All About Time

This is the point in the year when many of us in the academic community begin to think really seriously about time. When “the summer” began last May, there seemed to be plenty of time to complete our projects, however optimistic or unrealistic our expectations. Now with 5 days to go before our faculty orientation time doesn’t look the same. My project list is longer than it was when I started, and my conversations on the path with others suggest that I’m not alone.

This summer, these final reflections on my time and how I invested it have been inescapably colored by the death of Randy Pausch, a man I never met but who I feel I know somewhat through the miracle of the internet. Last night I watched parts the “nuts and bolts” presentation on time management he did at UVA and thought about what a gift it was to be reminded of the importance of the individual decisions we make every day about meetings, phone calls, email and the other things that shape our lives.

We’re doing an experiment in the next month to track how those of us in the Academic Information Services group spend actually spend invest our time. Just a few days into the project, it’s already clear how extraordinarily difficult it is to try to focus energy and time on things that are important. Over the years, we’ve filled our lives with actions and decisions and habits that probably need to change to deal with the realities of our work lives now. Change of this magnitude is always tough, but letting others determine the directions of our lives is tougher in the long term.