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Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch was a professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.
He was well known for giving talks and and lectures that would inspire his audience.
He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August 2006, and died almost two years later, on July 25th, 2008.

His Lecture on Time Management

His Lecture touched on many topics, but mostly it was about how to better manage your time. He highlighted many important subjects, such as what tasks to prioritize and ways to reduce how much time you waste. From the many tips and lessons he gave, 5 stuck with me the most.

Covey's Four Quadrant TODO

In his lecture, Pausch makes reference to Covey's Four Quadrant To-Do-List. This is a way of prioritizing what to put first on your own To-Do-List.

This is a way to prioritize tasks based on how important they are, rather than how close their deadline is.

Keep a Time Journal

Pausch also mentions the method of keeping a Time Journal. A Time Journal is a way for someone to keep track what they're using their time on. It allows one to figure out answers to four questions:

What am I doing that I don't need to do?
What am I doing that someone else could do instead?
What can I do more efficiently?
How am I wasting someone else's time?

Use your Free Time Wisely

Pausch brought up a specific way to use free time in a better way. If you have an hour to spare, what you can do is make yourself a fake class for that hour. You could go to a quiet area, like the library, and bring your studying materials with you. This would be a more productive way to spend your time than if you, for example, talked with your friends for an hour.

Deadlines

Pausch recognized during his lecture, the dangerous effects of procrastination. Procrastination, which he described as the cause of stress, is usually due to there being a lot of time before the deadlines of an assignment. However, Pausch found a way around this. His solution was to simply make up a fake deadline for yourself that's soon, and act like it's real. That way, even if you aren't finished by the time your deadline arrives, you still have more time to work before the actual deadline of the assignment.

Time

Pausch ended his lecture with one statement. I think it's the most important lesson he provided to his audience.

"Time is all we have, and you may find out one day that you have less than you think."

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