleased to say that we do treat
with palliative chemo.

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They’re going to buy me a little bit
of time,

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on the order of a few months,
if it continues to work.

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I am still
in perfectly good health.

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With Gabe here,
I’m not going to do push-ups,

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because
I’m not going to be shown-up.

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[audience laughs]

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Gabe is really in good shape.

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But I continue to be
in relatively good health.

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I had chemotherapy yesterday.

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You should all try it,
it’s great.

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[audience laughs]

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But it does sort of
beg the question:

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I have finite time,
some people have said, you know,

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"Why are you going
and giving a talk?”

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There are lots of reasons
for coming here to talk.

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One of them is that...

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I said I would...right?

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That’s a pretty simple reason.

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And I’m physically able to.

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Another one is that
going to the University of Virginia

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is not like going
to some foreign place.

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“Aren’t you spending
all your time with family?”

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And by coming back here
for a day,

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I am spending my time
with family,

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both metaphorically
and literally,

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because it turns out that--

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many of you
may have seen this picture

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from the talk that I gave.

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These are my niece and nephew,
Chris and Laura.

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And my niece, Laura,
is actually a senior,

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oh, a fourth year here
at Mr. Jefferson’s university.

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So, Laura, could you stand up

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so they see
you’ve gotten taller.

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There we are.

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[audience applauds]

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And I couldn’t be happier
to have her here at this university.

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And the other person—
so that’s Laura,

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the other person
in this picture is Chris.

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And Chris,
if you could stand up

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so they see

that you’ve gotten much taller.

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[audience applauds]

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And they have grown
in so many ways,

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not just in height.

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And it’s been wonderful to see that,
and be an uncle to them.

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Is there anybody here
on the faculty

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or PhD students

of the history department?

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Do we have any history people here
at all?

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Okay, anybody here is
from history,

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find Chris right
after the talk...

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because he’s currently
in his sophomore year

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at William and Mary,

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and he’s interested in going
into a PhD program in history

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down the road.

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And, there aren’t many better
PhD programs in history

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than this one.

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So...so I’m pimping
for my nephew here, all right.

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Let’s be clear, all right.

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[audience laughs and applauds]

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So, what are we going to talk
about today?

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We’re going to talk about,
you know—

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this is not like the lecture
you may have seen me give before.

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This is a very pragmatic lecture.

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And one of the reasons
I agreed to come back

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and give this is
because Gabe had told me that--

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and many other faculty members
told me,

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that they had gotten
so much tangible value

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about how to get more done.

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And I truly do believe
that time

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is the only commodity
that matters.

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So this is a very pragmatic talk.

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And it is inspirational
in the sense that it will inspire you

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by giving you some concrete things
you might do

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to be able
to get more time done—

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more things done
in your finite time.

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So I’m going to talk specifically
about how to set goals,

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how to avoid wasting time,
how to deal with a boss--

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originally this talk was how
to deal with an adviser,

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but I’ve tried to broaden it
so it’s not so academically focused.

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And how to delegate
to people.

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Some specific skills and tools
that I might recommend

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to help you get more
out of the day.

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And to deal
with the real problems in our life,

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which are stress
and procrastination.

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if you can lick that last one,

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you’re probably
in good shape.

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And really,
you don’t need to take any notes,

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so I’ll presume
if I see any laptops open,

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you’re actually just doing,
you know,

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doing IM, or email,
or something.

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[audience laughs]

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If you’re listening to music,
please at least wear headphones,

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I would always say.

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But all of this will be posted
on my website,

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and just
to make it really easy,

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if you want to know when
to look up,

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any slides that have a red star
on them are points

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that I think you should
really make sure that you got that one,

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all right.

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And conversely,
if it doesn’t have a red star,

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well, pfft.

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[audience laughs]

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So the first thing I want
to say is Americans are very, very bad

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at dealing
with time as a commodity.

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We’re really good
at dealing with money as a commodity.

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I mean, we’re, as a culture,
very interested in money,

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and how much somebody earns,
as a status thing,

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and so on and so forth.

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But we don’t really have time
elevated to that.

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People waste their time,
and it just always fascinates me.

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And, one of the things
that I noticed

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is that very few people equate time
and money,

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and they’re very,
very equatable.

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So, the first thing I started doing
when I was a teacher

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was asking my graduate students,

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“Well, how much is your time worth
an hour?"

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Or if you work
at a company,

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"How much is your time worth
to the company?”

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What most people don’t realize is,
is that if you have a salary,

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let’s say
you make $50,000 a year,

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it probably costs that company
twice that

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in order
to have you as an employee,

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because there’s utilites,
and other staff members, and so forth.

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So, if you get paid
$50,000 a year,

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you are costing that company—

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they have to raise $100,000
in revenue.

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And if you divide that
by your hourly rate,

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you begin to get some sense
of what you are worth an hour.

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And when you
have to make trade-offs of:

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“Should I do something
like write software,

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“or should I just buy it,
or should I outsource this?”

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Having in your head
what you cost your organization an hour

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is really kind of a staggering thing
to change your behavior,

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because you start
realizing that,

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“Wow! If I free up three hours
of my time,

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"and I’m thinking of that in terms
of dollars,

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that’s a big savings.”

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So start thinking about your time
and your money

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almost as if
they are the same thing.

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And of course, Ben Franklin
knew that a long time ago.

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So you got to manage it.

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And you got to manage it
just like you manage your money.

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Now I realize not all Americans
manage their money,

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that’s what makes the credit card
industry possible.

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And that’s—
and apparently mortgages, too, so....

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[audience laughs]

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But most people
do at least understand,

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they don’t look at you funny
if you say,

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“Well, can I see your monetary budget
for your household?”

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In fact,
if I say, “your household budget,”

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you presume that I’m talking
about money,

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when in fact the household budget
I really want

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to talk about is probably
your household time budget.

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At the entertainment technology center
at Carnegie Mellon,

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students would come in,
and at the orientation, I would say,

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“This is a master’s program,
everybody’s paying full tuition.”

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And it was roughly
$30,000 a year.

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And the first thing
I would say,

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“If you’re going to come
into my office and say,

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“‘I don’t think
this is worth $60,000 a year,’

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“I will throw you
out of the office.

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"I’m not even going to have
that discussion.”

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And of course they would say,
“Oh god, this guy's a real jerk.”

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And they were right.

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But, what I then followed
on with was,

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“Because the money
is not important.

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“You can go
and earn more money later.

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“And what you’ll never do
is get the two years of your life back.

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“So if you want to come into my office,
and talk about money,

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“I’ll throw you out.

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“But if you want to come
into my office and say,

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“‘I’m not sure this is a good place
for me to spend two years,’

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“I will talk to you all day
and all night,

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“because that means we’re talking
about the right thing,

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“which is your time,
because you can’t ever get it back.”

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A lot advice I'm will give you,
notably for undergraduates—

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how many people
here are undergraduates,

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by show of hands?

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Okay good, still young.

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[audience laughs]

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A lot of this—

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put it to Hans and Franz
on Saturday Night Live,

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if you’re old enough.

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[faking German accent]
“Hear me now, but believe me later.”

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Right?

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A lot of this
is going to make sense later,

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and one of the nice things
is Gabe has volunteered

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to put this up on the web.

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I understand that people
can actually watch videos

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on the web now.

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So this is...

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[audience laughs]

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so a lot of this
only makes sense later,

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and, when I talk about your boss,
if you’re a student,

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think about that
as your academic advisor.

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If you’re a PhD student,
think about your PhD advisor.

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And if you’re, you know,
if you’re watching this,

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and you’re a young child,
think of your parent,

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because that’s sort of the person who is
in some sense your boss.

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And the talk goes very fast.

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And as I said,
I’m very big on specific techniques.

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I’m not really big
on platitudes.

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I mean,
platitudes are nice,

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but they don’t really help me
get something done tomorrow.

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The other thing is that,

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one good thief
is worth ten good scholars.

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And in fact,
you can replace "scholars"

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in that sentence
with almost anything, all right.

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So almost everything in this talk
is to some degree inspired,

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which is a fancy way
of saying “lifted,”

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from these two books,

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and I found those books very useful,

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but it’s much better to get them
in distilled form.

00:10:08.675 --> 00:10:11.048
So what I’ve basically done
is collected the nuggets

00:10:11.048 --> 00:10:13.253
for your behalf.

00:10:13.253 --> 00:10:15.148
I like the part
about the time famine.

00:10:15.148 --> 00:10:16.366
I think it’s a nice phrase.

00:10:16.366 --> 00:10:19.564
Does anybody here feel like
they have too much time?

00:10:21.124 --> 00:10:23.275
Okay, nobody;
excellent!

00:10:23.275 --> 00:10:24.565
And I like the word “famine”

00:10:24.565 --> 00:10:26.552
because it’s a bit like thinking
about Africa.

00:10:26.552 --> 00:10:28.526
I mean,
you can airlift all the food you want

00:10:28.526 --> 00:10:32.368
in to solve the crisis this week,
but the problem is systemic,

00:10:32.368 --> 00:10:35.314
and you really need
systemic solutions.

00:10:35.314 --> 00:10:36.843
So a time management solution
that says,

00:10:36.843 --> 00:10:39.091
"I’m going to fix things for you
in the next 24 hours,”

00:10:39.091 --> 00:10:40.154
is laughable,
like saying,

00:10:40.154 --> 00:10:42.529
“I’m going to cure hunger in Africa
in the next year.”

00:10:42.529 --> 00:10:43.884
You need to think long-term,

00:10:43.884 --> 00:10:46.583
and you need to change
fundamental underlying processes,

00:10:46.583 --> 00:10:47.996
because the problem
is systemic.

00:10:47.996 --> 00:10:49.582
We just have
too many things to do,

00:10:49.582 --> 00:10:51.534
and not enough time 
to do them.

00:10:51.534 --> 00:10:53.773
Also remember that it’s not just
about time management.

00:10:53.773 --> 00:10:56.129
That sounds
like a kind of lukewarm,

00:10:56.129 --> 00:10:57.646
you know,
a talk on time management,

00:10:57.646 --> 00:10:59.717
that’s kind of, you know,
milk toast.

00:10:59.717 --> 00:11:00.725
But what if the talk is:

00:11:00.725 --> 00:11:03.345
“How about not having ulcers?”

00:11:03.345 --> 00:11:06.332
All right,
that catches my attention.

00:11:06.332 --> 00:11:08.136
So a lot of this is life advice.

00:11:08.136 --> 00:11:11.238
This is, how to change the way
you’re doing a lot of the things

00:11:11.238 --> 00:11:12.803
and how you allocate your time,

00:11:12.803 --> 00:11:16.463
so that you will lead a happier,
more wonderful life,

00:11:16.463 --> 00:11:18.781
and I loved in the introduction
that you talked about fun,

00:11:18.781 --> 00:11:21.260
because if I’ve brought fun
to academia,

00:11:21.260 --> 00:11:23.911
well it’s about damn time.

00:11:23.911 --> 00:11:25.478
Whew!

00:11:25.478 --> 00:11:28.130
I mean, you know,
if you’re not going to have fun,

00:11:28.130 --> 00:11:30.083
why do it...right?

00:11:30.083 --> 00:11:31.178
That’s what I want to know.

00:11:31.178 --> 00:11:32.981
I mean, life really is too short,

00:11:32.981 --> 00:11:35.298
if you’re not going to enjoy it—
you know, people who say,

00:11:35.298 --> 00:11:37.139
“I’ve got a job,
but I don’t really like it.”

00:11:37.139 --> 00:11:40.384
And I’m like,
“Well, you could change.”

00:11:40.384 --> 00:11:41.481
“That’d be a lot of work.”

00:11:41.481 --> 00:11:43.313
“True, you should keep going
in to work every day,

00:11:43.313 --> 00:11:44.854
“doing a job you don’t like.

00:11:44.854 --> 00:11:46.372
“Thank you, good night,”

right?

00:11:46.372 --> 00:11:47.525
[audience laughs]

00:11:47.525 --> 00:11:49.972
So, the overall goal is fun.

00:11:49.972 --> 00:11:52.796
My middle child Logan
is my favorite example.

00:11:52.796 --> 00:11:55.389
I don’t think he knows how
to not have fun.

00:11:55.389 --> 00:11:56.789
Now granted,
a lot of the things he does

00:11:56.789 --> 00:11:59.480
are not fun for his mother
and me,

00:11:59.480 --> 00:12:01.738
but he’s lovin’
every second of it.

00:12:01.738 --> 00:12:03.089
And he doesn’t know how
to do anything

00:12:03.089 --> 00:12:05.590
that isn’t ballistic
and full of life,

00:12:05.590 --> 00:12:07.461
and he’s going to keep that quality,
I think.

00:12:07.461 --> 00:12:08.616
He’s my little Tigger.

00:12:08.616 --> 00:12:10.885
And I always remember Logan
when I think

00:12:10.885 --> 00:12:13.338
about the goal is
to make sure that you lead your life,

00:12:13.338 --> 00:12:15.132
you know—
I want to maximize use of time,

00:12:15.132 --> 00:12:17.309
but really, that’s the means,
not the end.

00:12:17.309 --> 00:12:20.992
The end is maximizing fun.

00:12:20.992 --> 00:12:24.987
People who do intense studies,
and log people on video tape,

00:12:24.987 --> 00:12:26.105
and so on and so forth,

00:12:26.105 --> 00:12:27.848
say that the typical office worker

00:12:27.848 --> 00:12:31.261
wastes almost two hours a day.

00:12:31.261 --> 00:12:33.241
Their desk is messy,
they can’t find things,

00:12:33.241 --> 00:12:35.262
miss appointments,
unprepared for meetings,

00:12:35.262 --> 00:12:36.474
they can’t concentrate.

00:12:36.474 --> 00:12:38.793
Does anybody in here,
by show of hands,

00:12:38.793 --> 00:12:40.929
ever have any sense that one
of these things

00:12:40.929 --> 00:12:43.140
is part of their life?

00:12:43.140 --> 00:12:45.784
Okay, I think
we’ve got everybody.

00:12:45.784 --> 00:12:47.160
So these
are the universal thing,

00:12:47.160 --> 00:12:49.586
and you shouldn’t feel guilty

00:12:49.586 --> 00:12:50.900
if some
of these are plaguing you,

00:12:50.900 --> 00:12:52.384
because they plague all of us,

00:12:52.384 --> 00:12:54.461
they plagued me for sure.

00:12:54.461 --> 00:12:56.055
And I also want to tell you,

00:12:56.055 --> 00:12:57.560
it sounds a little cliched
and trite,

00:12:57.560 --> 00:13:01.693
but being successful does not make you
manage your time well.

00:13:01.693 --> 00:13:03.717
Managing your time well
makes you successful.

00:13:03.717 --> 00:13:05.494
If I have been successful
in my career,

00:13:05.494 --> 00:13:07.198
I assure you it’s not
because I’m smarter

00:13:07.198 --> 00:13:08.604
than all the other faculty.

00:13:08.604 --> 00:13:09.467
I mean,
looking around,

00:13:09.467 --> 00:13:11.104
and seeing some
of my former colleagues,

00:13:11.104 --> 00:13:12.409
I mean, I see Jim Cohoon
up there.

00:13:12.409 --> 00:13:15.169
I am not smart than Jim Cohoon,
okay.

00:13:15.169 --> 00:13:16.880
I constantly look
around at the faculty

00:13:16.880 --> 00:13:18.175
at places like
the University of Virginina

00:13:18.175 --> 00:13:19.319
or Carnegie Mellon,
and I go,

00:13:19.319 --> 00:13:21.333
“Damn! These are smart people.”

00:13:21.333 --> 00:13:22.981
Right, and I snuck in.

00:13:22.981 --> 00:13:23.929
[audience laughs]

00:13:23.929 --> 00:13:26.527
But what I like to think I’m good
at is the meta-skills,

00:13:26.527 --> 00:13:29.024
because if you have to run
with people who are faster than you,

00:13:29.024 --> 00:13:31.759
you have to, like,
find the right ways

00:13:31.759 --> 00:13:34.749
to optimize what skills
you do have.

00:13:34.749 --> 00:13:37.136
So let’s talk first about goals,
priorities, and planning.

00:13:37.136 --> 00:13:41.179
Anytime anything crosses your life,
you’ve got to ask,

00:13:41.179 --> 00:13:42.857
“This thing I’m thinking
about doing,

00:13:42.857 --> 00:13:43.983
“why am I doing it?”

00:13:43.983 --> 00:13:46.072
Almost no one I know starts
with this core principle of:

00:13:46.072 --> 00:13:48.977
there’s this thing on my to-do list,
why is it there?

00:13:48.977 --> 00:13:50.217
Because
if you start asking why—

00:13:50.217 --> 00:13:51.773
I mean, again, my kids are great
at this.

00:13:51.773 --> 00:13:56.103
That’s all I ever hear
at home is, “Why? Why? Why?”

00:13:56.115 --> 00:13:57.851
Eventually,
they will stop saying why,

00:13:57.851 --> 00:13:59.517
and just going to say,
“Okay, I’ll do it.”

00:13:59.517 --> 00:14:00.689
Right?

00:14:00.689 --> 00:14:01.850
So ask:
Why am I doing this?

00:14:01.850 --> 00:14:02.670
What is the goal?

00:14:02.670 --> 00:14:04.980
Why will I succeed
at doing it?

00:14:04.980 --> 00:14:08.438
And here’s my favorite: 
What will happen if I don’t do it?

00:14:08.438 --> 00:14:09.897
If I just say,
“Yeah, I’m just not—.”

00:14:09.897 --> 00:14:11.092
The best thing
in the world is

00:14:11.092 --> 00:14:13.969
when I have something on my to-do list,
and I just go, hm, no.

00:14:13.969 --> 00:14:14.972
[audience laughs]

00:14:14.972 --> 00:14:17.828
No one has ever come
and taken me to jail.

00:14:18.618 --> 00:14:20.387
I got out 
of a speeding ticket last week.

00:14:20.387 --> 00:14:21.514
It was really cool.

00:14:21.514 --> 00:14:24.814
[audience laughs and claps]

00:14:24.814 --> 00:14:26.484
It’s like the closest
I’m ever going to be

00:14:26.484 --> 00:14:30.796
to attractive and blond.

00:14:30.796 --> 00:14:33.934
And I told the guy, you know,
why we had just moved,

00:14:33.934 --> 00:14:34.970
and so on and so forth.

00:14:34.970 --> 00:14:36.836
And he looked at me
and he said,

00:14:36.836 --> 00:14:38.958
“Well for a guy whose
only got a couple months to live,

00:14:38.958 --> 00:14:40.512
you sure look good.”

00:14:40.512 --> 00:14:41.369
[audience laughs]

00:14:41.369 --> 00:14:43.403
I just pulled up my shirt
to show the scar, said,

00:14:43.403 --> 00:14:47.067
“Yeah, I look good on the outside,
but the tumors are inside.”

00:14:47.067 --> 00:14:49.278
He just ran back
to his cruiser and—

00:14:49.278 --> 00:14:52.064
[audience laughs]

00:14:52.064 --> 00:14:54.925
So that’s one positive
law enforcement experience for me.

00:14:54.925 --> 00:14:57.560
[audience laughs]

00:14:57.560 --> 00:14:59.391
So the police have never come

00:14:59.391 --> 00:15:01.506
because I crossed something
off my to-do list.

00:15:01.506 --> 00:15:02.874
And that’s a very powerful thing,

00:15:02.874 --> 00:15:04.544
because you just got
all that time back.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:04.544 --> 00:15:06.776
The other thing to keep in mind
when you’re goal-setting,

00:15:06.776 --> 00:15:09.360
is a lot of people focus
on doing things right.

00:15:09.360 --> 00:15:12.331
I think it’s very dangerous
to focus on doing things right.

00:15:12.331 --> 00:15:14.798
I think it’s much more important
to do the right things.

00:15:14.798 --> 00:15:16.883
If you do the right things
adequately,

00:15:16.883 --> 00:15:18.477
that’s much more important

00:15:18.477 --> 00:15:21.581
than doing the wrong things
beautifully.

00:15:21.581 --> 00:15:22.435
All right.

00:15:22.435 --> 00:15:26.709
Doesn’t matter how well you
polish the underside of the banister.

00:15:26.709 --> 00:15:29.130
Okay?
And keep that in mind.

00:15:29.130 --> 00:15:30.792
Lou Holtz had a great list:

00:15:30.792 --> 00:15:33.229
Lou Holtz’s 100 things to do
in his life.

00:15:33.229 --> 00:15:35.643
And he would, sort of,
once a week look at it, and say,

00:15:35.643 --> 00:15:37.875
you know, "If I’m not working
on those 100 things,

00:15:37.875 --> 00:15:40.035
why was I working
on the others.”

00:15:40.035 --> 00:15:41.778
And I just think
that’s an incredible way

00:15:41.778 --> 00:15:43.561
to frame things.

00:15:44.971 --> 00:15:46.370
There’s something
called the 80/20 rule.

00:15:46.370 --> 00:15:47.955
Sometimes you’ll hear
about the 90/10 rule,

00:15:47.955 --> 00:15:49.406
but the key thing
to understand

00:15:49.406 --> 00:15:52.084
is that a very small number
of things in your life,

00:15:52.084 --> 00:15:53.275
or on your to-do list,

00:15:53.275 --> 00:15:56.069
are going to contribute
the vast majority of the value.

00:15:56.069 --> 00:15:59.112
So if you have—
if you’re a salesperson,

00:15:59.112 --> 00:16:02.770
80% of the revenue is going to come
from 20% of your clients.

00:16:02.770 --> 00:16:05.342
And you better figure out
who those 20% are,

00:16:05.342 --> 00:16:08.795
and spend all of your time sucking
up to them,

00:16:08.795 --> 00:16:11.300
because that’s where the revenue
comes.

00:16:11.300 --> 00:16:13.151
So you’ve got to really be willing
to say,

00:16:13.151 --> 00:16:14.913
“This stuff
is what’s going to be the value,

00:16:14.913 --> 00:16:15.910
and this other stuff isn’t.”

00:16:15.910 --> 00:16:18.045
And you’ve got to have the courage
of your convictions to say,

00:16:18.045 --> 00:16:18.907
“And therefore,

00:16:18.907 --> 00:16:22.272
I’m going to shove the other stuff
off of the boat.”

00:16:22.272 --> 00:16:26.366
The other thing to remember
is that experience comes with time.

00:16:26.366 --> 00:16:27.848
And it’s really, really valuable.

00:16:27.848 --> 00:16:30.135
And there are no shortcuts
to getting it.

00:16:30.135 --> 00:16:32.745
So, good judgement comes
from experience,

00:16:32.745 --> 00:16:35.479
and experience comes
from bad judgement.

00:16:35.479 --> 00:16:37.359
So, if things aren’t going well,

00:16:37.359 --> 00:16:39.330
that probably means
you’re learning a lot,

00:16:39.330 --> 00:16:40.883
and it’ll go better later.

00:16:40.883 --> 00:16:42.405
[audience laughs]

00:16:42.405 --> 00:16:45.585
This is, by the way,
why we pay so much in American society

00:16:45.585 --> 00:16:47.782
for people who are,
you know,

00:16:47.782 --> 00:16:50.400
typically older, but have done lots
of things in their past,

00:16:50.400 --> 00:16:51.948
because we pay
for their experience,

00:16:51.948 --> 00:16:55.596
because we know that experience
is one of the things you can’t fake.

00:16:57.176 --> 00:16:59.458
And do not lose the sight—
do not lose sight

00:16:59.458 --> 00:17:01.407
of the power of inspiration.

00:17:01.407 --> 00:17:03.564
So, Randy’s in an hour-long talk,

00:17:03.564 --> 00:17:05.850
and we’ve already hit
our first Disney reference.

00:17:05.850 --> 00:17:07.001
[audience laughs]

00:17:07.001 --> 00:17:09.363
Walt Disney’s quote--
Walt Disney has many great quotes,

00:17:09.363 --> 00:17:11.847
but the one I loved is,
“If you can dream it, you can do it.”

00:17:11.847 --> 00:17:13.685
And a lot 
of my cynical friends say,

00:17:13.685 --> 00:17:14.702
yada-yada-yada,

00:17:14.702 --> 00:17:16.155
To which I say, “Shut up.”

00:17:16.155 --> 00:17:17.721
[audience laughs]

00:17:17.723 --> 00:17:20.595
Inspiration is important,
and I’ll tell you this much, if you

00:17:20.595 --> 00:17:22.889
if you--
I don’t know if Walt was right,

00:17:22.889 --> 00:17:23.974
but I’ll tell you this much,

00:17:23.974 --> 00:17:26.595
if you refuse to allow yourself
to dream it,

00:17:26.595 --> 00:17:29.230
I know you won’t do it.

00:17:29.230 --> 00:17:31.942
So the power of dreams
are that they give us a way

00:17:31.942 --> 00:17:34.863
to take the first step
towards an accomplishment.

00:17:34.863 --> 00:17:37.402
And Walt was also
not just a dreamer.

00:17:37.402 --> 00:17:39.580
Walt worked really hard.

00:17:39.580 --> 00:17:41.650
Disneyland, this amazes me,
because I know a bit

00:17:41.650 --> 00:17:44.097
about how hard it is
to put theme park attractions together,

00:17:44.097 --> 00:17:47.215
and they did the whole original
Disneyland park

00:17:47.215 --> 00:17:50.405
in 366 days.

00:17:50.405 --> 00:17:54.760
That’s from the first shovelful of dirt
to the first paid admission.

00:17:54.760 --> 00:17:55.833
All right.

00:17:55.833 --> 00:17:57.790
Think about how long it takes
to do something, say,

00:17:57.790 --> 00:17:59.151
at a state university.

00:17:59.151 --> 00:18:04.117
[audience laughs]

00:18:04.117 --> 00:18:05.283
By comparison!

00:18:05.283 --> 00:18:08.750
So, it’s, you know,
it’s just fascinating.

00:18:08.750 --> 00:18:10.096
When someone
once asked Walt Disney,

00:18:10.096 --> 00:18:12.025
“How did you get it done
in 366 days?”,

00:18:12.025 --> 00:18:15.952
he just deadpanned,
“We used every one of them.”

00:18:15.952 --> 00:18:16.638
[audience laughs]

00:18:16.638 --> 00:18:19.023
So again,
there are no shortcuts,

00:18:19.023 --> 00:18:23.783
there’s a lot of hard work
in anything you want to accomplish.

00:18:23.783 --> 00:18:25.036
Planning is very important.

00:18:25.036 --> 00:18:26.779
One of the time management
cliches is,

00:18:26.779 --> 00:18:30.244
“Failing to plan
is planning to fail.”

00:18:30.244 --> 00:18:32.677
And planning has to be done
at multiple levels.

00:18:32.677 --> 00:18:34.643
I have a plan every morning
when I wake up, I say,

00:18:34.643 --> 00:18:35.827
“What do I need
to do today?

00:18:35.827 --> 00:18:37.040
“What do I need to do
this week?

00:18:37.040 --> 00:18:38.605
“What do I need to do
each semester?”

00:18:38.605 --> 00:18:41.272
That’s sort of the time quanta,
because I’m an academic.

00:18:41.272 --> 00:18:43.915
And that doesn’t mean you’re locked
in to it.

00:18:43.915 --> 00:18:45.949
People say,
“Yeah, but things are so fluid.

00:18:45.949 --> 00:18:47.497
“I’m going to
have to change the plan.”

00:18:47.497 --> 00:18:50.150
And I’m like, “Yes! You are going to
have to change the plan.

00:18:50.150 --> 00:18:53.440
“But you can’t change it
unless you have it.”

00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:54.260
And the excuse of,

00:18:54.260 --> 00:18:56.883
I’m not going to make a plan
because things might change,

00:18:56.883 --> 00:18:59.505
is just this paralysis of:
I don’t have any marching orders.

00:18:59.505 --> 00:19:00.554
So have a plan,

00:19:00.554 --> 00:19:01.655
accept
that it will change,

00:19:01.655 --> 00:19:05.316
but have it so you have the basis
to start with.

00:19:05.316 --> 00:19:06.415
To-do lists.

00:19:06.415 --> 00:19:08.553
How many people here,
right now, if I said,

00:19:08.553 --> 00:19:11.969
can you produce it,
could show me their to-do list?

00:19:11.969 --> 00:19:15.264
Okay, not bad, not bad.

00:19:16.324 --> 00:19:17.619
The key thing with to-do lists

00:19:17.619 --> 00:19:20.627
is you have to break things down
into small steps.

00:19:20.627 --> 00:19:22.072
I literally once,
on my to-do list,

00:19:22.072 --> 00:19:24.401
when I was a junior faculty member
at the University of Virginia,

00:19:24.402 --> 00:19:26.274
I put: “Get tenure.”

00:19:26.274 --> 00:19:29.100
[audience laughs]

00:19:29.100 --> 00:19:31.996
That was naive!

00:19:31.996 --> 00:19:33.714
And I looked at that for a while,
and I said,

00:19:33.714 --> 00:19:36.791
“That’s really hard,
I don’t think I can do that.”

00:19:36.791 --> 00:19:40.082
And, my children, Dylan and Logan
and Chloe,

00:19:40.082 --> 00:19:42.217
particularly Dylan,
is at the age

00:19:42.217 --> 00:19:45.595
where he can clean his own damn room,
thank you very much.

00:19:45.595 --> 00:19:47.860
But he doesn’t like to.

00:19:47.860 --> 00:19:50.923
And, Chris is smiling,
because I used to do this story on him,

00:19:50.923 --> 00:19:53.112
but now I’ve got my own kids
to pick on.

00:19:53.112 --> 00:19:54.253
[audience laughs]

00:19:54.253 --> 00:19:55.576
But Dylan will come to me
and say,

00:19:55.576 --> 00:19:57.560
“I can’t pick up my room,
it’s too much stuff.”

00:19:57.560 --> 00:19:58.937
[lets out exaggerated sigh]

00:19:58.937 --> 00:20:00.798
He’s not even a teen
and he’s already got that,

00:20:00.798 --> 00:20:01.531
you know?

00:20:01.531 --> 00:20:02.776
[lets out exaggerated sigh]

00:20:02.776 --> 00:20:04.968
And I say,
“Well, can you make your bed?”

00:20:04.968 --> 00:20:07.314
“Yeah, I can do that."
[imitates footsteps retreating]

00:20:07.314 --> 00:20:09.124
“Okay, can you put the clothes
in the hamper?”

00:20:09.124 --> 00:20:11.381
“Yeah, I can do that.”
[iimitates footsteps retreating]

00:20:11.381 --> 00:20:12.942
And you know,
you do three or four things,

00:20:12.942 --> 00:20:14.220
and then it’s like,

00:20:14.220 --> 00:20:15.860
“Well, Dylan, you just cleaned
your room.”

00:20:15.860 --> 00:20:17.235
[childlike voice]
“I cleaned my room!”

00:20:17.235 --> 00:20:18.113
And he feels good.

00:20:18.113 --> 00:20:19.464
He is empowered.

00:20:19.464 --> 00:20:20.852
[audience laughs]

00:20:20.852 --> 00:20:22.060
And everybody’s happy,
and

00:20:22.060 --> 00:20:24.805
of course, I’ve had to spend twice
as much time

00:20:24.805 --> 00:20:27.231
managing him
as I could’ve done it by myself,

00:20:27.231 --> 00:20:29.344
but that’s okay,
that’s what being a boss is about,

00:20:29.344 --> 00:20:30.898
is growing your people,

00:20:30.898 --> 00:20:32.849
no matter how small or large
they might be at the time.

00:20:32.849 --> 00:20:34.115
[audience laughs]

00:20:34.115 --> 00:20:36.435
The last thing about to-do lists,
or getting yourself going,

00:20:36.435 --> 00:20:38.188
is if you’ve got a bunch
of things to do,

00:20:38.188 --> 00:20:41.147
do the ugliest thing first.

00:20:41.147 --> 00:20:43.651
There’s an old saying,
"If you have to eat a frog,

00:20:43.651 --> 00:20:46.322
"don’t spend a lot of time looking
at it first.

00:20:46.322 --> 00:20:49.987
"And if you have to eat three of them,
don’t start with the small one."

00:20:49.987 --> 00:20:52.187
[audience laughs]

00:20:56.537 --> 00:20:58.768
All right,
this is the most important slide

00:20:58.768 --> 00:21:00.194
in the entire talk.

00:21:00.194 --> 00:21:01.870
So, if you want to leave
after this slide,

00:21:01.870 --> 00:21:04.938
I will not be offended
because it’s all downhill from here.

00:21:04.938 --> 00:21:06.115
And this is blatantly stolen,

00:21:06.115 --> 00:21:08.298
this is Steven Covey’s
great contribution to the world.

00:21:08.298 --> 00:21:12.733
He talks about it in one—
in the Seven Habits book.

00:21:12.733 --> 00:21:14.528
Imagine your to-do list—

00:21:14.528 --> 00:21:17.403
most people sort their to-do list,
either, you know,

00:21:17.403 --> 00:21:20.142
“the order that I got it,
throw it on the bottom.”

00:21:20.142 --> 00:21:22.737
Or, they sort it in due-date list,

00:21:22.737 --> 00:21:25.126
which is more sophisticated,
and more helpful.

00:21:25.126 --> 00:21:28.844
But still very, very wrong.

00:21:28.844 --> 00:21:30.917
So looking at the four-quadrant
to-do list.

00:21:30.917 --> 00:21:32.420
If you’ve got a quadrant
where things are

00:21:32.420 --> 00:21:34.435
“Important and Due Soon,”

00:21:34.435 --> 00:21:36.478
“Important and Not Due Soon,”

00:21:36.478 --> 00:21:38.396
“Not Important and Due Soon,”

00:21:38.396 --> 00:21:40.569
and “Not Important
and Not Due Soon.”

00:21:40.569 --> 00:21:41.648
All right,

00:21:41.648 --> 00:21:44.160
which of these four quadrants
do you think,

00:21:44.160 --> 00:21:45.679
upper left, upper right,
lower left, lower right,

00:21:45.679 --> 00:21:48.877
which one do you think
you should work on immediately?

00:21:48.877 --> 00:21:50.008
Upper left!

00:21:50.008 --> 00:21:51.449
You are such a great crowd.

00:21:51.449 --> 00:21:52.337
Okay.

00:21:52.337 --> 00:21:55.646
And which one do you think
you should probably do last?

00:21:55.646 --> 00:21:56.542
Lower right.

00:21:56.542 --> 00:21:58.104
And that’s, you know,
that’s easy.

00:21:58.104 --> 00:21:59.919
That’s obviously number one.

00:21:59.919 --> 00:22:02.229
That’s obviously number four.

00:22:02.229 --> 00:22:06.627
But this is where everybody
in my experience gets it wrong.

00:22:06.627 --> 00:22:07.550
What we do now
is we say,

00:22:07.550 --> 00:22:09.470
“I do the number ones,
and then I move on

00:22:09.470 --> 00:22:11.704
“to the stuff that's ‘Due Soon
and Not Important.’”

00:22:11.704 --> 00:22:13.429
When you write it
in this quadrant list,

00:22:13.429 --> 00:22:14.580
it’s really stunning,

00:22:14.580 --> 00:22:15.887
I’ve seen
people do this, they say,

00:22:15.887 --> 00:22:17.715
"This is due soon,
and I know it’s not important,

00:22:17.715 --> 00:22:19.618
“so I’m going to get right
to work on it.”

00:22:19.618 --> 00:22:22.272
[audience laughs]

00:22:22.272 --> 00:22:24.756
And, the most crucial thing
I can teach you

00:22:24.756 --> 00:22:26.678
about time management
is when you’re done picking

00:22:26.678 --> 00:22:30.747
off the “Important and Due Soon,”
that’s when you go here.

00:22:30.747 --> 00:22:32.692
You go to it’s “Not Due Soon
and It’s Important.”

00:22:32.692 --> 00:22:34.847
And there will be a moment
in your life where you say,

00:22:34.847 --> 00:22:37.107
“Hey, this thing that’s due soon
but not important,

00:22:37.107 --> 00:22:40.131
“I won’t do it!

00:22:40.131 --> 00:22:43.201
“Because it’s not important!
It says so right here on the chart!”

00:22:43.161 --> 00:22:48.645
[audience laughs]

00:22:48.645 --> 00:22:51.614
And magically, you have time

00:22:51.614 --> 00:22:53.410
to work on the thing
that is not due soon,


00:22:53.410 --> 00:22:54.420
but is important,

00:22:54.420 --> 00:22:59.321
so that next week
it never got a chance to get here,

00:22:59.321 --> 00:23:01.673
because you killed it
in the crib.

00:23:01.673 --> 00:23:03.572
[audience laughs]

00:23:03.572 --> 00:23:05.588
My wife won’t like
that metaphor.

00:23:05.588 --> 00:23:08.531
[audience laughs]

00:23:08.531 --> 00:23:11.747
But you kill,
or you solve the problem,

00:23:11.747 --> 00:23:13.517
of something that’s
due next week

00:23:13.517 --> 00:23:16.364
when you’re not under time stress,
because it’s not due tomorrow.

00:23:16.364 --> 00:23:19.586
And suddenly you become one
of those zen-like people,

00:23:19.586 --> 00:23:21.381
who always seem
to have all the time in the world,

00:23:21.381 --> 00:23:24.583
because
they’ve figured this out.

00:23:24.583 --> 00:23:25.348
All right.

00:23:25.348 --> 00:23:27.222
Paperwork.

00:23:27.222 --> 00:23:29.991
The first thing you need to know
is that having cluttered paperwork

00:23:29.991 --> 00:23:30.843
leads to thrashing.

00:23:30.843 --> 00:23:32.513
You end up with all these things
on your desk,

00:23:32.513 --> 00:23:34.303
and you can’t find anything,

00:23:34.303 --> 00:23:35.518
the moment you turn
to your desk,

00:23:35.518 --> 00:23:37.073
your desk is saying to you,

00:23:37.073 --> 00:23:38.505
[in a gruff voice]
“I own you.”

00:23:38.505 --> 00:23:39.324
[audience laughs]

00:23:39.324 --> 00:23:42.549
[in a gruff voice]
“I have more things than you can do.

00:23:42.549 --> 00:23:46.420
"And they are many colors
and laid out.”

00:23:46.420 --> 00:23:48.595
So what I find
is that it’s really crucial

00:23:48.595 --> 00:23:50.593
to keep your desk clear,

00:23:50.593 --> 00:23:52.893
and we’ll talk
about where the paper goes in a second,

00:23:52.893 --> 00:23:54.109
and you have one thing
on your desk,

00:23:54.109 --> 00:23:57.401
because then it’s like,
“Haha! Now it’s Thunderdome!

00:23:57.401 --> 00:23:59.729
"Me and the ONE piece
of paper.”

00:23:59.729 --> 00:24:02.868
And so I usually win that one.

00:24:02.868 --> 00:24:04.679
One of the mantras
of time management is

00:24:04.679 --> 00:24:06.782
"Touch each piece
of paper once."

00:24:06.782 --> 00:24:09.761
You get the piece of paper,
you look at it, you work at it,

00:24:09.761 --> 00:24:13.124
and I think that’s extremely true
for email.

00:24:13.124 --> 00:24:15.658
How many people here—
well, I’m going to take it for granted

00:24:15.658 --> 00:24:17.844
that everybody here
has an email inbox.

00:24:17.844 --> 00:24:18.936
How many people right now

00:24:18.936 --> 00:24:22.920
have more than 20 items
in their email inbox?

00:24:22.920 --> 00:24:26.790
Ohh! I’m in the right room.

00:24:26.790 --> 00:24:30.014
Your inbox is not your to-do list.

00:24:30.014 --> 00:24:34.893
And my wife has learned that I need
to get my inbox clear.

00:24:34.893 --> 00:24:38.688
Now sometimes, this really means
just filing things away,

00:24:38.688 --> 00:24:41.053
and putting something
on my to-do list.

00:24:41.053 --> 00:24:43.428
But remember,
the to-do list is sorted by importance.

00:24:43.428 --> 00:24:46.538
But my—does anybody here
have an email program

00:24:46.538 --> 00:24:49.458
where you can press the
“Sort by Importance” button?

00:24:51.328 --> 00:24:54.254
It’s amazing how people
who build software,

00:24:54.254 --> 00:24:57.299
that really is a huge part
of our life and getting work done,

00:24:57.299 --> 00:24:59.421
haven’t a clue.

00:24:59.421 --> 00:25:01.612
And that’s not a slam
on any particular company.

00:25:01.612 --> 00:25:03.636
I think they all
have missed the boat.

00:25:03.636 --> 00:25:06.223
And I just find it fascinating...

00:25:06.223 --> 00:25:07.765
because everyone I know,
or most I know,

00:25:07.765 --> 00:25:09.237
have this inbox that's—

00:25:09.237 --> 00:25:11.916
all right, I gotta ask, how many people
have more than 100 things

00:25:11.916 --> 00:25:13.364
in their email inbox?

00:25:13.364 --> 00:25:16.223
Oh, I’m just not going to keep going,
this is too depressing.

00:25:16.223 --> 00:25:18.304
[audience laughs]

00:25:18.304 --> 00:25:21.713
So, you really want to get the thing
in your inbox,

00:25:21.713 --> 00:25:22.886
look at it, and say,

00:25:22.886 --> 00:25:24.102
“I’m either reading it now,

00:25:24.102 --> 00:25:26.818
“or I’m going to file it and put an entry
in my to-do list.”

00:25:26.818 --> 00:25:29.118
And that’s just a crucial thing,
because otherwise,

00:25:29.118 --> 00:25:30.673
every time you go
to read your email,

00:25:30.673 --> 00:25:34.064
you’re just swamped,
and it’s as bad as the cluttered paper.

00:25:36.044 --> 00:25:37.504
You’re all trying
to figure out how

00:25:37.504 --> 00:25:41.209
that heading goes
with that picture.

00:25:41.209 --> 00:25:44.639
A filing system
is absolutely essential.

00:25:44.639 --> 00:25:46.203
And I know this
because I married

00:25:46.203 --> 00:25:48.075
the most wonderful woman
in the world,

00:25:48.075 --> 00:25:50.689
but she’s not a good filer.

00:25:50.689 --> 00:25:52.413
But she is now,

00:25:52.413 --> 00:25:55.657
because...after we got married,

00:25:55.657 --> 00:25:57.151
and we moved in together,

00:25:57.151 --> 00:25:59.492
and we resolved all the other
typical couple things, I said,

00:25:59.492 --> 00:26:03.142
“We have to have a place
where our papers go,

00:26:03.142 --> 00:26:05.399
“and it’s in alphabetical order.”

00:26:05.399 --> 00:26:07.838
And she said,
“Well, that sounds a little compulsive…”

00:26:07.838 --> 00:26:10.485
[audience laughs]

00:26:10.485 --> 00:26:13.613
And I said,
“Okay, honey….”

00:26:13.613 --> 00:26:16.227
So I went out to IKEA,
and I got this big, nice,

00:26:16.227 --> 00:26:19.860
way-too-expensive, big, wooden,
fake-mahogany thing,

00:26:19.860 --> 00:26:20.967
with big drawers,

00:26:20.967 --> 00:26:23.366
so she liked it,
because it looked kind of nice.

00:26:23.366 --> 00:26:25.632
And having A Place
in our house

00:26:25.632 --> 00:26:28.716
where any piece of paper went,
and was in alphabetical order,

00:26:28.716 --> 00:26:31.289
did wonderful things
for our marriage,

00:26:31.289 --> 00:26:32.499
because there was never any,

00:26:32.499 --> 00:26:35.086
“Honey,
where did you put blah-blah-blah?”

00:26:35.086 --> 00:26:36.670
And there was never being mad
at somebody

00:26:36.670 --> 00:26:38.554
because they put something
in some unexpected place.

00:26:38.554 --> 00:26:40.610
There was an expected place
for it.

00:26:40.610 --> 00:26:42.516
And when you’re looking
for important receipts,

00:26:42.516 --> 00:26:44.622
or whatever it is,
this is actually important.

00:26:44.622 --> 00:26:48.946
And, we have found that this
has been a wonderful thing for us.

00:26:48.946 --> 00:26:51.153
I think file systems among groups
of people,

00:26:51.153 --> 00:26:52.823
whether it’s a marriage
or an office, are crucial,

00:26:52.823 --> 00:26:54.088
But even if it’s just you,

00:26:54.088 --> 00:26:56.650
having a place where you know
you put something,

00:26:56.650 --> 00:26:59.572
really beats all hell out of running
around for an hour, going,

00:26:59.572 --> 00:27:02.549
“Where is it?
I know it’s blue.

00:27:03.429 --> 00:27:04.837
“And I was eating
when I read it.”

00:27:04.837 --> 00:27:08.049
I mean,
this is not a filing system.

00:27:08.049 --> 00:27:10.690
This is madness.

00:27:10.690 --> 00:27:11.882
A lot of people ask me,

00:27:11.882 --> 00:27:14.081
“So Randy, what does
your desk look like?”

00:27:14.081 --> 00:27:15.558
So, as my wife would say,

00:27:15.558 --> 00:27:16.987
this is what Randy’s desk
looks like

00:27:16.987 --> 00:27:19.015
when he’s photographing it
for a talk.

00:27:19.015 --> 00:27:22.679
[audience laughs]

00:27:22.679 --> 00:27:24.548
The important thing
is that I’m a computer geek,

00:27:24.548 --> 00:27:26.526
so I have the desk
off to the right,

00:27:26.526 --> 00:27:29.075
and then I have the computer station
off to the left.

00:27:29.075 --> 00:27:30.654
I like to have my desk
in front of a window

00:27:30.654 --> 00:27:32.830
whenever I can do that.

00:27:32.830 --> 00:27:34.245
This is an old photograph.

00:27:34.245 --> 00:27:36.059
These have now been replaced
by LCD monitors,

00:27:36.059 --> 00:27:38.176
but I left the old picture
because the crucial thing is

00:27:38.176 --> 00:27:40.212
it doesn’t matter
if they’re fancy high-tech,

00:27:40.212 --> 00:27:42.295
the key thing is screen space.

00:27:42.295 --> 00:27:43.471
Lots of people
have studied this.

00:27:43.471 --> 00:27:44.985
How many people
in this room

00:27:44.985 --> 00:27:48.566
have more than one monitor
on their computer desktop?

00:27:48.566 --> 00:27:49.509
Okay, not bad.

00:27:49.509 --> 00:27:52.043
So we’re getting there,
it’s startin' to happen.

00:27:52.043 --> 00:27:54.187
What I’ve found
is that I could go back

00:27:54.187 --> 00:27:58.293
from three to two,
but I just can’t go back to one.

00:27:58.293 --> 00:28:00.442
There’s just too many things,
and as somebody said,

00:28:00.442 --> 00:28:03.424
it’s the difference between working
on a desk, like at home,

00:28:03.424 --> 00:28:06.535
and trying to get work done
on the little tray on an airplane.

00:28:06.535 --> 00:28:08.243
In principle,
the little tray on the airplane

00:28:08.243 --> 00:28:10.608
is big enough
for everything you need to do.

00:28:10.608 --> 00:28:14.424
It’s just that in practice,
it’s pretty small.

00:28:14.424 --> 00:28:16.867
So, multiple monitors,
I think, are very important.

00:28:16.867 --> 00:28:20.308
And I’ll show you in a second what is
on each of those.

00:28:20.308 --> 00:28:23.440
And I believe in multiple monitors,
we’ve believed in it for a long time.

00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:26.560
That’s my research group,

00:28:26.560 --> 00:28:29.313
our laboratory a long time ago,
at Carnegie Mellon.

00:28:29.313 --> 00:28:31.750
That’s Caitlin Kelleher,
who's now Doctor Kelleher, thank you,

00:28:31.750 --> 00:28:34.114
and she’s at Washington University
in St. Louis,

00:28:34.114 --> 00:28:36.764
doing wonderful things.

00:28:36.764 --> 00:28:38.619
But we had everybody
with three monitors,

00:28:38.619 --> 00:28:40.859
and the cost
on this is absolutely trivial.

00:28:40.859 --> 00:28:44.246
If you figure the cost
of adding a second monitor

00:28:44.246 --> 00:28:46.947
to an employee’s yearly cost
to the company,

00:28:46.947 --> 00:28:49.655
it’s not even 1% anymore.

00:28:49.655 --> 00:28:50.881
So why would you not do it?

00:28:50.881 --> 00:28:52.686
So one of my “walk-aways”
for all of you

00:28:52.686 --> 00:28:54.571
is you should all go to your boss
and say,

00:28:54.571 --> 00:28:56.982
“I need a second monitor,
I just can’t work without it.

00:28:56.982 --> 00:28:58.628
“Randy told me
to tell you that.”

00:28:58.628 --> 00:29:00.340
[audience laughs]

00:29:00.340 --> 00:29:01.874
Because it will increase
your productivity,

00:29:01.874 --> 00:29:04.863
and the computers can all
drive two monitors, so why not?

00:29:04.863 --> 00:29:07.009
So what do I have
on my three monitors?

00:29:07.009 --> 00:29:10.288
On the left is my to-do list,

00:29:10.288 --> 00:29:12.478
all sorts of stuff in there.

00:29:12.478 --> 00:29:14.437
And my system,
we’re all idiosyncratic,

00:29:14.437 --> 00:29:17.426
my system is that
I just put a number zero through nine,

00:29:17.426 --> 00:29:20.308
and I use an editor
that can quickly sort on that number

NOTE Paragraph

00:29:20.308 --> 00:29:21.236
in the first column.

00:29:21.236 --> 00:29:24.053
But the key thing is,
it’s sorted by priority.

00:29:24.053 --> 00:29:26.012
In the middle
is my mail program.

00:29:26.012 --> 00:29:30.086
Note the empty inbox.

00:29:30.086 --> 00:29:34.095
And, I try very hard,
I sleep better if I go to sleep

00:29:34.095 --> 00:29:35.997
with the inbox empty.

00:29:35.997 --> 00:29:39.505
When my inbox does creep up,
I get really testy.

00:29:39.505 --> 00:29:41.250
So, my wife will actually say
to me,

00:29:41.250 --> 00:29:43.218
“I think you need
to clear the inbox.”

00:29:43.218 --> 00:29:45.214
[audience laughs]

00:29:45.214 --> 00:29:47.140
On the third one is a calendar.

00:29:47.140 --> 00:29:49.327
This is from a number
of years ago,

00:29:49.327 --> 00:29:52.098
but that’s kind of like
what my days would be.

00:29:52.098 --> 00:29:54.006
I used to be very heavily booked.

00:29:54.006 --> 00:29:55.950
And, I don’t care which software
you use,

00:29:55.950 --> 00:29:57.355
I don’t care which calendar
you use,

00:29:57.355 --> 00:29:58.911
I don’t care if it’s paper
or computer,

00:29:58.911 --> 00:30:00.852
whatever works for you,

00:30:00.852 --> 00:30:04.027
but you should have some system
whereby you know

00:30:04.027 --> 00:30:08.363
where you’re supposed to be
next Tuesday at 2 o’clock.

00:30:08.363 --> 00:30:11.225
Because even if you can live your life
without that,

00:30:11.225 --> 00:30:14.505
you’re using up a lot of your brain
to remember all that.

00:30:14.505 --> 00:30:16.281
And I don’t know about you,
but I don’t have enough brain

00:30:16.281 --> 00:30:18.148
to spare to use it on things

00:30:18.148 --> 00:30:21.301
I can have paper or computers do
for me.

00:30:22.521 --> 00:30:25.853
So back to the overview.

00:30:25.853 --> 00:30:28.973
On the desk itself,
let’s zoom in a little bit.

00:30:28.973 --> 00:30:32.924
Look, I have the one thing
I am working on at the time.

00:30:32.924 --> 00:30:34.247
I have a speaker phone.

00:30:34.247 --> 00:30:34.973
This is crucial.

00:30:34.973 --> 00:30:37.595
How many people here
have a speaker phone on their desks?

00:30:37.595 --> 00:30:40.998
Okay, not bad,
but a lot more people don’t.

00:30:40.998 --> 00:30:43.780
Speaker phones are essentially free.

00:30:43.780 --> 00:30:46.327
And, I spend a lot of time
on hold,

00:30:46.327 --> 00:30:48.748
and that’s because I live
in American society

00:30:48.748 --> 00:30:50.572
where I get to listen to messages
of the form,

00:30:50.572 --> 00:30:53.970
“Your call is extremely important
to us.

00:30:53.970 --> 00:30:56.729
“Watch while my actions
are cognitively dissonant

00:30:56.729 --> 00:30:58.200
from my words.”

00:30:58.207 --> 00:31:03.273
[audience laughs]

00:31:03.273 --> 00:31:07.314
It’s like the worst abusive relationship
in the world.

00:31:07.314 --> 00:31:09.857
[audience laughs]

00:31:09.857 --> 00:31:11.560
I mean, imagine a guy picks you up
on the first date

00:31:11.560 --> 00:31:12.605
and he smacks you on the mouth
and says,

00:31:12.605 --> 00:31:13.826
“I love ya, honey.”

00:31:13.826 --> 00:31:16.592
That’s pretty much
how modern customer service works

00:31:16.592 --> 00:31:18.599
on the telephone.

00:31:18.599 --> 00:31:19.976
But the great thing
about a speaker phone is

00:31:19.976 --> 00:31:21.912
you hit the speaker phone
and you dial,

00:31:21.912 --> 00:31:23.716
and then
you just do something else,

00:31:23.716 --> 00:31:25.935
and if it takes seven minutes,
it takes seven minutes.

00:31:25.935 --> 00:31:27.966
And hey, I just look at this
as somebody’s piping music

00:31:27.966 --> 00:31:29.179
into my office.

00:31:29.179 --> 00:31:30.466
That’s very nice of them.

00:31:30.466 --> 00:31:31.409
[audience laughs]

00:31:31.409 --> 00:31:34.710
I also found that having a timer
on the phone is handy

00:31:34.710 --> 00:31:37.349
so that when somebody
finally picks up in Bangalore,

00:31:37.349 --> 00:31:41.157
I can say things like,

00:31:41.157 --> 00:31:43.000
“I’m so glad to be talking with you.

00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:44.732
“By the way, if you’re keeping records
on this sort of thing,

00:31:44.732 --> 00:31:46.839
“I’ve been on hold for seven
and a half minutes.”

00:31:46.839 --> 00:31:48.052
But you don’t say it angry,
you just say it as,

00:31:48.052 --> 00:31:50.296
”I presume you’re logging this kind
of stuff.”

00:31:50.296 --> 00:31:52.228
And you’re not angry,
so they don’t get angry back at you,

00:31:52.228 --> 00:31:54.601
but they feel really guilty.

00:31:54.601 --> 00:31:56.763
And that’s good,
you want guilty, all right.

00:31:56.763 --> 00:31:57.471
[audience laughs]

00:31:57.471 --> 00:31:58.631
So a speaker phone is really great.

00:31:58.631 --> 00:31:59.858
I find that a speaker phone

00:31:59.858 --> 00:32:02.767
is probably the best material possession

00:32:02.767 --> 00:32:05.572
you can buy to counter stress.

00:32:05.572 --> 00:32:08.171
If I were, like,
teaching a yoga meditation class,

00:32:08.171 --> 00:32:09.540
I’d say,
we’ll do all the yoga and meditation,

00:32:09.540 --> 00:32:10.831
I think it’s wonderful stuff,

00:32:10.831 --> 00:32:13.456
but everybody
also has to have a speaker phone.

00:32:13.456 --> 00:32:15.565
[audience laughs]

00:32:15.565 --> 00:32:16.824
What else do we have
besides a speaker phone?

00:32:16.824 --> 00:32:19.162
Let’s talk about telephones
for a second.

00:32:19.162 --> 00:32:21.707
I think that the telephone
is a great time-waster,

00:32:21.707 --> 00:32:24.317
and I think it’s very important
to keep your business calls short.

00:32:24.317 --> 00:32:26.975
So I recommend standing
during phone calls.

00:32:26.975 --> 00:32:29.059
Great for exercise,
and if you tell yourself,

00:32:29.059 --> 00:32:30.820
“I’m not going to sit down
until the call is over,”

00:32:30.820 --> 00:32:34.979
you’ll be amazed
how much brisker you are.

00:32:34.979 --> 00:32:37.200
Start by announcing goals
for the call.

00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:39.003
“Hello, Sue?
This is Randy.

00:32:39.003 --> 00:32:40.126
“I’m calling you
because I have three things

00:32:40.126 --> 00:32:41.369
“that I wanted to get done.”

00:32:41.369 --> 00:32:42.249
Boom, boom, boom.

00:32:42.249 --> 00:32:44.032
Because then
you’ve given her an agenda,

00:32:44.032 --> 00:32:45.310
and when you’re done
with the three things,

00:32:45.310 --> 00:32:45.964
you can say,
“That’s great.

00:32:45.964 --> 00:32:48.334
“Those are the three things I had,
it was great to talk to you,

00:32:48.334 --> 00:32:49.204
“love to talk to you again,
bye.”

00:32:49.204 --> 00:32:51.261
Boom, we’re off the phone.

00:32:51.261 --> 00:32:54.951
Whatever you do,
do not put your feet up.

00:32:54.951 --> 00:32:57.456
I mean, if you put the feet up,
it’s just all over.

00:32:57.456 --> 00:33:00.266
And the other handy trick is
have something on your desk

00:33:00.266 --> 00:33:03.730
that you actually are kind of interested
in going to do next.

00:33:03.730 --> 00:33:05.579
So that the phone call
instead of being,

00:33:05.579 --> 00:33:08.510
“Wow, I can get off the phone
and go do some work, grr,

00:33:08.510 --> 00:33:10.160
“or I could keep chit-chatting.”

00:33:10.160 --> 00:33:11.394
And usually the person
you’ve called,

00:33:11.394 --> 00:33:13.594
they’d like to chit-chat, too.

00:33:13.594 --> 00:33:15.917
So this is where the time-waster
in the office goes.

00:33:15.917 --> 00:33:19.258
And if you’re a grad student…

00:33:19.258 --> 00:33:19.981
well, if you’re a grad student,

00:33:19.981 --> 00:33:23.663
you already know
about time wasting.

00:33:23.663 --> 00:33:25.748
So having something
you really want to do next

00:33:25.748 --> 00:33:27.669
is a great way to get you
off the phone quicker.

00:33:27.669 --> 00:33:30.571
So you gotta train yourself.

00:33:30.571 --> 00:33:32.853
Getting off the phone is hard
for a lot of people.

00:33:32.853 --> 00:33:36.220
I don’t suffer
from an abundance of politeness,

00:33:36.220 --> 00:33:39.303
so—my sister,
whose known me for a long time,

00:33:39.303 --> 00:33:42.043
is laughing a knowing laugh.

00:33:42.043 --> 00:33:45.591
So, when I want to get off the phone,
I want to get off the phone.

00:33:45.591 --> 00:33:46.600
I’m done.

00:33:46.600 --> 00:33:49.279
And what I say is,
you know,

00:33:49.279 --> 00:33:51.988
“I’d love to keep talking with you,
but I have some students waiting.”

00:33:51.988 --> 00:33:53.159
Now I’m a professor.

00:33:53.159 --> 00:33:55.901
Somewhere
there must be students waiting.

00:33:55.901 --> 00:33:59.046
[audience laughs]

00:33:59.046 --> 00:34:02.445
Right, I mean, it’s just,
it’s gotta be.

00:34:02.445 --> 00:34:04.085
Now sometimes you get
in a situation like

00:34:04.085 --> 00:34:06.347
with a telemarketer,
all right.

00:34:06.347 --> 00:34:10.041
And, that’s awkward
because a lot of people are so polite.

00:34:10.041 --> 00:34:11.259
I have no trouble
with telemarketers.

00:34:11.259 --> 00:34:13.393
I’ll just go there with them.

00:34:13.393 --> 00:34:14.814
All right, if you’re a telemarketer
and you call my house,

00:34:14.814 --> 00:34:16.699
you have made a mistake.

00:34:16.699 --> 00:34:17.777
[audience laughs]

00:34:17.777 --> 00:34:18.332
All right.

00:34:18.332 --> 00:34:19.228
“Yeah, I can’t talk right now,

00:34:19.228 --> 00:34:20.685
but why don’t you give me
your home phone number,

00:34:20.685 --> 00:34:23.437
and I’ll call you back
around dinnertime.”

00:34:23.437 --> 00:34:24.743
Seinfeld did a great bit on that.

00:34:24.743 --> 00:34:27.233
Or, if you want to be a little bit more
over the line,

00:34:27.233 --> 00:34:28.517
“I’d love to talk with you about that,

00:34:28.517 --> 00:34:32.415
“but first, I have some things I’d like
to sell you!”

00:34:32.415 --> 00:34:33.048
And the funny part is,

00:34:33.048 --> 00:34:36.579
they never realize you’re yanking
with them.

00:34:36.579 --> 00:34:38.531
But if you have to hang up
on a telemarketer,

00:34:38.531 --> 00:34:41.817
what you do is,
you hang up while you’re talking.

00:34:41.817 --> 00:34:43.471
“Well, I think
that’s really interesting,

00:34:43.471 --> 00:34:44.474
and I would love to keep—.”

00:34:44.474 --> 00:34:48.754
You know.

00:34:48.754 --> 00:34:51.782
I mean, talk about self-effacing!

00:34:51.782 --> 00:34:53.988
Hanging up on yourself!

00:34:53.988 --> 00:34:56.032
And they won’t figure it out,
and if they do, and they call back,

00:34:56.032 --> 00:34:57.372
just don’t answer, all right.

00:34:57.372 --> 00:35:01.118
So, ten years from now,
all anybody will remember

00:35:01.118 --> 00:35:04.619
from this talk is hang up
on yourself.

00:35:04.619 --> 00:35:05.918
The other thing is,
group your phone calls.

00:35:05.918 --> 00:35:08.598
Call people right before lunch
or right before the end of the day,

00:35:08.598 --> 00:35:11.981
because then they have something
they would rather do

00:35:11.981 --> 00:35:14.268
than keep chitty-chatting
with you.

00:35:14.268 --> 00:35:16.782
So I find that calling somebody
at 11:50 is a great way

00:35:16.782 --> 00:35:18.812
to have a ten minute phone call.

00:35:18.812 --> 00:35:20.788
Because frankly,
you may think you’re interesting,

00:35:20.788 --> 00:35:23.233
but you are not more interesting
than lunch.

00:35:23.233 --> 00:35:25.285
[audience laughs]

00:35:25.285 --> 00:35:27.427
I have become very obsessive
about phones

00:35:27.427 --> 00:35:28.903
and using time productively,

00:35:28.903 --> 00:35:32.408
so I just think that everybody
should have something like this.

00:35:32.408 --> 00:35:34.687
I don’t care about fashions,
so, you know.

00:35:34.687 --> 00:35:35.917
I don’t have Bluetooth.

00:35:35.917 --> 00:35:37.520
And, you know,
I have this big, ugly thing—

00:35:37.520 --> 00:35:41.332
“Hi, I’m Julie from Time Life,” right?

00:35:41.332 --> 00:35:44.504
But the thing this allows me
to do, because you know,

00:35:44.504 --> 00:35:46.512
I am sort of living the limit case
right now of,

00:35:46.512 --> 00:35:49.709
I’ve gotta get stuff done,
and I REALLY don’t have a lot of time.

00:35:49.709 --> 00:35:52.913
So, I get an hour a day
where I exercise on my bike.

00:35:52.913 --> 00:35:54.556
And this is me on my bike,
and if you look carefully,

00:35:54.556 --> 00:35:56.822
you can see I’m wearing that headset,
and I’ve got my cell phone.

00:35:56.822 --> 00:35:59.176
And for an hour a day,
I ride my bike around the neighborhood.

00:35:59.176 --> 00:36:01.579
This is time that I’m spending
on the phone,

00:36:01.579 --> 00:36:04.408
getting work done,
and it’s not a moment being taken away

00:36:04.408 --> 00:36:06.479
from my wife or children.

00:36:06.479 --> 00:36:09.943
And it turns out that I can talk
and ride a bike at the same time.

00:36:09.943 --> 00:36:11.615
[audience laughs]

00:36:11.615 --> 00:36:14.082
Amazing the skill sets I have.

00:36:14.082 --> 00:36:17.317
So, it works better
in cold weather climate--

00:36:17.317 --> 00:36:18.863
in warm weather climates.

00:36:18.863 --> 00:36:22.057
But, I have just found
that having a headset frees me up,

00:36:22.057 --> 00:36:23.638
even if it's just
around the house you wear a headset,

00:36:23.638 --> 00:36:26.308
you can fold laundry,
it’s an absolute twofer.

00:36:26.308 --> 00:36:29.743
And, I just think telephones
should have headsets,

00:36:29.743 --> 00:36:31.881
and someday
we will all have the Borg implant,

00:36:31.881 --> 00:36:34.722
and it will be a non-issue.

00:36:34.722 --> 00:36:35.606
What else is on my desk?

00:36:35.606 --> 00:36:37.151
I have a sort of one
of those address stampers,

00:36:37.151 --> 00:36:39.523
because I got tired
of writing my address.

00:36:39.523 --> 00:36:41.085
I have a box of Kleenex.

00:36:41.085 --> 00:36:43.164
In your office at work,
if you’re a faculty member,

00:36:43.164 --> 00:36:47.007
you have to have a box
of Kleenex.

00:36:47.007 --> 00:36:51.021
Because if—
Jim is laughing.

00:36:51.021 --> 00:36:53.268
At least if you teach the way I do—

00:36:53.268 --> 00:36:55.679
[audience laughs]

00:36:55.679 --> 00:36:58.931
there will be crying students
in your office.

00:36:58.931 --> 00:37:00.659
And what I found
to diffuse a lot of that

00:37:00.659 --> 00:37:03.438
is that I would have CS352,
or whatever,

00:37:03.438 --> 00:37:05.779
written on the side
of the Kleenex box.

00:37:05.779 --> 00:37:08.662
And I would turn it as I handed it
to them.

00:37:08.662 --> 00:37:10.558
And they would take the Kleenex,
and they would be like, “Oh.”

00:37:10.558 --> 00:37:13.947
I said, “Yeah, you’re—
it’s for the class.

00:37:13.947 --> 00:37:15.806
“You’re not alone.”

00:37:15.806 --> 00:37:17.955
So having Kleenex
is very important.

00:37:22.135 --> 00:37:24.819
And “thank you” cards.

00:37:24.819 --> 00:37:26.630
I’ll now ask the embarrassment question,

00:37:26.630 --> 00:37:29.922
and I don’t mean to pick on you,
but it just points things out so well.

00:37:29.922 --> 00:37:33.231
By show of hands,
who here has written a “thank you” note

00:37:33.231 --> 00:37:34.687
that is not a quid pro quo.

00:37:34.687 --> 00:37:35.356
I don’t mean,

00:37:35.356 --> 00:37:38.554
“Oh, you gave me a gift,
I wrote you a ‘thank you’ note.”

00:37:38.554 --> 00:37:39.815
And I mean
a physical “thank you” note,

00:37:39.815 --> 00:37:41.827
with a pen and ink and paper.

00:37:41.827 --> 00:37:43.989
Not email,
because email is better than nothing

00:37:43.989 --> 00:37:45.980
[in high-pitched voice]
but it’s that much better than nothing.

00:37:45.980 --> 00:37:47.093
Okay.

00:37:47.093 --> 00:37:48.881
How many people here
have written a “thank you” note

00:37:48.881 --> 00:37:51.621
in the last week?

00:37:51.621 --> 00:37:54.833
Not bad, I do better here than
at most places, because it is UVA.

00:37:54.833 --> 00:37:55.521
[audience laughs]

00:37:55.521 --> 00:37:56.701
Chivalry is not dead,
but that’s not the—

00:37:56.701 --> 00:37:58.560
how many people
in the last month?

00:37:58.560 --> 00:38:01.232
How many people
in the last year?

00:38:01.232 --> 00:38:04.586
The fact that there
are a non-trivial number of hands not up

00:38:04.586 --> 00:38:07.456
for the year means
that anybody who is in this audience,

00:38:07.456 --> 00:38:11.297
his parents are going,
“Ooo, that way my kid.”

00:38:11.297 --> 00:38:14.370
“Thank you” notes
are really important.

00:38:14.370 --> 00:38:17.139
They’re a very tangible way

00:38:17.139 --> 00:38:19.317
to tell someone how much
you appreciated things.

00:38:19.317 --> 00:38:20.199
I have “thank you” notes with me,

00:38:20.199 --> 00:38:22.476
and that’s because I’m actually writing
some later today

00:38:22.476 --> 00:38:24.841
to some people who’ve done
some nice things for me recently.

00:38:24.841 --> 00:38:25.984
And you say,
“Well, god, you have time for that?”

00:38:25.984 --> 00:38:26.254
And I’m like,

00:38:26.254 --> 00:38:28.050
“Yes, I’ve have time for that,
because it’s important.”

00:38:28.050 --> 00:38:29.682
Even in my current status,

00:38:29.682 --> 00:38:31.959
I will make time
to write “thank you” notes to people.

00:38:31.959 --> 00:38:35.955
And even if
you’re a crafty, weasely bastard,

00:38:35.955 --> 00:38:38.863
you should still
write “thank you” notes,

00:38:38.863 --> 00:38:42.027
because it makes you so rare,

00:38:42.027 --> 00:38:43.972
that when someone
gets a “thank you” note,

00:38:43.972 --> 00:38:45.813
they will remember you,
all right.

00:38:45.813 --> 00:38:47.341
It seems like the only place
that “thank you” notes

00:38:47.341 --> 00:38:48.819
are really taken seriously anymore

00:38:48.819 --> 00:38:51.164
is when people are interviewing
for jobs.

00:38:51.164 --> 00:38:52.463
They now sometimes
write “thank you” notes

00:38:52.463 --> 00:38:54.597
to the recruiters,

00:38:54.597 --> 00:38:56.340
which I guess shows a sign
of desperation

00:38:56.340 --> 00:38:58.499
on the part
of the recent graduate.

00:38:58.499 --> 00:38:59.935
But “thank you” notes
are a wonderful thing,

00:38:59.935 --> 00:39:02.124
and I would encourage
of all you to go out and buy a stack

00:39:02.124 --> 00:39:03.442
at your local dime store,

00:39:03.442 --> 00:39:06.266
and have them on your desk,
so that when the moment seizes you,

00:39:06.266 --> 00:39:07.069
it’s right there.

00:39:07.069 --> 00:39:09.271
And I leave my “thank you” notes
out on the desk,

00:39:09.271 --> 00:39:10.949
readily accessible.

00:39:12.699 --> 00:39:13.748
And as I’ve said before,

00:39:13.748 --> 00:39:15.604
gratitude is something
that can go beyond cards.

00:39:15.604 --> 00:39:17.188
When I got tenure here,

00:39:17.188 --> 00:39:19.401
I took my whole research team
down to Disney World

00:39:19.401 --> 00:39:20.794
on my nickel for a week.

00:39:20.794 --> 00:39:22.676
And I believe in large gestures,

00:39:22.676 --> 00:39:23.937
but, you know,
it was also a lot of fun.

00:39:23.937 --> 00:39:26.236
I wanted to go, too, right.

00:39:26.236 --> 00:39:30.366
I didn’t send them
without proper chaperoning, after all.

00:39:30.366 --> 00:39:30.758
What else?

00:39:30.758 --> 00:39:35.032
I have a paper recycling bin,
and this is very good,

00:39:35.032 --> 00:39:38.388
because it helps save the planet,
but it also helps save my butt.

00:39:38.388 --> 00:39:39.757
So, when I have a piece
of paper

00:39:39.757 --> 00:39:41.790
that I would be throwing away,
I put it in that bin,

00:39:41.790 --> 00:39:44.471
and that takes, I don’t know,
a couple of weeks

00:39:44.471 --> 00:39:48.786
to get filled up
and then actually sent somewhere else.

00:39:48.786 --> 00:39:49.790
And so what
I’ve really done here,

00:39:49.790 --> 00:39:52.923
is I’ve created sort of
the Windows/Macintosh trash can

00:39:52.923 --> 00:39:54.979
you can pull stuff back out of.

00:39:54.979 --> 00:39:57.688
It works
in the real world, too.

00:39:57.688 --> 00:39:59.705
And about once a month,
I go ferreting through there

00:39:59.705 --> 00:40:02.295
to find the receipt that I didn’t think
I’d ever need again

00:40:02.295 --> 00:40:03.543
that I suddenly need.

00:40:03.543 --> 00:40:04.898
And it’s extremely handy.

00:40:04.898 --> 00:40:07.347
I suspect that if I were giving this talk
in ten years,

00:40:07.347 --> 00:40:10.167
I would say I just put it
in the auto-scanner,

00:40:10.167 --> 00:40:12.038
right, because I find it
almost inconceivable

00:40:12.038 --> 00:40:13.051
that ten years from now—
first of all,

00:40:13.051 --> 00:40:15.415
that a lot of this stuff would be paper
in my hands anyway.

00:40:15.415 --> 00:40:16.148
But if it were paper,

00:40:16.148 --> 00:40:18.626
that I would have any notion
of doing anything other than

00:40:18.626 --> 00:40:21.010
putting it on the desk where it goes, “zzzt,”
and it’s already scanned,

00:40:21.010 --> 00:40:24.180
because it touched the desk,
all right.

00:40:24.180 --> 00:40:26.882
You know, this kind
of stuff is not really hard to do.

00:40:26.882 --> 00:40:27.953
So I think that’s
what’s going to happen.

00:40:27.953 --> 00:40:32.269
And of course,
I have a phone book.

00:40:32.269 --> 00:40:34.724
Notepad--I can’t live
without Post-It notes,

00:40:34.724 --> 00:40:37.069
all right, I mean....

00:40:37.069 --> 00:40:40.301
And, the view out the window
of the dog.

00:40:40.301 --> 00:40:44.846
Because the dog reminds me
that I should be out playing with him.

00:40:44.846 --> 00:40:46.462
We have a—
when I got married,

00:40:46.462 --> 00:40:48.187
I married into a family.

00:40:48.187 --> 00:40:49.994
I got a wife
and two beautiful dogs.

00:40:49.994 --> 00:40:51.437
There’s the other one.

00:40:51.437 --> 00:40:52.246
[audience laughs]

00:40:52.246 --> 00:40:54.215
Could you help me
with a debate I’ve had with my wife?

00:40:54.215 --> 00:40:54.971
By show of hands,

00:40:54.971 --> 00:40:56.533
how many people
would semantically say,

00:40:56.533 --> 00:40:58.417
"The dog is on the couch"?

00:40:58.417 --> 00:41:00.210
[audience laughs]

00:41:00.210 --> 00:41:03.744
Nobody!
Thank you! Thank you!

00:41:03.744 --> 00:41:07.253
Because the dog was not allowed
on the couch.

00:41:07.253 --> 00:41:09.533
And my wife came in one day...

00:41:11.173 --> 00:41:12.683
and--

00:41:12.683 --> 00:41:14.326
anyway, thank you for agreeing
with me.

00:41:14.326 --> 00:41:17.687
It makes me feel very good.

00:41:17.687 --> 00:41:19.098
So the dog is wonderful.

00:41:19.098 --> 00:41:20.337
The dogs have long gone on,

00:41:20.337 --> 00:41:21.984
but they are still in our hearts
and our memories,

00:41:21.984 --> 00:41:27.538
and I think of them every day,
and they’re still a part of my life.

00:41:27.538 --> 00:41:29.748
I’ve presented to you
how I do my office,

00:41:29.748 --> 00:41:30.662
how I do things.

00:41:30.662 --> 00:41:32.045
It’s not the only way.

00:41:32.045 --> 00:41:33.720
One of the best assistants
I’ve ever met

00:41:33.720 --> 00:41:35.281
was a woman named Tina Cobb.

00:41:35.281 --> 00:41:36.658
And she has a really
different system.

00:41:36.658 --> 00:41:38.535
She’s a spreader.

00:41:38.535 --> 00:41:39.193
All right.

00:41:39.193 --> 00:41:41.013
If you think about it,
there’s a method to her madness.

00:41:41.013 --> 00:41:44.085
Everything here
is exactly one arm’s radius

00:41:44.085 --> 00:41:45.762
from where she sits.

00:41:45.762 --> 00:41:48.759
You know,
it’s like a two-armed octopus.

00:41:48.759 --> 00:41:50.070
And she got so much stuff done.

00:41:50.070 --> 00:41:52.314
And I never presume
to tell somebody else

00:41:52.314 --> 00:41:54.924
how to change their system
if their system is workin’.

00:41:54.924 --> 00:41:57.780
Tina was much more efficient
than I was, so, you know,

00:41:57.780 --> 00:41:59.603
I would just say,
“Look, do what works for you.”

00:41:59.603 --> 00:42:01.581
And everybody has
to find the system for themselves.

00:42:01.581 --> 00:42:04.878
But you really gotta think
about what makes me more efficient.

00:42:04.878 --> 00:42:06.297
Now let’s talk about office logistics.

00:42:06.297 --> 00:42:08.793
In most office settings,
people come into each other’s offices,

00:42:08.793 --> 00:42:11.128
and proceed to suck the life
out of each other.

00:42:11.128 --> 00:42:12.798
[audience laughs]

00:42:12.798 --> 00:42:15.106
If you have a big, cushy chair
in your office,

00:42:15.106 --> 00:42:17.894
you might as well
just slather butter all over yourself

00:42:17.894 --> 00:42:19.528
and send yourself naked
into the woods

00:42:19.528 --> 00:42:21.291
for the wild animals
to attack you.

00:42:21.291 --> 00:42:23.449
[audience laughs]

00:42:23.449 --> 00:42:25.777
I say make your office comfortable
for you,

00:42:25.777 --> 00:42:28.155
and optionally comfortable
for others.

00:42:28.155 --> 00:42:29.273
So no comfy chairs.

00:42:29.273 --> 00:42:32.087
I used to have folding chairs
in my office,

00:42:32.087 --> 00:42:33.176
folded up against the wall,


00:42:33.176 --> 00:42:35.098
so people who want to come in to me
and talk with me,

00:42:35.098 --> 00:42:36.380
they can stand.

00:42:36.380 --> 00:42:37.334
And I would stand up,

00:42:37.334 --> 00:42:38.905
because then the meeting’s
going to be really fast,

00:42:38.905 --> 00:42:40.936
because we want to sit down.

00:42:40.936 --> 00:42:42.163
But then if it looks
it’s something

00:42:42.163 --> 00:42:43.195
that we should have
a little bit more time on,

00:42:43.195 --> 00:42:45.885
I very graciously go over
and open the folding chair.

00:42:45.885 --> 00:42:48.491
I’m such a gentleman.

00:42:48.491 --> 00:42:49.935
Some people do a different tactic
on this.

00:42:49.935 --> 00:42:50.870
They have the chair
already there,

00:42:50.870 --> 00:42:52.842
but they cut two inches
off the front leg,

00:42:52.842 --> 00:42:54.006
so the whole time you’re
in their office,

00:42:54.006 --> 00:42:55.698
you’re sort of
scooting yourself up.

00:42:55.698 --> 00:42:58.463
[audience laughs]

00:42:58.463 --> 00:42:59.922
I’m not advocating that,

00:42:59.922 --> 00:43:02.599
but I thought it was damn clever
the first time I saw it.

00:43:02.599 --> 00:43:06.627
[audience laughs]

00:43:06.627 --> 00:43:08.378
Scheduling yourself.

00:43:08.378 --> 00:43:09.264
Verbs are important.

00:43:09.264 --> 00:43:12.332
You do not find time
for important things,

00:43:12.332 --> 00:43:13.359
you make it.

00:43:13.359 --> 00:43:17.639
And you make time by electing not
to do something else.

00:43:17.639 --> 00:43:19.241
There’s a term from economics

00:43:19.241 --> 00:43:22.029
that everybody should hold near and dear
to their heart,

00:43:22.029 --> 00:43:25.148
and that term is
“opportunity cost.”

00:43:25.148 --> 00:43:27.635
The bad thing
about doing something

00:43:27.635 --> 00:43:28.756
that isn’t very valuable,

00:43:28.756 --> 00:43:30.738
is not that it’s a bad thing
to have done it.

00:43:30.738 --> 00:43:32.835
The problem is
that once you spend an hour doing it,

00:43:32.835 --> 00:43:36.520
that’s an hour you can never again spend
in any other way.

00:43:36.520 --> 00:43:38.315
And that’s important.

00:43:38.315 --> 00:43:40.688
Now how do you
keep these unimportant things

00:43:40.688 --> 00:43:42.062
from sucking into your life?

00:43:42.062 --> 00:43:44.532
You learn to say no.

00:43:44.532 --> 00:43:46.362
It’s great,
my youngest child Chloe

00:43:46.362 --> 00:43:47.940
is at an age where this
is her new word.

00:43:47.940 --> 00:43:49.660
About two weeks ago
she learned it.

00:43:49.660 --> 00:43:51.120
And it’s like now, everything is,
“No!”

00:43:51.120 --> 00:43:52.887
“No! No! No-no-no-no-no! No!”

00:43:52.887 --> 00:43:54.664
She should be giving this talk.

00:43:54.664 --> 00:43:55.762
[audience laughs]

00:43:55.762 --> 00:43:57.433
And I asked her,
and she said, “No!”

00:43:57.433 --> 00:43:59.576
[audience laughs]

00:43:59.576 --> 00:44:02.207
So she’s home playing.

00:44:02.207 --> 00:44:03.102
All right.

00:44:03.102 --> 00:44:05.494
But we all hate to say no
because people ask us for help,

00:44:05.494 --> 00:44:06.527
and we want to be gracious.

00:44:06.527 --> 00:44:09.369
So let me teach you
some gentle “no’s.”

00:44:09.369 --> 00:44:10.483
The first one is,

00:44:10.483 --> 00:44:12.169
“I’ll do it if—
I’m really strapped,

00:44:12.169 --> 00:44:14.471
“but I want to help you,
I don’t want you to be in the bind,

00:44:14.471 --> 00:44:18.259
“so if nobody else steps forward,
I will do this for you.”

00:44:18.259 --> 00:44:19.006
All right.

00:44:19.006 --> 00:44:20.267
Or, “I’ll be your fallback,


00:44:20.267 --> 00:44:21.784
“but you have to keep searching
for somebody else.”

00:44:21.784 --> 00:44:23.871
Now, you will find out
about the person’s character

00:44:23.871 --> 00:44:25.639
at that moment,
because if they say,

00:44:25.639 --> 00:44:27.769
“Great!
Whew, I got my sucker!”

00:44:27.769 --> 00:44:29.470
And they stop looking,

00:44:29.470 --> 00:44:31.324
then they
have abused the relationship.

00:44:31.324 --> 00:44:32.284
But if they say,
“That’s great!

00:44:32.284 --> 00:44:33.913
“My stress level’s down
at zero,

00:44:33.913 --> 00:44:35.611
“because now I know
it’s not going to be a disaster.

00:44:35.611 --> 00:44:36.633
“But I’m going to keep looking


00:44:36.633 --> 00:44:38.877
“for somebody for whom it’s less
of a imposition.”

00:44:38.877 --> 00:44:42.626
That’s a person that will get lots
of this sort of support.

00:44:42.626 --> 00:44:43.795
Okay?

00:44:43.795 --> 00:44:45.111
When I was in graduate school,

00:44:45.111 --> 00:44:46.821
we did a moving party
with four people,

00:44:46.821 --> 00:44:49.228
a lot of moving parties,
to carry heavy objects.

00:44:49.228 --> 00:44:51.821
We had four people,
we should have had 12.

00:44:51.821 --> 00:44:53.793
It was a long day.

00:44:53.793 --> 00:44:55.588
And after that,
I adopted a new policy.

00:44:55.588 --> 00:44:57.468
I said, “From now on,
when somebody says,

00:44:57.468 --> 00:44:58.501
‘Will you help me move?’,

00:44:58.501 --> 00:45:00.784
I’ll say,
‘How much stuff you got?’”

00:45:00.784 --> 00:45:01.605
And they would tell me,
and I'd say,

00:45:01.605 --> 00:45:03.864
“Hmm, that sounds
about like eight people.

00:45:03.864 --> 00:45:06.372
“If you give me the names
of seven other people that’ll be there,

00:45:06.372 --> 00:45:08.167
“I’ll be there.”

00:45:08.167 --> 00:45:09.609
And I never again was
at a moving party

00:45:09.609 --> 00:45:13.398
that went for 14 hours,

00:45:13.398 --> 00:45:15.680
in January in Pittsburgh.

00:45:15.680 --> 00:45:18.165
[audience laughs]

00:45:18.165 --> 00:45:20.075
Everybody has good
and bad times.

00:45:20.075 --> 00:45:22.406
A big thing
about time management is,

00:45:22.406 --> 00:45:26.093
“Find your creative time
and defend it ruthlessly.”

00:45:26.093 --> 00:45:29.417
Spend it alone,
Maybe at home, if you have to.

00:45:29.417 --> 00:45:32.992
But, defend it ruthlessly.

00:45:32.992 --> 00:45:34.836
The other thing is
find your dead time.

00:45:34.836 --> 00:45:37.917
Schedule meetings, phone calls,
exercise, mundane stuff,

00:45:37.917 --> 00:45:42.759
but do stuff during that
where you don’t need to be at your best.

00:45:42.759 --> 00:45:43.910
And we all have these times.

00:45:43.910 --> 00:45:45.683
And the times
are not at all intuitive.

00:45:45.683 --> 00:45:47.767
I discovered
that my most productive time

00:45:47.767 --> 00:45:49.752
was between 10pm
and midnight,

00:45:49.752 --> 00:45:50.941
which is really weird,
but it’s sort of this--

00:45:50.941 --> 00:45:54.368
for me, it’s just this burst
of energy right before the end.

00:45:54.368 --> 00:45:58.554
Let’s talk about interruptions.

00:45:58.554 --> 00:45:59.510
And interruption—

00:45:59.510 --> 00:46:01.023
there are people who measure
this kind of stuff,

00:46:01.023 --> 00:46:02.659
who have stopwatches
and clipboards,

00:46:02.659 --> 00:46:04.706
and what they say
is that an interruption

00:46:04.706 --> 00:46:07.163
takes typically six
to nine minutes,

00:46:07.163 --> 00:46:09.127
but then there’s a four
to five minute recovery

00:46:09.127 --> 00:46:11.605
to get your head back
into what you’re doing.

00:46:11.605 --> 00:46:13.373
And if you’re doing something like
software creation,

00:46:13.373 --> 00:46:14.791
you may never
get your head back there,

00:46:14.791 --> 00:46:17.089
the cost can be infinity.

00:46:17.089 --> 00:46:18.070
But if you do the math on that,

00:46:18.070 --> 00:46:22.782
five interruptions
blows a whole hour.

00:46:22.782 --> 00:46:25.578
So you’ve got to find ways
to reduce both the frequency

00:46:25.578 --> 00:46:27.237
and the length
of these interruptions.

00:46:27.237 --> 00:46:29.928
One of my favorites
is turn phone calls into email.

00:46:29.928 --> 00:46:31.546
If you phone my office
at Carnegie Mellon, it says,

00:46:31.546 --> 00:46:34.959
“Hi, this is Randy.
Please, send me email.”

00:46:34.959 --> 00:46:38.443
[audience laughs]

00:46:38.443 --> 00:46:40.441
Again, I presume everybody here
has email.

00:46:40.441 --> 00:46:42.812
How many people here,
when a new message comes in,

00:46:42.812 --> 00:46:45.385
does your computer go “ding,”
or makes some other noise?

00:46:45.385 --> 00:46:47.024
Do we still have people
doing that?

00:46:47.024 --> 00:46:49.102
What the heck is wrong
with you people?

00:46:49.102 --> 00:46:49.653
[audience laughs]

00:46:49.653 --> 00:46:51.048
And I love the fact
that computer scientists

00:46:51.048 --> 00:46:54.489
just know nothing about anything,
so for years by default,

00:46:54.489 --> 00:46:56.853
all these packages
out of the box would go “ding!”

00:46:56.853 --> 00:46:58.141
every time you get a new piece
of email.

00:46:58.141 --> 00:47:02.069
So we had taken a technology
explicitly designed

00:47:02.069 --> 00:47:03.921
to reduce interruption,

00:47:03.921 --> 00:47:06.308
and we turn them
into interruptions.

00:47:06.308 --> 00:47:07.904
So you just gotta turn that off.

00:47:07.904 --> 00:47:09.985
The whole point of email is you go
to it when you’re ready,

00:47:09.985 --> 00:47:12.026
not you’re sitting around
like Pavlov’s dog, saying,

00:47:12.026 --> 00:47:13.723
“Oh, maybe
I’ll get another email.”

00:47:13.723 --> 00:47:16.191
[audience laughs]

00:47:16.191 --> 00:47:18.799
In the same way you try
to not interrupt other people,

00:47:18.799 --> 00:47:20.852
I save stuff up
so I have boxes


00:47:20.852 --> 00:47:23.020
for Tina,
or for my research group meeting.

00:47:23.020 --> 00:47:25.420
And I put stuff in those boxes,
and then once a week,

00:47:25.420 --> 00:47:26.871
or however often
when the box gets full,

00:47:26.871 --> 00:47:27.993
I walk down the hall,

00:47:27.993 --> 00:47:29.458
and I interrupt that person one time
and say,

00:47:29.458 --> 00:47:32.379
“Here are the eight things I have
for you.”

00:47:32.379 --> 00:47:33.512
How do you cut things short,

00:47:33.512 --> 00:47:34.252
because people will always want

00:47:34.252 --> 00:47:35.829
to spend more time
than you want to spend.

00:47:35.829 --> 00:47:38.266
Well you can say, look,
somebody interrupts you and says,

00:47:38.266 --> 00:47:38.903
“Got a few minutes?”

00:47:38.903 --> 00:47:40.660
And I say, “Well, I’m in the middle
of something right now.”

00:47:40.660 --> 00:47:41.446
And that tells them,

00:47:41.446 --> 00:47:43.224
“I'm interrupting it,
I’m going to do it quickly,

00:47:43.224 --> 00:47:45.167
“but I’ve got to get back to that.”

00:47:45.167 --> 00:47:47.291
Or you can say,
“I only have five minutes.”

00:47:47.291 --> 00:47:48.425
The great thing about that is

00:47:48.425 --> 00:47:51.680
that later you have the privilege
of extending that if you so choose.

00:47:51.680 --> 00:47:52.811
But when the five minutes are up,
you can say,

00:47:52.811 --> 00:47:54.088
“Well, I said at the beginning
I only had five minutes,

00:47:54.088 --> 00:47:55.297
and I really have to go now.”

00:47:55.297 --> 00:47:58.273
So it’s a very socially polite way
to bound the amount of time

00:47:58.273 --> 00:47:59.725
on the interaction.

00:47:59.725 --> 00:48:01.627
If somebody’s in your office,
and they don’t get it--

00:48:01.627 --> 00:48:03.361
now I’m not saying
that as a computer scientist

00:48:03.361 --> 00:48:05.920
I have an inordinate amount of time
to interact—

00:48:05.920 --> 00:48:08.988
opportunity to interact
with people with no social skills,

00:48:08.988 --> 00:48:13.848
[audience laughs]

00:48:13.848 --> 00:48:18.420
But, if you have someone
in your office who is just not getting it,

00:48:18.420 --> 00:48:21.935
what you do is you stand up,
you walk to the door,

00:48:21.935 --> 00:48:23.380
you compliment them.

00:48:23.380 --> 00:48:26.522
For some reason,
this is a crucial part of the process.

00:48:26.522 --> 00:48:29.634
You thank them,
and you shake their hand.

00:48:29.634 --> 00:48:31.866
And if they still don’t leave,

00:48:31.866 --> 00:48:34.617
which is pretty much a guarantee
that you’re dealing

00:48:34.617 --> 00:48:37.364
with someone from my tribe,

00:48:37.364 --> 00:48:39.978
then you’re in the doorway,
you just keep going.

00:48:39.978 --> 00:48:44.158
[audience laughs]

00:48:44.158 --> 00:48:45.787
What I have found
is that people don’t like it

00:48:45.787 --> 00:48:48.351
when you look at your watch
while you’re talking with them.

00:48:48.351 --> 00:48:51.392
So what I do is I put a wall
on the clock right behind them,

00:48:51.392 --> 00:48:53.865
so it’s just off access
from their eyes,

00:48:53.865 --> 00:48:55.532
and I can just kind of glance
over a little bit

00:48:55.532 --> 00:48:56.857
when I need to see
what time it is.

00:48:56.857 --> 00:48:58.521
It’s a very nice way
to get me information

00:48:58.521 --> 00:49:00.851
without being rude to them.

00:49:00.851 --> 00:49:01.746
Time journals.

00:49:01.746 --> 00:49:02.713
Time is the commodity,

00:49:02.713 --> 00:49:05.839
you better find out
where your time is going.

00:49:05.839 --> 00:49:09.399
So monitor yourself,
and update it throughout the day.

00:49:09.399 --> 00:49:10.667
You can’t wait until the end
of the day and say,

00:49:10.667 --> 00:49:12.131
“What was I doing at 10:30?”

00:49:12.131 --> 00:49:13.311
because our memories
aren’t that good.

00:49:13.311 --> 00:49:16.105
So what you do,
and I really hope that technology

00:49:16.105 --> 00:49:17.807
within, you know,
another five years or so,

00:49:17.807 --> 00:49:19.417
will be so good
that the time journals

00:49:19.417 --> 00:49:22.503
can be created automatically,
or at least some facsimile of it.

00:49:22.503 --> 00:49:25.261
But until then, what we do is
we monitor it ourselves.

00:49:25.261 --> 00:49:27.482
So this is what an empty time journal
would look like.

00:49:27.482 --> 00:49:28.452
The details aren’t important,

00:49:28.452 --> 00:49:30.410
but the key thing
is that when you fill it in,

00:49:30.410 --> 00:49:32.940
you’ve got a bunch of categories,
and what I was doing.

00:49:32.940 --> 00:49:35.032
And you can do this very informally,

00:49:35.032 --> 00:49:39.074
but you get a lot of real data
about where your time went.

00:49:39.074 --> 00:49:40.209
And it’s always very different.

00:49:40.209 --> 00:49:42.088
Anybody who has done
monetary budgeting,

00:49:42.088 --> 00:49:43.022
you look at it
and you go, "Wow!

00:49:43.022 --> 00:49:45.386
"I didn't know I was spending that much
on dry cleaning.”

00:49:45.386 --> 00:49:48.566
Or restaurants or--
it’s always a fascinating surprise.

00:49:48.566 --> 00:49:51.486
And you always spend
more than you think.

00:49:51.486 --> 00:49:52.512
But with time budgets,

00:49:52.512 --> 00:49:54.909
you find out that the time
is just going wildly differently

00:49:54.909 --> 00:49:57.063
than you would have imagined.

00:49:57.063 --> 00:49:58.250
The best example
of this I know

00:49:58.250 --> 00:50:00.591
is Turing Award winner
Fred Brooks’s time clocks.

00:50:00.591 --> 00:50:03.801
He’s a brilliant computer scientist,
but he also has this great array

00:50:03.801 --> 00:50:04.945
of clocks in his office,

00:50:04.945 --> 00:50:06.638
and when you go in
and talk to him, he says,

00:50:06.638 --> 00:50:08.597
“Is this meeting
about research or teaching?”

00:50:08.597 --> 00:50:09.864
or whatever,

00:50:09.864 --> 00:50:11.319
and then he
flips the appropriate switch,

00:50:11.319 --> 00:50:14.063
And at the end of the week,
he knows exactly where his time went.

00:50:14.063 --> 00:50:15.250
[audience laughs]

00:50:15.250 --> 00:50:20.204
The man is a genius!

00:50:20.204 --> 00:50:22.472
When I meet with students,

00:50:22.472 --> 00:50:25.446
and this is, I think, just as appropriate
for people in the workplace,

00:50:25.446 --> 00:50:26.481
I say,
“What’s your schedule?”

00:50:26.481 --> 00:50:29.969
You have a set of fixed meetings
every time, every week.

00:50:29.969 --> 00:50:32.040
And, what you have to do is,
you have to look at those

00:50:32.040 --> 00:50:35.568
and identify the open blocks
where you’re going to waste time,

00:50:35.568 --> 00:50:37.712
and I can tell your going to waste time
just by looking at.

00:50:37.712 --> 00:50:40.641
So in this case,
you’ve got a class where, uh,

00:50:40.641 --> 00:50:42.600
you’ve got a class
at a certain point,

00:50:42.600 --> 00:50:43.972
and then you’ve got a gap
until the next class,

00:50:43.972 --> 00:50:46.027
so I’ve identified those here.

00:50:46.027 --> 00:50:48.006
And the gaps between classes

00:50:48.006 --> 00:50:50.600
that in this case last an hour
or an hour and a half,

00:50:50.600 --> 00:50:52.685
this is just prime time
to be wasted.

00:50:52.685 --> 00:50:56.111
So what I always taught my students was,
make up a fake class.

00:50:56.111 --> 00:50:58.548
The fake class is go
to one specific place

00:50:58.548 --> 00:51:00.241
in the library during that hour,

00:51:00.241 --> 00:51:01.721
and when you’re sitting there

00:51:01.721 --> 00:51:03.757
with just you in the library
and your books,

00:51:03.757 --> 00:51:06.886
there’s a pretty good chance
you might actually study.

00:51:06.886 --> 00:51:09.280
So, don’t go and hang out
with friends for an hour,

00:51:09.280 --> 00:51:11.548
just make that a fake class,
make your own little study hall.

00:51:11.548 --> 00:51:12.454
It’s a simple trick,

00:51:12.454 --> 00:51:13.826
but it’s amazing
how effective it is

00:51:13.826 --> 00:51:17.181
when somebody
just explicitly does it.

00:51:17.181 --> 00:51:18.645
When you’ve got
your time journal data,

00:51:18.645 --> 00:51:19.763
what do you figure out
from that?

00:51:19.763 --> 00:51:21.954
What am I doing
that doesn't need to be done?

00:51:21.954 --> 00:51:23.051
What can someone else do?

00:51:23.051 --> 00:51:24.953
I love every day
sort of saying,

00:51:24.953 --> 00:51:26.620
“What am I doing
that I could delegate

00:51:26.620 --> 00:51:28.687
“to somebody else?”

00:51:28.687 --> 00:51:30.021
My sister is again laughing

00:51:30.021 --> 00:51:33.953
because she knows who that person was
in our youth.

00:51:33.953 --> 00:51:35.713
What can I do more efficiently?

00:51:35.713 --> 00:51:37.916
And, how am I wasting
other people’s time?

00:51:37.916 --> 00:51:39.155
When you get good
at time management,

00:51:39.155 --> 00:51:40.920
you realize
that it’s a collaborative thing.

00:51:40.920 --> 00:51:42.757
I want to make everybody
more efficient.

00:51:42.757 --> 00:51:44.566
It’s not a selfish thing,
it’s not me against you.

00:51:44.566 --> 00:51:49.316
It’s how do we all
collectively get more done.

00:51:49.316 --> 00:51:50.909
As you push
on the time journal stuff,

00:51:50.909 --> 00:51:53.581
you start to find
that you don’t make yourself

00:51:53.581 --> 00:51:55.185
more efficient at work

00:51:55.185 --> 00:51:58.126
so you can become some sort
of uber worker person.

00:51:58.126 --> 00:52:01.813
You become more efficient
at work so you can leave at 5,

00:52:01.813 --> 00:52:05.972
and go home
and be with the people that you love.

00:52:05.972 --> 00:52:08.587
People call this work-life balance.

00:52:08.587 --> 00:52:11.892
For the junior faculty,
you may have heard of it

00:52:11.892 --> 00:52:13.029
[audience laughs]

00:52:13.029 --> 00:52:16.498
in some sort
of mythical sense.

00:52:16.498 --> 00:52:18.941
But it is possible.

00:52:18.941 --> 00:52:21.217
I found that I worked less—

00:52:21.217 --> 00:52:23.671
I worked fewer hours
after I got married,

00:52:23.671 --> 00:52:25.317
and I got more done.

00:52:25.317 --> 00:52:27.186
And I was alway fascinated
in graduate school

00:52:27.186 --> 00:52:30.320
that the people who graduated fastest
with their PhD’s

00:52:30.320 --> 00:52:33.098
were the people
who had a spouse and kids.

00:52:33.098 --> 00:52:35.623
And I said, how can that be,
that’s like a built-in boat anchor.

00:52:35.623 --> 00:52:36.245
[audience laughs]

00:52:36.245 --> 00:52:37.040
All right.

00:52:37.040 --> 00:52:39.580
You know, you got all these other demands
on your time,

00:52:39.580 --> 00:52:40.788
and I’m, like, a single guy,

00:52:40.788 --> 00:52:43.078
and I got all the time in the world,
and that’s the problem.

00:52:43.078 --> 00:52:45.847
I approach it like I got all the time
in the world,

00:52:45.847 --> 00:52:47.715
so my time isn’t precious.

00:52:47.715 --> 00:52:49.551
When you got a spouse
and little kids,

00:52:49.551 --> 00:52:51.844
your spouse is likely to say things
to you like,

00:52:51.844 --> 00:52:53.636
“You better not be
in at that grad school

00:52:53.636 --> 00:52:55.013
“more than 40 hours a week.”

00:52:55.013 --> 00:52:56.072
So when you come in,

00:52:56.072 --> 00:52:57.423
you’re not sitting
around playing computer games,

00:52:57.423 --> 00:52:59.015
not that I ever did that.

00:52:59.015 --> 00:53:00.507
[audience laughs]

00:53:00.507 --> 00:53:02.670
But when you come in,
you’re comin' in, and you’re doing work.

00:53:02.670 --> 00:53:04.047
And I found,
like most people,

00:53:04.047 --> 00:53:06.085
that once I got married
and had kids,

00:53:06.085 --> 00:53:08.161
my whole view
of time management really got—

00:53:08.161 --> 00:53:10.446
I mean, we were playing
for real stakes now.

00:53:10.446 --> 00:53:12.257
Because now there are people
who’s lives are impacted

00:53:12.257 --> 00:53:15.446
if I’m spending too much time
at work.

00:53:15.446 --> 00:53:16.579
The other thing
about time management,

00:53:16.579 --> 00:53:19.244
it makes you really start
to look through a crystalline lens

00:53:19.244 --> 00:53:21.007
and figure out what’s important
and what’s not.

00:53:21.007 --> 00:53:23.445
I love this picture.

00:53:23.445 --> 00:53:25.682
I’ve blanked out her name,
but this says,

00:53:25.682 --> 00:53:26.733
“Blah-blah-blah-blah—,”

00:53:26.733 --> 00:53:28.529
this is a pregnant woman,
and it says,

00:53:28.529 --> 00:53:31.458
“She is worrying about the effect
on her unborn child

00:53:31.458 --> 00:53:33.467
“from the sound
of jackhammers.”

00:53:33.467 --> 00:53:35.695
So they're doing construction,
and the people here are laughing

00:53:35.695 --> 00:53:37.387
because they can see
that this woman,

00:53:37.387 --> 00:53:38.704
who’s so concerned
about the jackhammers

00:53:38.704 --> 00:53:42.257
affecting her unborn child,
is holding a lit cigarette.

00:53:42.257 --> 00:53:44.180
[audience laughs]

00:53:44.180 --> 00:53:45.766
You gotta get really good
at saying,

00:53:45.766 --> 00:53:48.474
“I gotta focus my time
and energy on the things that matter.”

00:53:48.474 --> 00:53:50.034
And not worry
about the things that don’t.

00:53:50.034 --> 00:53:53.611
Now I’m not a medical doctor,
and I don’t play one on TV,

00:53:53.611 --> 00:53:55.818
but I’m willing to bet
that if I were the fetus,

00:53:55.818 --> 00:53:56.323
I’d be saying,

00:53:56.323 --> 00:53:58.093
[yelling]
“Put the cigarette out, mom!

00:53:58.093 --> 00:53:59.868
I can do deal
with the noise!”

00:53:59.868 --> 00:54:04.173
[audience laughs]

00:54:04.173 --> 00:54:05.880
Alrighty, so in terms of—

00:54:05.880 --> 00:54:09.282
I want to tell you a little story
about effective versus efficient.

00:54:09.282 --> 00:54:11.578
I actually was going to
give this talk a couple of weeks ago,

00:54:11.578 --> 00:54:13.103
and I talked with Gabe
about it,

00:54:13.103 --> 00:54:16.952
and we were going to come up here
as a surprise for my wife.

00:54:16.952 --> 00:54:19.123
Her favorite musical group
in the whole world is “The Police,”

00:54:19.123 --> 00:54:22.266
and has been for a long, long time,
they’re a wonderful group.

00:54:22.266 --> 00:54:23.374
And so we said,

00:54:23.374 --> 00:54:25.036
“Hey, we’re going to drive her
up to Charlottesville and seem them.”

00:54:25.036 --> 00:54:26.227
We managed to get some tickets.

00:54:26.227 --> 00:54:28.096
And I said, “Well honey,
as long as we’re up there,

00:54:28.096 --> 00:54:29.317
“I promised Gabe a long time ago

00:54:29.317 --> 00:54:30.664
“that I wanted
to give my time management talk,”

00:54:30.664 --> 00:54:32.951
and she said okay,
because it’s about a three-hour drive,

00:54:32.951 --> 00:54:35.762
so it's very efficient
to couple these two trips together.

00:54:35.762 --> 00:54:36.642
And about two days later
she said,

00:54:36.642 --> 00:54:39.395
“You know honey,
I know how you are with talks.

00:54:39.395 --> 00:54:41.192
"And before you give one,
for a couple of days,

00:54:41.192 --> 00:54:43.101
you start to obsess.”

00:54:43.101 --> 00:54:46.015
[mouthing words, no sound]

00:54:46.015 --> 00:54:48.809
And, as we talked through it,
she said,

00:54:48.809 --> 00:54:50.699
“So we’re going to go up
on this couple’s time away"--

00:54:50.699 --> 00:54:52.344
we’d gotten a sitter
to watch the kids,

00:54:52.344 --> 00:54:55.065
“and this couple’s time away
is going to be eaten up

00:54:55.065 --> 00:54:57.987
by you obsessing over
and preparing this talk.”

00:54:57.987 --> 00:54:59.011
And, I thought about it,
and I said,

00:54:59.011 --> 00:55:00.882
“Okay,
so obviously the right solution

00:55:00.882 --> 00:55:03.245
“is we should keep our couple’s time
our couple’s time.

00:55:03.245 --> 00:55:04.762
“We’ll go up,
we’ll see the concert,

00:55:04.762 --> 00:55:06.195
“you know, we’ll have
our time together,

00:55:06.195 --> 00:55:07.445
“and I’ll just schedule a different day,

00:55:07.445 --> 00:55:09.822
“and I’ll go up on a one-day trip
and I’ll do the talk.”

00:55:09.822 --> 00:55:12.403
And she said,
“Wow, that was easy!”

00:55:12.403 --> 00:55:14.835
Right, once you frame it
in the right way, and you say,

00:55:14.835 --> 00:55:18.952
“Yeah, the cost here is that
I have to do the drive a second time.”

00:55:18.952 --> 00:55:21.811
But it turns out I’m doing the drive
with my nephew, Christopher,

00:55:21.811 --> 00:55:23.517
and we talk,
and my mom turns out

00:55:23.517 --> 00:55:25.331
so the time
wasn’t even dead-time,

00:55:25.331 --> 00:55:26.321
so there was no loss at all.

00:55:26.321 --> 00:55:27.980
But the key thing was we said,

00:55:27.980 --> 00:55:29.138
“It’s not about efficiency,


00:55:29.138 --> 00:55:32.384
"it’s about effectiveness
and best overall outcome.”

00:55:32.384 --> 00:55:33.384
And of course
one of the nice things

00:55:33.384 --> 00:55:35.066
was that we did get to go
to “The Police” concert,

00:55:35.066 --> 00:55:36.995
and I really want to thank Gabe
and Jim Aylor,

00:55:36.995 --> 00:55:38.676
because we REALLY went
to the concert.

00:55:38.676 --> 00:55:40.051
[audience laughs]

00:55:40.051 --> 00:55:42.436
And my wife was very happy.

00:55:42.436 --> 00:55:43.716
[audience laughs]

00:55:43.716 --> 00:55:45.484
I’m the guy in the back,
saying,

00:55:45.484 --> 00:55:47.826
“She’s not paying any attention
to me today!”

00:55:47.826 --> 00:55:50.464
[audience laughs]

00:55:50.464 --> 00:55:51.600
But it was wonderful.

00:55:51.600 --> 00:55:53.874
And he is charming gentleman
in person,

00:55:53.874 --> 00:55:56.469
he is absolutely charming.

00:55:56.469 --> 00:55:57.744
So let’s talk
about procrastination.

00:55:57.744 --> 00:56:00.347
There’s an old saying:
“Procrastination is the thief of time.”

00:56:00.347 --> 00:56:01.700
Procrastination is hard.

00:56:01.700 --> 00:56:04.000
And I have a little bit
of an insight here for you.

00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:07.051
We don’t usually procrastinate
because we’re lazy.

00:56:07.051 --> 00:56:09.349
Sometimes people
rationalize their procrastination.

00:56:09.349 --> 00:56:11.562
They say,
“Well, gee, if I wait long enough,

00:56:11.562 --> 00:56:14.148
“maybe I won’t have to do it.”

00:56:14.148 --> 00:56:15.093
Right?

00:56:15.093 --> 00:56:19.431
That’s true,
sometimes you get lucky, all right.

00:56:19.431 --> 00:56:22.496
But--and other people say,
“Gee, if I start on it now,

00:56:22.496 --> 00:56:24.081
I’m just going to spend
all the time on it.

00:56:24.081 --> 00:56:27.448
“If I only give myself the last two days,
I’ll do it in two days,

00:56:27.448 --> 00:56:30.091
“because as the work expands
to fill the time available—

00:56:30.091 --> 00:56:31.282
Parkinson’s Law.”

00:56:31.282 --> 00:56:33.636
That’s marginally true.

00:56:33.636 --> 00:56:37.411
But I think the key balance here is
to understand that doing things

00:56:37.411 --> 00:56:40.733
at the last minute
is really expensive.

00:56:40.733 --> 00:56:43.670
And it’s just much more expensive
than doing it just

00:56:43.670 --> 00:56:45.446
before the last minute.

00:56:45.446 --> 00:56:48.309
So if you’re doing something,
and you can still mail it

00:56:48.309 --> 00:56:50.164
through the US mail,
you have suddenly avoided

00:56:50.164 --> 00:56:52.479
the “Oh my god,
I’ve gotta do the whole FedEx thing!”

00:56:52.479 --> 00:56:53.921
Now, I love Fed-Ex.

00:56:53.921 --> 00:56:58.417
FedEx supports our whole universal habit
of procrastination.

00:56:58.417 --> 00:57:00.960
But it also allows us
to get stuff there when it really has

00:57:00.960 --> 00:57:03.028
to be there in a hurry,
so that's a wonderful thing.

00:57:03.028 --> 00:57:06.022
But I think you have to,
you have to realize that

00:57:06.022 --> 00:57:07.558
if you push things right up
to the deadline,

00:57:07.558 --> 00:57:09.632
that’s where all the stress
comes from,

00:57:09.632 --> 00:57:11.973
because now
you can’t reach people.

00:57:11.973 --> 00:57:14.277
If somebody is out of the office
for just one day,

00:57:14.277 --> 00:57:15.375
your whole plan is upset,

00:57:15.375 --> 00:57:17.912
so you really have to work hard
on this kind of stuff.

00:57:17.912 --> 00:57:19.534
The other thing is that deadlines
are really important.

00:57:19.534 --> 00:57:21.148
We are all essentially
deadline-driven,

00:57:21.148 --> 00:57:23.184
so if you have something
that isn’t due for a long time,

00:57:23.184 --> 00:57:26.246
make up a fake deadline,
and act like it’s real.

00:57:26.246 --> 00:57:27.857
And that's wonderful
because those are the deadlines,

00:57:27.857 --> 00:57:30.150
when push comes to shove,
you can slip 'em by a couple of days,

00:57:30.150 --> 00:57:33.590
and it’s all right,
so they’re less stressful.

00:57:33.590 --> 00:57:35.172
If you are procrastinating,

00:57:35.172 --> 00:57:38.252
you’ve gotta find some way to get back
into your comfort zone.

00:57:38.252 --> 00:57:40.248
Identify why you’re not enthusiastic.

00:57:40.248 --> 00:57:41.532
Whenever I procrastinate
on something,

00:57:41.532 --> 00:57:43.656
there’s always a deep
psychological reason.

00:57:43.656 --> 00:57:45.624
Usually it’s I’m afraid
of being embarrassed

00:57:45.624 --> 00:57:47.681
because I don’t think
I’ll do well,

00:57:47.681 --> 00:57:49.603
or I'm afraid
I'm going to fail at it.

00:57:49.603 --> 00:57:53.899
And, sometimes it involves
asking somebody for something.

00:57:53.899 --> 00:57:56.322
And one of the most magical things
I’ve learned in my life

00:57:56.322 --> 00:57:59.599
is that sometimes
you just have to ask

00:57:59.599 --> 00:58:01.234
and wonderful things happen.

00:58:01.234 --> 00:58:02.541
But you just have to,

00:58:02.541 --> 00:58:05.924
you know, step out
and do that.

00:58:05.924 --> 00:58:09.343
I won the parent lottery,
I have just wonderful parents.

00:58:09.343 --> 00:58:12.193
And my dad unfortunately
passed away not too long ago.

00:58:12.193 --> 00:58:13.644
But this is one
of my favorite photographs,

00:58:13.644 --> 00:58:15.262
because my dad
was such a smart guy,

00:58:15.262 --> 00:58:17.545
I could almost never surprise him
or impress him,

00:58:17.545 --> 00:58:19.320
because he was just that good.

00:58:19.320 --> 00:58:21.426
But we were down on a family vacation
at Disney World,

00:58:21.426 --> 00:58:22.470
and the Monorails were going by,

00:58:22.470 --> 00:58:23.847
and we were going to
board the Monorail,

00:58:23.847 --> 00:58:26.363
and we noticed that in the front,
up here in the cabin,

00:58:26.363 --> 00:58:27.968
I don’t know if you can see it
in this picture,

00:58:27.968 --> 00:58:29.701
but there’s a engineer
who drives the Monorail,

00:58:29.701 --> 00:58:31.963
and there were actually guests
up in there with him,

00:58:31.963 --> 00:58:33.456
which is kind of unusual.

00:58:33.456 --> 00:58:35.021
My dad and I were talking
about that,

00:58:35.021 --> 00:58:36.393
and I knew,

00:58:36.393 --> 00:58:38.127
because I’ve done some consulting
for Disney.

00:58:38.127 --> 00:58:38.719
My dad’s saying,

00:58:38.719 --> 00:58:41.739
"They probably have to be special VIPs,
or something like that.”

00:58:41.739 --> 00:58:42.984
I said, “There is a trick.

00:58:42.984 --> 00:58:45.924
“There is a special way you get
into that cabin.”

00:58:45.924 --> 00:58:47.009
And he said,
“Really, what is it?”

00:58:47.009 --> 00:58:48.577
And I said, “I’ll show you.
Dylan, come with me.”

00:58:48.577 --> 00:58:49.915
And Dylan, who’s—

00:58:49.915 --> 00:58:51.465
the back of his head
you can see there,

00:58:51.465 --> 00:58:52.859
we walk up,
and I whisper to Dylan,

00:58:52.859 --> 00:58:55.505
[whispering]
“Ask the man if we can ride
in the front.”

00:58:55.505 --> 00:58:56.170
[audience laughs]

00:58:56.170 --> 00:58:58.482
And we go to the attendant,
and the attendant says,

00:58:58.482 --> 00:58:59.214
“Why, yes you can.”

00:58:59.214 --> 00:59:01.448
And he opens the gate,
and my dad is just like….

00:59:01.448 --> 00:59:02.747
[audience laughs]

00:59:02.747 --> 00:59:06.665
“I told you there was a trick,
I didn’t say it was hard.”

00:59:06.665 --> 00:59:09.953
And sometimes all you have to do
is ask.

00:59:09.953 --> 00:59:11.793
And it’s that easy.

00:59:11.793 --> 00:59:12.871
Let’s talk about delegation.

00:59:12.871 --> 00:59:14.835
Nobody operates
individually anymore.

00:59:14.835 --> 00:59:18.615
And you can accomplish a lot more
when you have help.

00:59:18.615 --> 00:59:20.972
However,
most people delegate very poorly.

00:59:20.972 --> 00:59:22.524
They treat delegation
as dumping.

00:59:22.524 --> 00:59:25.738
“I don’t have time to do this,
you take care of it.”

00:59:25.738 --> 00:59:28.575
You know, and then they micromanage,
and it's just a disaster.

00:59:28.575 --> 00:59:29.310
The first thing
if you’re going to

00:59:29.310 --> 00:59:31.173
delegate something
to a subordinate

00:59:31.173 --> 00:59:33.505
is you grant them authority
with responsibility.

00:59:33.505 --> 00:59:34.717
You don’t tell somebody,

00:59:34.717 --> 00:59:37.099
“Go take care of this,
but if you need to spend any money,

00:59:37.099 --> 00:59:38.696
you gotta come back to me
for approval.”

00:59:38.696 --> 00:59:40.682
Uh-uh,
that’s not empowering them.

00:59:40.682 --> 00:59:42.053
That’s telling them
that you don't trust them.

00:59:42.053 --> 00:59:43.387
If I trust you enough
to do the work,

00:59:43.387 --> 00:59:45.432
I trust you enough
to give you the resources,

00:59:45.432 --> 00:59:46.604
and the budget,
and the time,

00:59:46.604 --> 00:59:48.535
and whatever else you need
to get it done.

00:59:48.535 --> 00:59:50.184
You give them the whole package.

00:59:50.184 --> 00:59:51.605
The other thing is,
delegate

00:59:51.605 --> 00:59:54.027
but always do the ugliest job
yourself.

00:59:54.027 --> 00:59:56.497
So when we need
to vacuum the lab before a demo,

00:59:56.497 --> 00:59:59.307
I bring in the vacuum cleaner,
and I vacuum it.

00:59:59.307 --> 01:00:02.111
All right, do the dirtiest job yourself,
so it’s very clear

01:00:02.111 --> 01:00:04.967
that you’re willing to still get the dirt
on your hands.

01:00:04.967 --> 01:00:06.330
Treat your people well.

01:00:06.330 --> 01:00:07.545
People are the greatest resource,

01:00:07.545 --> 01:00:10.265
and if you are fortunate enough
to have people who report to you,

01:00:10.265 --> 01:00:11.765
treat them dignity,
respect,

01:00:11.765 --> 01:00:13.997
and, you know,
to sound a little bit corny,

01:00:13.997 --> 01:00:15.676
the kind of love
that they should have

01:00:15.676 --> 01:00:17.374
from someone who cares
about them

01:00:17.374 --> 01:00:18.809
and their professional development.

01:00:18.809 --> 01:00:20.183
And for crying out loud,

01:00:20.183 --> 01:00:23.335
staff and secretaries
are your lifeline.

01:00:23.335 --> 01:00:24.826
If you don’t think
you should treat them well

01:00:24.826 --> 01:00:26.405
because it’s the decent thing
to do,

01:00:26.405 --> 01:00:28.316
at least treat them well
because if you don’t,

01:00:28.316 --> 01:00:30.143
they will get you.

01:00:30.143 --> 01:00:31.388
[audience laughs]

01:00:31.388 --> 01:00:33.304
And they will get you good.

01:00:33.304 --> 01:00:36.008
And you will deserve it,
and I will applaud them.

01:00:36.008 --> 01:00:39.545
[audience laughs]

01:00:39.545 --> 01:00:41.594
My giving a talk
on time management

01:00:41.594 --> 01:00:43.840
with Alf Weaver in the audience—
where is Alf?

01:00:43.840 --> 01:00:45.205
There he is.

01:00:45.205 --> 01:00:47.485
That’s like talking
about surviving the Jonestown flood

01:00:47.485 --> 01:00:49.961
if Noah's in the audience.

01:00:49.961 --> 01:00:51.706
One of the things Alf Weaver
taught me,

01:00:51.706 --> 01:00:54.370
is whether it’s to a colleague,
or to a subordinate,

01:00:54.370 --> 01:00:57.737
if you want to get something done,
you cannot be vague.

01:00:57.739 --> 01:01:01.081
And he said, “You give somebody
a specific thing to do,

01:01:01.081 --> 01:01:02.930
“a specific date and time.

01:01:02.930 --> 01:01:05.369
“‘Thursday’ is not a specific time.

01:01:05.369 --> 01:01:09.379
“‘Thursday at 3:22
gets somebody’s attention.

01:01:09.379 --> 01:01:12.879
“And you give them a specific penalty
or reward that will happen

01:01:12.879 --> 01:01:14.709
if that deadline for that thing
is not met.”

01:01:14.709 --> 01:01:15.773
And then he paused,
and he said,

01:01:15.773 --> 01:01:18.687
“And remember, the penalty
or the reward has to be for them...”

01:01:18.687 --> 01:01:19.319
[audience laughs]

01:01:19.319 --> 01:01:21.077
"not you!"

01:01:21.077 --> 01:01:23.137
“I will be screwed over
if you don’t meet that deadline!”

01:01:23.147 --> 01:01:24.960
“Oh, bummer.”

01:01:24.960 --> 01:01:26.434
[audience laughs]

01:01:26.434 --> 01:01:31.453
This is an important point
to not get wrong.

01:01:31.453 --> 01:01:33.356
Challenge people.

01:01:33.356 --> 01:01:35.214
I’ve been told that one
of the tricks

01:01:35.214 --> 01:01:38.409
is you delegate
until they complain.

01:01:38.409 --> 01:01:39.887
I don’t know
about until they complain,

01:01:39.887 --> 01:01:42.373
but what I’ve found
is that under-delegation is a problem.

01:01:42.373 --> 01:01:45.259
People are usually yearning
for the opportunity to do more,

01:01:45.259 --> 01:01:46.606
they want to be challenged.

01:01:46.606 --> 01:01:48.493
They want to prove to you
and themselves

01:01:48.493 --> 01:01:51.927
they can be more capable,
so let them.

01:01:51.927 --> 01:01:53.948
Communication has to be clear.

01:01:53.948 --> 01:01:56.300
So many times people get upset
with their bosses

01:01:56.300 --> 01:01:57.923
because there’s a misunderstanding,

01:01:57.923 --> 01:01:59.589
and particularly in a time
of email,

01:01:59.589 --> 01:02:01.327
it’s so easy to communicate
via email,

01:02:01.327 --> 01:02:03.200
even if you’ve had
a face-to-face conversation,

01:02:03.200 --> 01:02:05.910
send a two-line email,
just to be specific afterwards.

01:02:05.910 --> 01:02:07.979
And it’s not like we’re trying
to be all lawyer-like,

01:02:07.979 --> 01:02:10.057
it’s just that
as Judge Wapner said,

01:02:10.057 --> 01:02:12.897
“Get it in writing,”
if you remember “The People’s Court.”

01:02:12.897 --> 01:02:13.938
And Judge Wapner said,

01:02:13.938 --> 01:02:15.312
“If there isn’t a problem,
it’s not a problem,

01:02:15.312 --> 01:02:18.130
“it didn’t take you much time,
but if there ever is a problem—

01:02:18.130 --> 01:02:19.715
“well, wait a second,
there won’t be a problem

01:02:19.715 --> 01:02:21.611
“because there’s a written record.”

01:02:21.611 --> 01:02:23.432
And that’s the magic,
there won’t be a confusion,

01:02:23.432 --> 01:02:26.149
because you can’t disagree
about the written word.

01:02:26.149 --> 01:02:28.787
Don’t give people
how you want them do it,

01:02:28.787 --> 01:02:30.141
tell them what you want
them to do.

01:02:30.141 --> 01:02:31.815
Give them objectives,
not procedures.

01:02:31.815 --> 01:02:35.004
Let them surprise you
with a way of solving a problem

01:02:35.004 --> 01:02:36.735
you would never have imagined.

01:02:36.735 --> 01:02:41.230
Sometimes those solutions
are mind-blowing, good or bad.

01:02:41.230 --> 01:02:43.741
But they’re really much more fun
than just having them

01:02:43.741 --> 01:02:45.099
do it the way you
would’ve done it.

01:02:45.099 --> 01:02:47.110
And you know what,
if you’re in a university,

01:02:47.110 --> 01:02:49.540
your job should be
to have people smarter than you,

01:02:49.540 --> 01:02:50.706
i.e. your students,

01:02:50.706 --> 01:02:53.413
and they will come up
with stuff you would never thought of.

01:02:53.413 --> 01:02:55.821
Also, tell people the relative importance
of each task.

01:02:55.821 --> 01:02:57.605
I mean, so many people say,
my boss is an ogre,

01:02:57.605 --> 01:02:59.361
they gave me five things to do.

01:02:59.361 --> 01:03:02.139
I’m like, “Well did they tell you which one
was most important?”

01:03:02.139 --> 01:03:04.695
“Oh yeah.
Hmm, I guess I could ask that.”

01:03:04.695 --> 01:03:06.320
Knowing that if you
have five things,

01:03:06.320 --> 01:03:08.417
which are the ones
to get done is really important

01:03:08.417 --> 01:03:11.163
because if you’re flying blind,
you got a 20% chance

01:03:11.163 --> 01:03:14.216
of gettin' them done
in the right order.

01:03:14.216 --> 01:03:17.037
And delegation
can never be done too young.

01:03:17.037 --> 01:03:19.388
[audience laughs]

01:03:19.388 --> 01:03:25.466
Does everyone see the difference
in the two pictures?

01:03:25.466 --> 01:03:28.974
This is my daughter Chloe,
I love her to death,

01:03:28.974 --> 01:03:31.669
but I want her to grow up
to be a wonderful person,

01:03:31.669 --> 01:03:34.415
and I know the sooner
she holds her own bottle,

01:03:34.415 --> 01:03:37.559
the better.

01:03:37.559 --> 01:03:39.419
Sociology:
beware upward delegations.

01:03:39.419 --> 01:03:42.127
Sometimes you try to delegate,
people try to hand it back to you.

01:03:42.127 --> 01:03:43.892
One of the best things
I ever saw was someone

01:03:43.892 --> 01:03:45.576
who had a secretary trying
to say,

01:03:45.576 --> 01:03:47.401
“I can’t do this,
you’ll have to take it back.”

01:03:47.402 --> 01:03:49.202
And he just put his hands
behind his back,

01:03:49.202 --> 01:03:51.808
and took a step backwards.

01:03:51.808 --> 01:03:53.442
And then he waited.

01:03:53.442 --> 01:03:55.722
And then
eventually the secretary said,

01:03:55.722 --> 01:03:58.594
“Or maybe I could
find this other solution.”

01:03:58.594 --> 01:03:59.573
And he said,
“That’s wonderful!

01:03:59.573 --> 01:04:02.103
“I’m so proud you thought
of that.”

01:04:02.103 --> 01:04:05.064
It was just an elegant gesture.

01:04:05.064 --> 01:04:06.540
Reinforce behavior
you want repeated.

01:04:06.540 --> 01:04:08.673
One of my favorite stories
in The One-Minute Manager

01:04:08.673 --> 01:04:09.743
is he talks about,
did you ever wonder

01:04:09.743 --> 01:04:12.674
how they got the killer whales
to jump through the hoop?

01:04:12.674 --> 01:04:15.233
If they did it like
modern American office managers,

01:04:15.233 --> 01:04:16.682
they would yell
at the killer whale,

01:04:16.682 --> 01:04:18.256
“Jump through the hoop!”

01:04:18.256 --> 01:04:20.430
And every time the killer whale
didn't jump through the hoop,

01:04:20.430 --> 01:04:21.509
they’d hit it with a stick.

01:04:21.509 --> 01:04:23.442
[audience laughs]

01:04:23.442 --> 01:04:23.715
Right?

01:04:23.715 --> 01:04:26.228
I mean, this is how we train people
in the office place.

01:04:26.228 --> 01:04:27.774
Read the book if you want
to see how they actually do it,

01:04:27.774 --> 01:04:29.657
because I’m curious.

01:04:29.657 --> 01:04:32.404
I know now, but it’s really cool
how they get them to do it.

01:04:32.404 --> 01:04:34.062
So reinforce behavior
you want repeated.

01:04:34.062 --> 01:04:35.861
When people do things
that you like,

01:04:37.317 --> 01:04:37.567
praise them
and thank them.

01:04:37.567 --> 01:04:40.160
That’s worth more than any amount
of monetary reward,

01:04:40.160 --> 01:04:41.495
or a little plaque.

01:04:41.495 --> 01:04:43.999
People really like
to just be told straight up,

01:04:43.999 --> 01:04:47.065
“Thank you, I really appreciate
that you did a good job.”

01:04:47.065 --> 01:04:48.166
The other thing is that

01:04:48.166 --> 01:04:49.727
if you don't want things
delegated back up to you,

01:04:49.727 --> 01:04:51.152
don’t learn how to do them!

01:04:51.152 --> 01:04:52.620
I take great pride,
I don’t know how

01:04:52.620 --> 01:04:54.714
to run photocopiers
and fax machines,

01:04:54.714 --> 01:04:56.899
and I ain’t going to learn!

01:04:56.899 --> 01:05:00.535
That’s certainly not how
I’m going to spend my remaining time.

01:05:00.535 --> 01:05:02.724
Meetings: the average executive
spends more than 40%

01:05:02.724 --> 01:05:03.930
of his or her time
in a meeting.

01:05:03.930 --> 01:05:05.663
My advice is
when you have a meeting,

01:05:05.663 --> 01:05:07.713
lock the door,
unplug the phone,

01:05:07.713 --> 01:05:10.340
and take everybody’s
BlackBerrys.

01:05:10.340 --> 01:05:12.386
Because if it’s worth our time,
it’s worth our time.

01:05:12.386 --> 01:05:15.247
If it’s not worth our time,
it’s not worth our time,

01:05:15.247 --> 01:05:17.097
but I don’t have any interest
in being in a room

01:05:17.097 --> 01:05:20.248
with six people
who are all half there.

01:05:20.248 --> 01:05:21.943
Because that’s very inefficient.

01:05:21.943 --> 01:05:24.108
I don’t think meetings
should ever last more than an hour,

01:05:24.108 --> 01:05:25.593
with very rare exception.

01:05:25.593 --> 01:05:26.883
And I think that
there should be an agenda.

01:05:26.883 --> 01:05:28.646
I got into a great habit a couple
of years ago

01:05:28.646 --> 01:05:29.449
when I just started saying,

01:05:29.449 --> 01:05:31.953
“If there’s no agenda,
I won’t attend.”

01:05:31.953 --> 01:05:32.857
And the great thing
about that is

01:05:32.857 --> 01:05:34.634
whoever called the meeting
had to actually think

01:05:34.634 --> 01:05:37.162
before they showed up
about why we were supposed to be there,

01:05:37.162 --> 01:05:38.313
because otherwise it’s like,
“Well, why are we here?”

01:05:38.313 --> 01:05:40.949
Because we had a meeting,
it’s on all of our calendars.

01:05:40.949 --> 01:05:43.329
It’s just a classic Dilbert moment.

01:05:43.329 --> 01:05:46.251
So, most important thing
about meetings,

01:05:46.251 --> 01:05:49.040
and again, this comes
from The One-Minute Manager,

01:05:49.040 --> 01:05:50.082
one-minute minutes.

01:05:50.082 --> 01:05:51.223
At the end of the meeting,

01:05:51.223 --> 01:05:53.510
somebody has to have been
assigned the scribe,

01:05:53.510 --> 01:05:57.570
and they write down in one minute
or less what decisions got made,

01:05:57.570 --> 01:06:00.021
and who is responsible
for what by when.

01:06:00.021 --> 01:06:01.192
And then email it out
to everybody,

01:06:01.192 --> 01:06:02.387
because if you don’t do that,

01:06:02.387 --> 01:06:04.212
you have your next weekly meeting 
next week,

01:06:04.212 --> 01:06:07.136
and you all sitting around going,
“Now who was going to do this?”

NOTE Paragraph

01:06:07.136 --> 01:06:08.235
It’s very inefficient.

01:06:08.235 --> 01:06:11.765
And it’s so fast
to just do these one-minute minutes.

01:06:11.765 --> 01:06:13.349
Let’s talk about technology.

01:06:13.349 --> 01:06:14.580
People—you know,
I’m a computer scientist,

01:06:14.580 --> 01:06:17.785
so they say which gadget
will make me more time efficient?

01:06:17.785 --> 01:06:20.551
And I don’t have an answer for that,
it’s all idiosyncratic.

01:06:20.551 --> 01:06:21.981
But I will tell you
that my favorite comment

01:06:21.981 --> 01:06:23.411
about technology comes
from a janitor

01:06:23.411 --> 01:06:25.821
at the University of Central Florida,
who said,

01:06:25.821 --> 01:06:28.916
“Computers are faster,
they just take longer.”

01:06:28.916 --> 01:06:32.347
[audience laughs]

01:06:32.347 --> 01:06:34.578
That’s zen, right there.

01:06:34.578 --> 01:06:36.316
So, that’s another way
of saying,

01:06:36.316 --> 01:06:38.209
only use technology
that’s worth it.

01:06:38.209 --> 01:06:39.327
And worth it is,

01:06:39.327 --> 01:06:41.381
end to end,
did it make me more efficient?

01:06:41.381 --> 01:06:45.479
And that depends on how you work,
and we’re all different.

01:06:45.479 --> 01:06:47.820
And remember
that technology is getting insane.

01:06:47.820 --> 01:06:49.783
I walked into McDonald’s,
and I ordered, you know,

01:06:49.783 --> 01:06:51.232
Happy Meal number 2,
and they said,

01:06:51.232 --> 01:06:53.410
“Would you like a cell phone
with that?”

01:06:53.410 --> 01:06:55.481
[audience laughs]

01:06:55.481 --> 01:06:58.827
I went to the grocery store
to buy 16 slices of american cheese,

01:06:58.827 --> 01:07:02.070
and you get Grolier’s encyclopedia,
so with 16 slices of cheese,

01:07:02.070 --> 01:07:04.496
you get all of man’s knowledge
for free.

01:07:04.496 --> 01:07:10.332
[audience laughs]

01:07:10.332 --> 01:07:13.272
That’s just spooky scary.

01:07:13.272 --> 01:07:16.904
And remember that technology
really has to be something

01:07:16.904 --> 01:07:18.063
that makes your life better.

01:07:18.063 --> 01:07:19.315
You guys may have seen this.

01:07:19.315 --> 01:07:26.809
I just find it very humorous.

01:07:26.809 --> 01:07:28.007
[bang!]

01:07:28.007 --> 01:07:32.784
[audience laughs]

01:07:32.784 --> 01:07:34.531
[bang! bang!]

01:07:34.531 --> 01:07:39.539
[bang! bang! bang! crash!]

01:07:39.539 --> 01:07:45.398
So, only use technology
that helps you.

01:07:45.398 --> 01:07:47.071
I find that technology is good

01:07:47.071 --> 01:07:49.663
if it allows you to do things
in a new way.

01:07:49.663 --> 01:07:52.282
Just doing the same things
a little bit faster

01:07:52.282 --> 01:07:53.293
with technology is nice,

01:07:53.293 --> 01:07:55.515
but when technology changes
the work flow….

01:07:55.515 --> 01:07:57.355
So I was carving pumpkins
a few years ago,

01:07:57.355 --> 01:07:58.889
and this is F.M.,
a good friend of mine,

01:07:58.889 --> 01:08:00.531
and I don’t know
if you can see it,

01:08:00.531 --> 01:08:02.389
but down by her right knee
is a pattern,

01:08:02.389 --> 01:08:04.017
and you lay this pattern
over the pumpkin,

01:08:04.017 --> 01:08:05.886
and you get
this little special carving knife,

01:08:05.886 --> 01:08:06.708
and you can,

01:08:06.708 --> 01:08:09.710
instead of these amateurish pumpkins,
like I made,

01:08:09.710 --> 01:08:12.583
you get this sort of
“howling at the moon,”

01:08:12.583 --> 01:08:14.670
And her husband Jeff
and I thought this was really cool,

01:08:14.670 --> 01:08:18.452
but in a sign of a reactionary
burning man kind of a moment,

01:08:18.452 --> 01:08:21.999
we grabbed our power drills,

01:08:21.999 --> 01:08:25.538
and we carved our pumpkins
that way!

01:08:25.538 --> 01:08:27.856
Use technology
if it changes the way you do things,

01:08:27.856 --> 01:08:28.833
because you get—

01:08:28.833 --> 01:08:31.004
and believe me,
the results of a power drill,

01:08:31.004 --> 01:08:34.284
you get these little—
oh, it’s just gorgeous.

01:08:34.284 --> 01:08:35.351
Let’s talk briefly about email,

01:08:35.351 --> 01:08:37.627
because email is such a large part
of all our lives.

01:08:37.627 --> 01:08:40.032
First off,
don’t ever delete any of it.

01:08:40.032 --> 01:08:40.827
Save all of it.

01:08:40.827 --> 01:08:42.868
I started doing this
ten years ago.

01:08:42.878 --> 01:08:45.666
An interesting thing
is that all the historians talk about,

01:08:45.666 --> 01:08:49.559
“Oh, it’s such a shame
we don’t have people keeping diaries,

01:08:49.559 --> 01:08:50.486
“we don’t know
what their day is like.”

01:08:50.486 --> 01:08:52.714
I’m like,
“You fools!”

01:08:52.714 --> 01:08:55.744
We have just entered a society,
circa about ten years ago,

01:08:55.744 --> 01:08:57.083
and I’m a living example of it,

01:08:57.083 --> 01:08:59.503
every piece
of my correspondence

01:08:59.503 --> 01:09:02.774
is not only saved,
it’s searchable.

01:09:02.774 --> 01:09:05.803
So if I were, you know,
a person of merit, a historian—

01:09:05.803 --> 01:09:07.527
which is a BIG stretch—

01:09:07.527 --> 01:09:11.140
a historian could actually look
at my patterns of communication

01:09:11.140 --> 01:09:13.760
much better
than the most compulsive diary writer.

01:09:13.760 --> 01:09:17.119
Now we could talk about whether
or not I’m being introspective,

01:09:17.119 --> 01:09:18.462
that’s about content,

01:09:18.462 --> 01:09:21.283
but in terms of quantity,
it’s great.

01:09:21.283 --> 01:09:22.584
And of course,
you can save your email,

01:09:22.584 --> 01:09:24.336
and you can search it,
and it’s just wonderful

01:09:24.336 --> 01:09:26.693
because you can pull back stuff
from five years ago.

01:09:26.693 --> 01:09:29.784
So never delete your email.

01:09:29.784 --> 01:09:31.428
Here’s a big email trick.

01:09:31.428 --> 01:09:35.833
If you want to get something done,
do not send the email to five people.

01:09:35.833 --> 01:09:38.018
“Hey, could somebody
take care of this?”

01:09:38.018 --> 01:09:39.487
Every one
of those five recipients

01:09:39.487 --> 01:09:41.577
is thinking one,
and only one thing,

01:09:41.577 --> 01:09:43.019
“I deleted it first!”

01:09:43.019 --> 01:09:46.201
[audience laughs]

01:09:46.201 --> 01:09:49.584
“So, the other four people,
will take care of this, I don’t have to.”

01:09:49.584 --> 01:09:51.809
So you send it to one,
and only one, person.

01:09:51.809 --> 01:09:53.267
But if you really want it
to be done,

01:09:53.267 --> 01:09:55.348
send it to somebody who can do it,
tell them—

01:09:55.348 --> 01:09:56.485
again, Alf Weaver—

01:09:56.485 --> 01:09:58.457
specific things,
specific time,

01:09:58.457 --> 01:10:01.200
and then the penalty
can be more subtle,

01:10:01.200 --> 01:10:04.424
like you just CC their boss.

01:10:04.424 --> 01:10:06.028
All right.

01:10:06.028 --> 01:10:07.694
And the other thing--
and I’ve had to teach—

01:10:07.694 --> 01:10:10.399
I had this conversation
with every student in my entire career,

01:10:10.399 --> 01:10:11.651
because they send email,

01:10:11.651 --> 01:10:14.105
and then they just wait
for the person to respond.

01:10:14.105 --> 01:10:17.233
I say, “If the person has not responded
within 48 hours,

01:10:17.233 --> 01:10:18.751
"it’s okay to nag them.

01:10:18.751 --> 01:10:20.733
“And the reason it’s okay
to nag them,

01:10:20.733 --> 01:10:22.865
“because if they haven’t responded
within 48 hours,

01:10:22.865 --> 01:10:27.217
“the chance that they are ever
going to respond is zero.”

01:10:27.217 --> 01:10:29.658
I mean, maybe not zero,
maybe that small.

01:10:29.658 --> 01:10:30.522
But in my experience,

01:10:30.522 --> 01:10:32.739
if people don’t respond to you
within 48 hours,

01:10:32.739 --> 01:10:34.457
you’ll probably never hear
from them,

01:10:34.457 --> 01:10:37.673
so just start nagging ‘em.

01:10:37.673 --> 01:10:41.527
Let’s talk about the care
and feeding of bosses.

01:10:41.527 --> 01:10:44.943
There’s a phrase,
“Managing from beneath.”

01:10:44.943 --> 01:10:46.626
Because we all know
that all bosses are idiots.

01:10:46.626 --> 01:10:48.085
That’s certainly the expression,
you know

01:10:48.085 --> 01:10:50.985
the sense I’ve gotten
from everybody who has a boss.

01:10:50.985 --> 01:10:52.658
When you have a boss,
write things down,

01:10:52.658 --> 01:10:54.317
do that clear communication thing.

01:10:54.317 --> 01:10:56.110
Ask them,
“When is our next meeting?

01:10:56.110 --> 01:10:58.084
“What do you want me
to have done by then?”,

01:10:58.084 --> 01:10:59.905
so you’ve got sort of a contract.

01:10:59.905 --> 01:11:01.961
“Who can I turn to for help,
besides you,

01:11:01.961 --> 01:11:03.550
“because I don’t want
to bother you.”

01:11:03.550 --> 01:11:07.573
And remember, your boss wants a result,
not an excuse.

01:11:07.573 --> 01:11:09.080
General advice
on vacations.

01:11:09.080 --> 01:11:11.244
Phone callers
should get two options:

01:11:11.244 --> 01:11:13.029
the first one is,
when you’re on vacation,

01:11:13.029 --> 01:11:16.062
the first option is,
“Contact John Smith, not me.

01:11:16.062 --> 01:11:16.752
“I’m out of the office,

01:11:16.752 --> 01:11:18.897
“but this person can help you now
if it’s urgent.”

01:11:18.897 --> 01:11:21.363
Or, “Call back when I’m back.”

01:11:21.363 --> 01:11:22.416
Why? Because you don’t want
to come back

01:11:22.416 --> 01:11:25.101
to a long sequence
of phone messages saying, you know,

01:11:25.101 --> 01:11:26.680
“Hey Randy, can you help me
get care of this?”

01:11:26.680 --> 01:11:27.770
And you call them back,
and you know,

01:11:27.770 --> 01:11:28.775
you’ve been on vacation
for a week,

01:11:28.775 --> 01:11:30.431
they already solved it.

01:11:30.431 --> 01:11:32.268
And the other thing
is that it's not a vacation

01:11:32.268 --> 01:11:34.959
if you’re reading email.

01:11:34.959 --> 01:11:35.543
All right.

01:11:35.543 --> 01:11:36.424
Trust me on that.

01:11:36.424 --> 01:11:39.026
It’s not a vacation
if you’re reading email.

01:11:39.026 --> 01:11:40.748
I can stay in my house
all weekend,

01:11:40.748 --> 01:11:42.810
and not read email,
and it’s a vacation.

01:11:42.810 --> 01:11:45.312
But if I go to Hawaii,
and I’ve got a BlackBerry,

01:11:45.312 --> 01:11:47.819
I’m not on vacation.

01:11:47.819 --> 01:11:48.541
And I know this,

01:11:48.541 --> 01:11:50.277
when I got married,
my wife and I got married,

01:11:50.277 --> 01:11:52.651
we left our reception
in a hot air balloon,

01:11:52.651 --> 01:11:55.690
which did not have wireless
on it.

01:11:55.690 --> 01:11:59.267
And dean Jim Morris at the time—

01:11:59.267 --> 01:12:00.327
we took a month-long honeymoon,

01:12:00.327 --> 01:12:03.592
which was great,
but not really long enough.

01:12:03.592 --> 01:12:05.131
And Jim Morris said—
I said,

01:12:05.131 --> 01:12:06.089
“I’m not going to be reachable
for a month.”

01:12:06.089 --> 01:12:07.511
And Jim said,
“That’s not acceptable.”

01:12:07.511 --> 01:12:09.203
I said, “What do you mean,
‘it’s not acceptable’?”

01:12:09.203 --> 01:12:12.897
He said “Well, I pay you,
so that’s the ‘not acceptable’ part.”

01:12:12.897 --> 01:12:15.819
And I said, “Okay.
So there has to be a way to reach me?”

01:12:15.819 --> 01:12:16.448
And he said, “Yes.”

01:12:16.448 --> 01:12:18.268
I said,
“Okay, so you call my office,

01:12:18.268 --> 01:12:19.766
“there would be
a phone answering machine message

01:12:19.766 --> 01:12:22.196
“that said, ‘Hi, this is Randy.
I’m on vacation.

01:12:22.196 --> 01:12:24.484
“I waited until 39 to get married.

01:12:24.484 --> 01:12:27.064
“And so we’re going
for a month.

01:12:27.064 --> 01:12:28.711
“And, I hope you don’t have a problem
with that.

01:12:28.711 --> 01:12:30.712
“But apparently my boss does,

01:12:30.712 --> 01:12:32.317
"so he says I have to be reachable.

01:12:32.317 --> 01:12:33.687
“So here’s how
you can reach me.

01:12:33.687 --> 01:12:36.400
“My wife’s parents live
in blah-blah-blah town,

01:12:36.400 --> 01:12:37.290
“here’s their names.

01:12:37.290 --> 01:12:39.753
“If you call directory assistance,
you can get their number.”

01:12:39.753 --> 01:12:40.946
[audience laughs]

01:12:40.946 --> 01:12:44.237
“And then if you can convince
my new in-laws

01:12:44.237 --> 01:12:46.909
“that your emergency
merits interrupting

01:12:46.909 --> 01:12:50.060
“their only daughter’s honeymoon,
they have our number.”

01:12:50.060 --> 01:12:54.313
[audience laughs]

01:12:54.313 --> 01:12:55.660
Here’s some
of my most important advice.

01:12:55.660 --> 01:12:57.246
We close with some
of the best stuff.

01:12:57.246 --> 01:12:58.550
Kill your television.

01:12:58.550 --> 01:13:00.467
People who study this
say the average American

01:13:00.467 --> 01:13:05.255
watches 28 hours
of television a week.

01:13:05.255 --> 01:13:08.485
That’s almost 3/4
of a full-time job.

01:13:08.485 --> 01:13:12.082
So, if you really want
to get time back in your life,

01:13:12.082 --> 01:13:13.228
you don’t have to kill
your television,

01:13:13.228 --> 01:13:15.625
but just unplug it,
put it in the closet,

01:13:15.625 --> 01:13:17.461
and put a blanket over it.

01:13:17.461 --> 01:13:20.908
See how long it takes you
to get the shakes.

01:13:20.908 --> 01:13:21.988
Turn money into time,

01:13:21.988 --> 01:13:23.879
especially junior faculty members

01:13:23.879 --> 01:13:26.068
or other people
who have young children,

01:13:26.068 --> 01:13:29.986
this is the time to throw money
at the problem.

01:13:29.986 --> 01:13:31.757
Hire somebody else
to mow your lawn,

01:13:31.757 --> 01:13:35.242
do whatever you need to do,
but exchange time for—

01:13:35.242 --> 01:13:37.835
exchange money for time
at every opportunity

01:13:37.835 --> 01:13:39.277
when you
have very young children,

01:13:39.277 --> 01:13:40.970
because you just don’t have
enough time.

01:13:40.970 --> 01:13:42.354
It’s just too hard.

01:13:42.354 --> 01:13:43.888
And the other thing is,
eat and sleep and exercise.

01:13:43.888 --> 01:13:48.030
Above all else,
you always have time to sleep.

01:13:48.030 --> 01:13:52.451
Because if you get sleep-deprived,
everything falls apart.

01:13:52.451 --> 01:13:54.524
Other general advice,
never break a promise,

01:13:54.524 --> 01:13:56.100
but renegotiate them
if need be.

01:13:56.100 --> 01:13:58.347
If you’ve said,
“I'll have this done by Tuesday at noon,

01:13:58.347 --> 01:14:01.386
“you can call the person on Friday
and say I’m still good to my word,

01:14:01.386 --> 01:14:03.072
“but I’m really jacked up.

01:14:03.072 --> 01:14:04.908
“And I’m going to have to stay
and work over the weekend

01:14:04.908 --> 01:14:07.197
“to meet that Tuesday deadline.

01:14:07.197 --> 01:14:08.690
“Is there anyway there’s any slack
on that?”

01:14:08.690 --> 01:14:11.015
And a lot of times they’ll say,
“Thursday’s fine,

01:14:11.015 --> 01:14:14.568
“because I really needed it Thursday,
but I told you Tuesday.”

01:14:14.568 --> 01:14:15.822
Or they’ll say,
”Oh, it’s no problem,

01:14:15.822 --> 01:14:17.197
“I can have Jim do that
instead of you.

01:14:17.197 --> 01:14:18.339
“He has some free time.”

01:14:18.339 --> 01:14:20.143
Now if they say,
"No, there’s no wiggle room here”,

01:14:20.143 --> 01:14:22.582
you say, “That’s okay, no problem,
I’m still good to my word.”

01:14:22.582 --> 01:14:23.460
All right.

01:14:23.460 --> 01:14:24.596
If you haven’t got time
to do it right,

01:14:24.596 --> 01:14:27.407
you don’t have time
to do it wrong, that’s self-evident.

01:14:27.407 --> 01:14:29.323
Recognize that most things
are pass-fail.

01:14:29.323 --> 01:14:30.972
People spend way too much time—

01:14:30.972 --> 01:14:33.924
there’s a reason we have the expression,
“good enough.”

01:14:33.924 --> 01:14:36.953
It’s because the thing
is "good enough."

01:14:36.953 --> 01:14:38.767
And the last thing is,
get feedbacks loops.

01:14:38.767 --> 01:14:41.330
Ask people in confidence.

01:14:41.330 --> 01:14:43.435
Because if someone will tell you

01:14:43.435 --> 01:14:45.502
what you’re doing right
or doing wrong,

01:14:45.502 --> 01:14:47.556
and they’ll tell you the truth,

01:14:47.556 --> 01:14:51.286
that’s worth more than anything else
in the whole world.

01:14:51.286 --> 01:14:52.718
I recommend these two books.

01:14:52.718 --> 01:14:54.660
Time management
is not a late-breaking field.

01:14:54.660 --> 01:14:59.655
Both these books are old books,
but I recommend them highly.

01:14:59.655 --> 01:15:03.606
And it’s traditional to close a talk
like this with,

01:15:03.606 --> 01:15:04.900
“Here’s the things I told you about.”

01:15:04.900 --> 01:15:06.596
I’m not going to tell you the things
I told you about.

01:15:06.596 --> 01:15:07.463
I’m going to tell you the things

01:15:07.463 --> 01:15:10.968
that you can operationally go out
and do today.

01:15:10.968 --> 01:15:13.798
One, if you don’t have a DayTimer
or personal digital assistant,

01:15:13.798 --> 01:15:15.585
you know,
a PalmPilot or whatever,

01:15:15.585 --> 01:15:17.133
go get one.

01:15:17.133 --> 01:15:18.808
Put your to-do list
in priority order,

01:15:18.808 --> 01:15:20.789
you can use the four quadrants,
or do what I do,

01:15:20.789 --> 01:15:24.171
just put a number zero to nine,
but sort it by priority.

01:15:24.171 --> 01:15:25.262
And do a time journal.

01:15:25.262 --> 01:15:26.677
If that’s really
too much effort,

01:15:26.677 --> 01:15:30.415
just count the number
of hours you watch of television

01:15:30.415 --> 01:15:32.001
in the next week.

01:15:32.001 --> 01:15:34.040
That’s my gift to you.

01:15:34.040 --> 01:15:35.488
[audience laughs]

01:15:35.488 --> 01:15:36.448
And the last thing is,

01:15:36.448 --> 01:15:40.600
once you’ve got your DayTimer,
make a note for 30 days from today—

01:15:40.600 --> 01:15:43.194
it’s okay if that one goes “ding”
to remind you—

01:15:43.194 --> 01:15:46.181
and revisit this talk in 30 days,
it’ll be up on the web,

01:15:46.181 --> 01:15:47.354
courtesy of Gabe.

01:15:47.354 --> 01:15:51.012
And ask,
"What have I changed?"

01:15:51.012 --> 01:15:53.234
And if I haven’t changed anything,

01:15:53.234 --> 01:15:55.655
then we still had
a pleasant hour together.

01:15:55.655 --> 01:15:57.340
If you have changed things,

01:15:57.340 --> 01:16:00.055
then you’ll probably
have a lot more time

01:16:00.055 --> 01:16:03.585
to spend
with the ones you love.

01:16:03.585 --> 01:16:05.177
And that’s important.

01:16:05.177 --> 01:16:07.290
Time is all we have.

01:16:07.290 --> 01:16:09.778
And you may find one day,

01:16:09.778 --> 01:16:12.333
you have less than you think.

01:16:12.333 --> 01:16:13.355
Thank you.

01:16:13.355 --> 01:16:17.675
[audience applauds]