The semester is off and running. The opening of the Paulsen Center classrooms went very well from an IT perspective. This was no small feat. During my time at other universities, the start of the semester (without a major building opening) was always difficult. It was not “would we have a major failure,” but “which major failure will we deal with?” Technology has improved over the years, but your hard work, dedication, and talent are the key. The coordination between NYU IT and school IT departments is a great example of what we can accomplish when we work together.
We are fortunate to be at NYU. Our university is in good shape and continually getting better. We have opportunities to help NYU improve even faster. I’m very happy to be at NYU and I hope you are too.
Monthly, I hold “Ask Me Anything” sessions for the NYU IT department. At the last session, the question of time management came up. We are all busy, and so I thought I’d share my perspective on how I manage my time. My perspective is probably a little different from yours in that I have more autonomy, and spend more time on strategic issues than you do, but still I hope these are useful.
First, it is important to prioritize so that you get the important things done, and done right. This means that you have to know what your most valuable contributions are. You may have heard of the Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule ~ 20% of the things you do provide 80% of the value. Identify the 20% and put most of your time into those. To do this well, you have to understand NYU and your school or unit’s goals, and how you contribute to those. Talk to your leader to help you understand. If you can’t get to something, make sure it is part of the 80%.
You can’t manage your time on the fly, you have to plan. I personally plan my day first thing in the morning. My plan doesn’t always survive the day, but the planning is invaluable. I also plan my weeks and months. When I think about long-term or big-picture things, I find that it’s helpful to not be at my desk where the latest email can derail my thoughts. I try to take a 20-minute walk at lunchtime and use that time to think.
There are lots of techniques and tools to help manage time. The things that helped me the most over my career are understanding what really matters and planning my time to accomplish the most important tasks.One of the things you can do with your time is volunteer for HackNYU. NYU IT has a long history of collaborating with the student organizers as support, special session presenters, and judges—as well as mentors, making ourselves and our technical expertise available to the hundreds of student participants. Nothing can quite prepare you for the 48 hours that is HackNYU, but you can get a taste by reading about last year’s winners and student organizers.