作者:Steve Pavlina
原文:http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/do-it-now.htm
譯者:lueo、feiyafei、luanlan @ptt
When going to college many years ago, I decided to challenge myself by setting a goal to see if I could graduate in only three semesters, taking the same classes that people would normally take over a four-year period. This article explains in detail all the time management techniques I used to successfully pull this off.
In order to accomplish this goal, I determined I'd have to take 30-40 units per semester, when the average student took 12-15 units. It became immediately obvious that I'd have to manage my time extremely well if I wanted to pull this off. I began reading everything I could find on time management and putting what I learned into practice. I accomplished my goal by graduating with two Bachelor of Science degrees (computer science and mathematics) in just three semesters without attending summer school. I slept seven to eight hours a night, took care of my routine chores (shopping, cooking, etc), had a social life, and exercised for 30 minutes every morning. In my final semester, I even held a full time job (40 hours a week) as a game programmer and served as the Vice Chair of the local Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) chapter while taking 37 units of mostly senior-level computer science and math courses. My classmates would add up all the hours they expected each task to take and concluded that my weeks must have consisted of about 250 hours. I graduated with a 3.9 GPA and also received a special award given to the top computer science student each year. One of my professors later told me that they had an easy time selecting the award recipient once it became clear to them what I was doing.
I wasn't considered a gifted child, and this was the first time I had ever done anything like this. I didn't have any personal mentors helping me, I didn't know of anyone who'd done anything like this before, and I can't recall a single person encouraging me to do it. In fact, most people were highly discouraging of the idea when I told them about it. This was simply something I decided to do for myself. If you want a better understanding of where I was at this time in my life and why I decided to attempt such a crazy thing, you might enjoy reading The Meaning of Life: Intro, which includes the full background story and more details about my motivation for doing this.
It took a lot of convincing to get the computer science department chair to approve my extra units every semester, and my classmates often assumed I was either cheating or that I had a twin or that I was just mentally unstable (I get accused of that last one pretty much every week, so maybe there's some truth to it). Most of the time I kept quiet about what I was doing, but if someone asked me how many units I was taking, I didn't deny it. I was perhaps the only student at the university with a two-page class schedule, so it was easy to prove I was telling the truth if anyone pressed me, but rarely did I ever do so.
I didn't tell you this story to impress you but rather to make you curious as to how I did it. I pulled this off by applying time management concepts that most people simply didn't know but that were readily available in books and audio programs at the time (1992-93). The time management habits I learned in college have served me very well in building my business, so I want to share them with you in the hopes that you'll find them equally valuable. They allowed me to shave years off my schooling while also giving me about $30,000 to start my business (all earned in my final semester as a game programmer, mostly from royalties). Without further ado, here's the best of what I've learned about mastering time management:
很多年前讀大學的時候,我決定制定一個計劃挑戰自己:只用三個學期完成其他人通常花費四年的課程,能否畢業。這篇文章詳細的說明了我在成功實現該目標過程中的所有時間管理技巧。
為了實現這個目標,我決心每個學期得到30到40個學分,而其他學生平均只要12到15個學分。顯而易見,我必須合理安排時間才能實現目標。我開始閱讀我所能找到的所有關於時間管理的資料,並學以所用。正好三個學期,我完成了目標:兩個理科學士學位(計算機科學和數學),而且沒有參加暑期課程。我每天晚上睡七到八個小時,處理好我的日常雜務(購物,做飯等等),參與社交活動,每天早晨鍛煉30分鐘。在最後一學期我完成了高級計算機和數學兩門總共37 學分的課程,我甚至擁有一份遊戲程序員的全職工作(每週工作40小時),還是當地ACM學會(Association of Computing Machinery)的副主席。我的同學把他們完成功課要花的時間加到一起,結論是我的一周有250小時。我以3.9GPA的成績畢業並且獲得每年頒發給最優秀計算機專業學生的特別獎。我的一個教授後來告訴我當他們知道我所做所為之後,選擇獎項的候選人就變得很簡單了。
我並不被看作一個天才兒童,這也是我第一次做出這樣的事。沒人指導過我,我不知道是否有誰那麼做過,我也沒有想起什麼人鼓勵我這麼做。事實上,當我告訴大家的時候大多數人都出來勸阻我。我只是簡單的想為了我自己而做。如果你想更好的瞭解我那個時候為什麼會嘗試如此瘋狂的事兒,你也許會樂於讀一讀生活的意義:引子,裡面包含了整個故事的背景以及有關我的動機的細節描述。
我花了很多時間來說服計算機系主任給我選學額外的學分,我同學經常說我作弊,要麼就是有個雙胞胎兄弟,或者乾脆說我是精神不正常(每週我聽到最多的就是最後一條,也許說的有些道理)。大多數時候我保持沉默,但當被問到修多少學分的時候,我會如實回答。我也許是整個大學裡唯一拿著兩頁課表的學生,因此如果有人脅迫我,這很容易證明我說的是真話,雖然我很少這麼做。
講這個故事,並非為了引人注目,更不是使你好奇於我如何做到它。我成功實現目標只是我運用了時間管理這個概念,很多人可能根本不知道,但它卻早就存在於那個時候(1992-1993年)的書籍和音頻節目中。大學裡養成的時間管理習慣對我後來創業幫助很大,所以我想與你分享並希望你覺得同樣有價值。它讓我節約了學費並且給了我大約$30,000 來起家做創業(全部是我最後一學期當遊戲程序員時賺的,大部分是版稅收入)。閒話少說,下面就是我知道的時間管理的精華所在: