This thing called LIFE!

I thought 2010 was THE year. So far, it's not.

In my earlier post, I have expressed how much emotional baggage I have because of my friends' family members have passed on. Back then, I just hoped that that was the last of it... but I was wrong. I'm not going to tell you directly because it's not my place to say. and don't worry, (really!) the news doesn't directly involve me or my family members.

Randy Pausch & his oldest son

I started reading a book for my English class. At first, I thought that it was going to be a boring business inspired book like those like call out "buy my book and i'll make you rich" type of thing. "Don't judge a book by its' cover" actually really applied to the book I'm reading.

It was written by a professor, Randy Pausch" who was diagnosed with cancer a few years back. Since his diagnosis, his university asked him to lecture his last lecture (in which, the book is also called). It's a really inspiring book that I found very profound and dear to my heart. He talks about learned lessons that he endured throughout his life and the results that became from it.

Since battling cancer, he knew a few tips here and there about time and how it is so precious. I hope you read the below section (in which I typed myself!) and hope you pick up this book and read it yourself.

All of my life, I've been very aware that time is finite. I admit I'm overly logical about a lot of things, but I firmly believe hat one of my most appropriate fixations hs been to manage time well. I've railed about time management to my students. I've given lectures on it. And because I've gotten so good at it, I really do feel I was able to pack a whole lot of life into the shortened lifespace I've been handed.

Here's what I know:

Time must be explicitly managed, like money. My students wuld sometimes roll their eyes at what they called "Pauschism" but I stand by them. Urging students not to invest time on irrelevant details, I'd tell them: "It doesn't matter how well you polish the underside of the banister."

You can always change your plan, but only if you have one. I'm a big believe in to-do lists. It helps us break life into small steps. I once put "get tenure" on my to-do list. That was naive. he most useful to-do list breaks tasks into small steps. It's like when I encourage Logan (his son) to clean his room by picking up one thing at a time.

Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things? You may have causes, goals, interests. Are they even worth persuing? I've long held on to a clipping from a newspaper in Roanoke, Virginia. It featured a photo of a pregnant woman who hd lodged a protest against a local construction site. She worried that the sound of jackhammers was injuring her unborn child. But get this: In the photo, the woman is holding a cigarette. If she cared about her unborn child, the time she spent railing against jackhammers would have been better spent putting out that cigarette.

Develop a good filing system. When I told Jai (his wife) I wanted to have a place in the house where we could file everything in alphabetical order, she said I sounded way too compulsive for her tastes. I told her: "Filing in alphabetical order is better than running around and saying, 'I know it was blue and I know I was eating something when I had it.' "

Rethink the telephone. I live in a culture where I spend a lot of time on hold, listening to "Your call is very important to us." Yeah, right. That's like a guy slapping a girl in the face on a first date and saying, "I actually do love you." Yet that's how modern costumer service works. And I reject that. I make sure I am never on hold with a phone against my ear. I always use a speaker phone so my hands are free to do something else.

... Over the years I've picked up other phone tips. Want to quickly dispatch telemarketers? Hang up while youi're doing the talking and they're listening. They'll assume your connection went bad nd they'll move on to their next call...

Delegate: As a professor, I learned early on that I could trust bright, nineteen-year-old students with the keys to my kingdom, and most of the time, they were responsible and impressive. It's never too early to delegate. My daughter, Chloe, is just eighteen months old, but two of my favorite photos are of her in my arms. In the first, I'm giving her a bottle. In the second, I've delegated the task to her. She looks satisfied. Me, too.

Take a time out. It's not a real vacation if you're reading email or calling in for messages. When Jai and I went on our honeymoon, we wanted to be left alone. My boss, however, felt I needed to provide a way for people to contact me. So I came up with the perfect phone message:

"Hi, this is Randy. I waited until I was thirty-nine to get married so my wife and I are going away for a month. I hope you don't have problem with that, but my boss does. Apparently, I have to be reachable." I then gave the names of Jai's parents and the city where they live. "If you call directory assistance, you can get their number. And then, if you can convince my new in-laws that your emergency merits interrupting their only daughter's honeymoon, they have our number."

We didn't get any calls.

Some of my time management tips are dead-on serious and some are a bit tongue-in-cheek. But I believe all of them are worth considering

Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think.

I haven't finished the book yet but I can tell you that it's a very interesting perspective of life.

Pausch passed on on July 25th, 2008. He leaves behind his wife and three young children.