Results for “"time management"” 23 found
My email to Ben Casnocha
He's totally ignoring the market data. Do law partners and top investment bankers multitask?
Yes.
I won't quite write "end of story" but…
Or look at the top people at [top tech conferences]. How many of them check their iPhones all the time, etc.
Lots of them.
Of course top CEOs don't multitask all the time, they multitask selectively, combined with periods of extreme focus. Still, I would say that multitasking is passing the market test. That point does not receive nearly enough attention and oddly it is usually not mentioned in the major polemics against multitasking. It's one thing to think that a seventeen-year-old teenager will multitask too much; it's another thing to make the same claim about an extremely valuable executive, surrounded by assistants, time management specialists, and so on.
MR vocabulary guide
1. “Self-recommending”: the very nature of the authors and project suggest it will be good or very good. This also often (but not always) means I haven’t read it yet. I am reluctant to recommend *anything* I haven’t read, but I am signaling it is very likely recommendation-worthy and I wish to let you know about it sooner rather than later.
2. An “Assorted link” that ends with a question mark: Worth thinking about, but I wish to distance myself from the conclusion and the methods of the study, without being contrary per se.
3. Hansonian: of, or relating to Robin Hanson.
4. The Jacksonian mode of discourse. I am opposed to this. Political and economic pamphlets in the Jacksonian era were excessively polemical and sometimes the Jacksonian mode is still used today, in 2009, believe it or not.
5. Wunderkind: Take the average age of that person’s relevant peers. If said person is either under twenty or less than half that average, that person may qualify for “Wunderkind” status.
6. Markets in everything: Some of these are celebratory but many of these are sad or tragic. Usually I am trying to get you to think about — as a philosophical question — why the market exists at all and not whether it should be legal.
7. Tyrone is my brother and alter-ego who believes the opposite of what Tyler believes. Trudie offers personal advice. Neither has good time management skills and thus they don’t write very much these days.
8. “Shout it from the rooftops”: What to do with wordy, obscure truths which the world badly needs to learn.
What have I left out?
A superb post on exchange rates
Here, by Menzie Chinn.
And here you can read Bob Solow on Greg Clark for $3. Here are Solow’s tips for time management, interesting but obviously not written by a member of the email generation.
How to read fast
I am unfamiliar with speed reading techniques, so I cannot evaluate them.
The best way to read quickly is to read lots. And lots. And to have started a long time ago. Then maybe you know what is coming in the current book. Reading quickly is often, in a margin-relevant way, close to not reading much at all.
Note that when you add up the time costs of reading lots, quick readers don’t consume information as efficiently as you might think. They’ve chosen a path with high upfront costs and low marginal costs. "It took me 44 years to read this book" is not a bad answer to many questions about reading speed.
Another way to read quickly is to cut bait on the losers. I start ten or so books for every one I finish. I don’t mind disliking a book, and I never regret having picked it up and started it. I am ruthless in my discards.
Fairfax and Arlington counties have wonderful public library systems, and I go about five times a week to one branch or another. Usually I scan the New Books shelf and look at nothing else. I can go shopping at the best store in the world, almost any day, for free.
I am both interested and compulsive. How can I let that book go unread or at least unsampled? I can’t.
Virtually every Tuesday I visit the New Books table at Borders. Tuesday is when most new books arrive. Who knows what might be there? How can I let that New Books table go unvisited? I can’t. About half the time I buy something, but I always walk away happy.
Here is another reading tip: do less of other activities.
Blogging hasn’t hurt my writing, it has helped by non-fiction reading, but I read fewer novels. That is the biggest intellectual opportunity cost of MR, though for the last month I’ve made a concerted effort to read more fiction. But it is not like the old days when I would set aside two months to work through The Inferno, Aeneid, and the like, with multiple secondary sources and multiple translations at hand. I no longer have the time or the mood, and I miss this.
Here are two earlier posts on time management.
Addendum: Jane Galt comments. And here is Daniel Akst.
The addict speaks (Ec 10 is over)
Lately, I have been spending some of my time writing this blog, which
started as a by-product of teaching ec 10, the principles class at
Harvard. I am still trying to figure out if this is a good use of my
time or not. On the one hand, this feels like providing a public good.
(Perhaps at a low cost: some of the time I spend on it has come from
watching reruns of Law and Order.) On the other hand, at times writing
this blog feels like being hooked on crack.
The real question is whether the addict realized this before his readers realized it about him. By the way, here are the addict’s tips on time management. (I disagree on travel, which I consider to be the best way of learning things.) Here is the addict linking to advice on getting through graduate school.
Has the addict figured out the biggest benefit of blogging, or is he just being coy?
We welcome the addict to a more lasting presence in the blogosphere.
Addendum: He also points our attention to economics videos.
Simple advice for academic publishing
Last week I gave a talk on career and publishing advice to a cross-disciplinary audience of graduate students. Here were my major points:
1. You can improve your time management. Do you want to or not?
2. Get something done every day. Few academics fail from not getting enough done each day. Many fail from living many days with zero output.
3. Figure out what is your core required achievement at this point in time — writing, building a data set, whatever — and do it first thing in the day no matter what. I am not the kind of cultural relativist who thinks that many people work best late at night.
4. Buy a book of stamps and use it. You would be amazed how many people write pieces but never submit and thus never learn how to publish.
5. The returns to quality are higher than you think, and they are rising rapidly. Lower-tier journals and presses are becoming worth less and less. Often it is the author certifying the lower-tier journal, rather than vice versa.
6. If you get careless, sloppy, or downright outrageous referee reports, it is probably your fault. You didn’t give the editor or referees enough incentive to care about your piece. So respond to such reports constructively with a plan for self-improvement, don’t blame the messenger, even when the messenger stinks. Your piece probably stinks too.
7. Start now. Recall the tombstone epitaph "It is later than you think." Darth Sidious got this one right.
8. Care about what you are doing. This is ultimately your best ally.
Here is a good article on academic book publishing and how it is changing.
Starting out as a Professor
Alex and Tyler like to post advice to graduate students (click here), which is usually on the mark. Here are some reflections from someone who has just finished the first year as a professor. I hope non-academic readers will enjoy knowing what this job is about.
1. Being a professor is all about time management. It’s important to spend time preparing classes and completing research but you have to be efficient. Unlike graduate school, you can’t spend years on a single dissertation chapter. It has to go to review soon, so you had better learn to write well and quickly.
2. This is really a cool job, but it is not for everybody. Although I am at a research university, I am expected to teach a fair amount – large undergraduate classes and doctoral students – and I must do a fair amount of administrative work. Anybody who is allergic to either activity should seek other employment. But if you like teaching, and you can thrive when you are expected to produce a lot in an unstructured environment, then it can be very satisfying.
3. Success in the academy is about writing skill – even in technical areas. Tyler might be interested in knowing that I learned this from him. Having brilliant ideas and doing the research to prove you are right is only half the battle. You must work very, very hard to clearly express your ideas and persuade skeptical readers.
While I consider myself to be a happy person, I still advise people not to go into academia – it is very competitive, smart people can make much more money elsewhere, there is little security pre-tenure and you can enjoy great ideas without getting a Ph.D. by reading Marginal Revolution every day.
Calendar facts
1. The U.S. calendar industry accounts for $1.2 billion a year.
2. The average American buys 2.5 calendars.
3. Dog calendars are especially popular. Bush and Britney Spears calendars have not been selling well.
4. The 2004 Nuns Having Fun calendar is now sold out.
5. Women prefer larger calendars than do men.
6. 70 percent of all calendar business is done in December, talk about seasonal business cycles.
7. Many calendar prices are cut in half on December 26.
8. Many calendars cost no more than a dollar by the end of January.
9. Less than one-third of Americans plan their workday in writing. One CEO of a time management firm reports: “Most people walk into work and don’t have a plan.”
From USA Today. If you are wondering, I bought my 2004 calendar in October and it portrays Hokusai prints.