Many people have heard of Randy Pausch by now. Randy was a computer scientist and author of the speech and book The Last Lecture. Randy's life was tragically cut short by cancer, but in his final days he became a sort of a modern day, layman's existentialist. He traveled the country exhorting people to live in the moment, to go after their dreams, and to stop making excuses and putting off doing what they really want to do.

Randy also had quite a bit to say about time management as he considered it to be a key skill that led to his having a successful life. Many of his speeches on time management were filmed and are now on the Internet. They are all roughly an hour long but I assure you they are well worth your time. Please watch or listen to one. I've extracted a few quotes from the first half of Randy's talk that I hope will convince you to set aside the time to hear Randy's thoughts on time management.

"Americans are very, very bad at dealing with time as a commodity. We're really good with dealing with money as a commodity... but we don't really have time elevated to that. People waste their time."

"The household budget I want to talk about is your household time budget."

"Your time, you can't ever get it back."

"The Time Famine; Bad time management = stress"

Randy the time existentialist - People: "I've got a job but I don't really like." Randy: "Well you COULD CHANGE."

"Being successful does not make you manage your time well. Managing your time well makes you successful."

"If you do the right things adequately, that is much more important than doing the wrong things beautifully."