Editor's Note: It's fitting, in a way, that on a gorgeous summer afternoon when many of us are rushing through the final hours of work toward the weekend, news came of the death of Carnegie Mellon computer science professor Randy Pausch, who was 47. Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2006. Last August, as the cancer spread, doctors predicted he had just three to six months of good health remaining. During the final 11 months of his life, he delivered a celebrated lecture on how to live your life, which was viewed by millions on YouTube, and wrote "The Last Lecture," which became a runaway bestseller. In May Newsweek wrote about his other online video, which focuses on how to get things done in limited time--a subject which he came to know all too well.
When it comes to goofing off, there are few Web sites that offer the rich resources of YouTube. Since last fall millions of people have visited the site to watch "The Last Lecture," terminally ill Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch's hourlong address on reaching your dreams. The lecture, which formed the basis for the best-selling book published by Hyperion last month, is funny, instructive and uplifting—but it's not Pausch's best. "The talk that I'm actually most proud of is the talk I've given over the years on 'Time Management'," Pausch wrote on his blog this spring.
He gave a version of that oration to 850 people at the University of Virginia last fall, and it's also now available on YouTube. "At this point I'm an authority on what to do with limited time," Pausch, 46, told the audience while displaying CT scans of his pancreatic cancer. (Last August doctors projected three to six months of "good health"; since then he's suffered heart and kidney failure, but last week his strength was returning.) While less inspirational than his celebrated lecture, this one is filled with practical tips on Pausch's passion: becoming more productive by setting priorities, multitasking, efficiently dealing with e-mail, managing meetings and minimizing distractions from chatty colleagues. While many of the tips will be familiar to fans of efficiency books like "Getting Things Done" or productivity Web sites like LifeHacker.com, some of Pausch's tactics are extreme. He's hooked three monitors to his PC (to maximize his electronic workspace), put uncomfortable chairs in his office (to keep visitors from lingering) and he stands up while talking on the phone (as an incentive to finish quickly).
The goal is not to become some superhuman office drone, he says, but to make it easier to get back home, where one's real living is done. "Time is all we have, and you may find one day you have less than you think," says Pausch, whose three children are all under age 6. One thing's for sure: if his Web video results in less time sucked away by YouTube, somewhere Pausch will be smiling.