Carnegie Mellon University
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 8 months, 2009–2021
1:16:22 · 2.8M views · Feb 6, 2008
Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch gives a lecture on time management at the University of Virginia in 2007. He covers practical habits such as tackling important tasks first and distinguishing important from urgent work.
HN commenters recommend it as a practical, memorable guide to prioritization, and some rewatch it every year.
8 comments from Hacker News
Absolutely. In that same vein, I've gotten a lot out of so many similar videos which are ostensibly about one thing, but to effectively use what they're teaching, you have to start learning/mastering something else entirely. "Indirect learning" is one way to put it, and a term I picked up from Randy Pausch's Last Lecture[0]. I've gained so much from watching that video, as well as his Time Management video[1]. So much so that I rewatch it about once a year, because every time you rewatch something, you're a different person in certain ways, and you often appreciate things much more the more you change and grow as a person. [0] [LINK] [1] this video
Reminds me of Annette Benning in American Beauty: "I will sell this house today. I will sell this house today." Not starting on activities because you don't like them or you don't feel not comfortable will drag you down. You'll be thinking about it all day. I tell myself in the morning to the most unpleasant thing on my to do list first. Eat the hairy frog first! I learned from Randi Pausch. Worth watching every minute: this video -edit spelling
Just to put my advice in perspective: I'm an Indian who will possibly be attending (a pretty good) public university this year. I'm the typical HN/reddit geek: started programming when I was 9, know around 9 programming languages, quite some bit of theory, etc. etc. In school in India, I was bored all the time, got mediocre grades, and had donkeys for teachers. Here's what I feel you should do: 1. Challenge yourself So, you've got to choose from these kinds of activities: A: Activities that you enjoy doing B: Activities that *might* impress (say) the college admissions staff I mostly did stuff exclusive to type A; bad idea . Of course, never do anything that comes only within B. Find what comes under the union of the two. You're in America: you don't hunt for opportunities, you are flooded with them. Someone on this thread recommended "taking every AP exam available". Sure, do that: it's really important. But that's not ambitious at all : AP exams cover only about 10% of what Indian entrance examinations do, and you get to use "calculators" and "appendices" (more like textbooks). Do something real , like aspire to be an IMO/IOI/IPhO/IChO/ISEF medalist (if you don't know what those are, shame on you). 2. Manage your time I was absolutely dismal at this. But I've started doing it for a month and it really does wonders: I have stopped procrastinating and started to feel less stressed out. I'd recommend you watch the late Randy Pausch's other lecture ( this video ) or read Getting T
"This is the most important slide in the entire talk. So, if you want to leave after this slide, I will not be offended, because it is all downhill from here." this video (Timestamped link of the "Time Management" talk by Randy Pausch, which is what the OP PDF is from) That part in the talk is about the "Eisenhower Matrix", popularized by Steven Covey in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", on the importance of prioritizing important, non-urgent tasks over urgent, unimportant tasks. You can read about it here as well, but I haven't seen it put as well as Randy Pausch did in his talk. [LINK] PS If you haven't seen his "Last Lecture", it's also fantastic. I watch it about once a year to re-center myself, and remember to focus on the truly important things in life. [LINK]
Not goal related directly; I've found this lecture by the late professor Randy Pausch regarding time management to be very interesting. I'm not sure I agree with his hands-free phone + bike use tip, but I think his talk has a lot of good points. this video