Presented to the Graduate Student Colloquium at UL-Lafayette, repeat of presentation from 2008

1. Time Management
How I Learned to Enjoy Having Too Much To Do
Adam Lewis
February 25, 2011

2. Manage Time... Dude, you’re crazy!
You can't manage time, it just is. So "time management" is a mislabeled problem, which
has little chance of being an effective approach. What you really manage is your activity
during time, and defining outcomes and physical actions required is the core process
required to manage what you do. - David Allen
• Time isn’t a quantity that can be managed, it’s a resource of which you have a
limited supply
• You really manage the things that consume time

3. We’re all individuals OR I’m a INTJ, what are you?
• How one works is a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
reflection is a reflection of Dichotomies
your personality
Extraversion Introversion
Sensation iNtuition
• Each person will have a Thinking Feeling
unique workflow
Judging Perceiving
• No magic bullet, no set
The Sixteen Types
formula to make you into an ISTJ ISFJ INFJ INTJ
organized person ISTP ISFP INFP INTP
ESTP ESFP ENFP ENTP
ESTJ ESFJ ENFJ ENTJ
• You have to determine your
personal workflow and find
the tools to support it

4. Geeks - a unique subspecies of Homo Sapiens
▪
geeks are often disorganized or have a twisted skein of attention-deficit
issues
▪
geeks love assessing, classifying, and defining the objects in their world
▪
geeks crave actionable items and roll their eyes at “mission statements” and
lofty management patois
▪
geeks like things that work with technology-agnostic and lo-fi tools
▪
geeks like frameworks but tend to ignore rules
▪
geeks are unusually open to change (if it can be demonstrated to work better
than what they’re currently using)
▪
geeks like fixing things on their own terms
▪
geeks have too many projects and lots and lots of stuff
- Merlin Mann, www.43folders.com

5. So, what tools are out for us to use

6. So, what do we do
everyday?
• We do “STUFF”
• LOTS OF “STUFF”
• To the overload point
• So, what is “STUFF”
Stuff is anything that
demands our time and
attention

7. So, what do we do
everyday?
• We do “STUFF”
• LOTS OF “STUFF”
• To the overload point
• So, what is “STUFF”
Stuff is anything that
demands our time and
attention

8. Merlin Mann’s 6 Step Algorithm to Using GTD
1.
Identify all the stuff in your life that isn’t in the
right place (close all open loops)
2.
Get rid of the stuff that isn’t yours or you don’t
need right now
3.
Create a right place that you trust and that
supports your working style and values
4.
Put your stuff in the right place, consistently
5.
Do your stuff in a way that honors your time,
your energy, and the context of any given
moment
6. Iterate and refactor mercilessly

9. Get all of that stuff out of your head
• A experiment:
At the start of your day: write down
the 10 things you want to do today,
assign them a rank based on how
much you DON’T want to do them,
and do them in that order.
• If think it, ink it!
Human memory is notoriously flaky
Write it down

10. Purge all of that
clutter
• Is it something you should be
doing at all?
• Delegate: up and down!
• Do you need do this right now?
• Find some sort of long-term
storage

11. Put your stuff in a place you trust

12. Put things in their place, consistently
• Contexts, projects, and actions
Everything is done in some context
Contexts may have projects and/or actions
Projects: stuff that requires multiple actions

13. Priorities and timing
What is my next action?
What needs to be done first so I can finish some other action?
ABC analysis Eisenhower Method
• Assign priorities What is important is seldom urgent
and what is urgent is seldom
•Do them in that order important.
Important Not Important
Urgent
NOW later
Not Urgent later X

14. Now go and do that stuff
• Manage your lists
• But don’t over manage your
lists
• Review daily
• Answer the question: what
do I do next
• Work the dependencies

15. Merlin Mann’s 6 Step Algorithm to Using GTD
1.
Identify all the stuff in your life that isn’t in the
right place (close all open loops)
2.
Get rid of the stuff that isn’t yours or you don’t
need right now
3.
Create a right place that you trust and that
supports your working style and values
4.
Put your stuff in the right place, consistently
5.
Do your stuff in a way that honors your time,
your energy, and the context of any given
moment
6. Iterate and refactor mercilessly

16. A Sample: How Adam uses GTD
• Contexts • Projects
Dissertation ICSC’08 Logistics
Coursework Paper: MICRO-40
Teaching IEEE Task Management
Development Poster: UCoMS EPSCOR
Personal Paper: OSDI’08
• Meta-lists
@Next actions
@Interesting
@Someday
@Etc.

17. Interruptions
• Life is interrupt driven, graduate school even more so
• Interrupts lead to more STUFF
• Learn how to say “NO”, or at least how say “YES, but with conditions”
• Sometimes you just have to be grumpy and use the baseball bat

18. Distractions
• Learn how to ration your time
• Only read e-mail, surf the web, and respond to IMs at preset times during
the day
• Put your e-mail client, web browser, and IM chat client on a separate
virtual desktop from everything else on your machine
• Take advantage of voice-mail if you have access to it

19. E-Mail: Adopt the “Inbox Zero” philosophy
• Articles of Faith
• Some messages are more equal than others
• Your time is priceless (and wildly limited)
• Less can be so much more
• Lose the guilt
• Lying to yourself doesn’t empty your inbox

20. E-Mail: Inbox Zero - Five cheats
• The template
• The link
• The question
• The “I don’t know”
• The Delete key

21. E-Mail: Inbox Zero - Fail Faster
• Delete, delete, delete
• Delete it now
• E-mail messages are not like fine wines, they do not age well
• ... and if you don’t delete, archive it now

22. E-Mail: Inbox Zero - Do it in dashes
• How often do you need to do these tasks:
Check for new mail?
Scan for urgent, time-critical messages?
Respond to those messages?
Processing what’s left into contexts, projects, and actions?
Respond to accumulated new and non-critical messages?
Administer you mail: moving messages, adjusting filters, preventing spam?
• If you responded “Yes” to any of these, then you’re doomed and there’s
nothing we can do to help you.

23. E-Mail: Inbox Zero - What’s the action?
• Now we get back to thinking about GTD
• Answer the following questions about each e-mail in your inbox
What does this message mean to me and why do I care?
What action, if any, does this message require of me?
What’s the most elegant way to close out this message and the nested
action it contains?

24. E-Mail: Inbox Zero - How to get to zero?
• One word: Cheat
• Create a pending folder
• Move everything in your Inbox to the pending folder
• Triage the pending folder
• Delete, delete, delete
• Apply the 3 questions
• Do it dashes if you must

25. In Conclusion: Get Started
• No need to be fancy
• Remember: self-discipline is
the most difficult to implement
• Turn it into a habit

26. In Conclusion: Keep the right perspective
• Don’t allow what you’re doing in graduate school overwhelm the rest of your
life
• Remember that it isn’t the system that’s important but, rather finding
something that works for you and you use habitually

27. In Conclusion: Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Virtues
1) temperance – eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation,
2) silence – speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation,
3) order – let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time,
4) resolution – resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve,
5) frugality – make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e. waste nothing,
6) industry – lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions,
7) sincerity – use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly,
8) justice – wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty,
9) moderation – avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve,
10) cleanliness – tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothing, or habitation,
11) tranquility – be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable,
12) chastity – rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the
injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation, and
13) humility – imitate Jesus and Socrates.