Randy Pausch Lecture: Time Management

Absolutely. In that same vein, I've gotten a lot out of so many similar videos which are ostensibly about one thing, but to effectively use what they're teaching, you have to start learning/mastering something else entirely. "Indirect learning" is one way to put it, and a term I picked up from Randy Pausch's Last Lecture[0]. I've gained so much from watching that video, as well as his Time Management video[1]. So much so that I rewatch it about once a year, because every time you rewatch something, you're a different person in certain ways, and you often appreciate things much more the more you change and grow as a person. [0] [link] [1] [this video]

Just to put my advice in perspective: I'm an Indian who will possibly be attending (a pretty good) public university this year. I'm the typical HN/reddit geek: started programming when I was 9, know around 9 programming languages, quite some bit of theory, etc. etc. In school in India, I was bored all the time, got mediocre grades, and had donkeys for teachers. Here's what I feel you should do: 1. Challenge yourself So, you've got to choose from these kinds of activities: A: Activities that you enjoy doing B: Activities that *might* impress (say) the college admissions staff I mostly did stuff exclusive to type A; bad idea . Of course, never do anything that comes only within B. Find what comes under the union of the two. You're in America: you don't hunt for opportunities, you are flooded with them. Someone on this thread recommended "taking every AP exam available". Sure, do that: it's really important. But that's not ambitious at all : AP exams cover only about 10% of what Indian entrance examinations do, and you get to use "calculators" and "appendices" (more like textbooks). Do something real , like aspire to be an IMO/IOI/IPhO/IChO/ISEF medalist (if you don't know what those are, shame on you). 2. Manage your time I was absolutely dismal at this. But I've started doing it for a month and it really does wonders: I have stopped procrastinating and started to feel less stressed out. I'd recommend you watch the late Randy Pausch's other lecture ( [this video] ) or read Getting T

"This is the most important slide in the entire talk. So, if you want to leave after this slide, I will not be offended, because it is all downhill from here." [this video] (Timestamped link of the "Time Management" talk by Randy Pausch, which is what the OP PDF is from) That part in the talk is about the "Eisenhower Matrix", popularized by Steven Covey in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", on the importance of prioritizing important, non-urgent tasks over urgent, unimportant tasks. You can read about it here as well, but I haven't seen it put as well as Randy Pausch did in his talk. [link] PS If you haven't seen his "Last Lecture", it's also fantastic. I watch it about once a year to re-center myself, and remember to focus on the truly important things in life. [link]

I would be wary of self improvement programs that charge money. I'm not sure what exactly you've looked into, but there's a lot of information out there for free or cheap. I've spent a decent amount of time reading self-improvement books/blogs, and for me the stuff that made the most impact were things that were tailored to the problems I was having at the time. Here's an overview of what I've read over the years that have helped me to some extent: I Can Do Anything if I Only Knew What it Was: [link] Paul Graham's Essays: [link] How to Win Friends and Influence People: [link] Four Hour Work Week: [link] Randy Pausch, Time Management: [this video] GTD: [link] Steve Pavlina: [link] 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (reading this now): [link] So I would say "it depends" on what you want out of life and where you are now. Self improvement is a life-long task and you will need advice that changes as you progress.

Yay! Good to read validation after trying so many: wikis, org, TheBrain, Freemind, etc. It's like a return to the old .LOG in notepad trick. After a score, I'm came to the same conclusion as the article; plain text just works. I log in vim using ISO 8601 date stamped records in the log format of (priority - datetime stamp - keywords/tag - content) inspired by Randy Pausch [this video] others noticed too: [link] Sorting by date, priority or keyword keeps me on track and helps for quarterly summaries. A simple bash loop runs annually to give me a fresh 365 dashboard of days but inserts are a datetime stamp command - keywords autocompleted - then actual typing the meat of the task/content Because all text is in a single file, vim autocomplete saves typing as I use CamelCase for keywords; vim dict helps too. Caveat: For enjoyment, I still use fountain pens and paper for a running top 3 priority and scribbling offline. Backup interop is via TiddlyWiki for reference archive and sync with a plain text Zettelkasten (heavy on vim gf, Rg, FZF and jq for TiddlyWiki json export) Plain text is built to last.