As a topic, time management is about as exciting as watching flies buzz around a no-pest strip. But would you be interested in learning about time management from someone with only months to live?

The time management expert in this case was Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon who passed away on July 25 at age 47 from pancreatic cancer. Along with his now-famous “last lecture” about achieving your childhood dreams, Pausch also delivered a lively, inspiring speech on time management to the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science in November 2007. You can watch a video of the lecture or read the transcript.

Pausch’s comments weren’t revolutionary, and he admitted to adapting some of his points from Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson’s The One Minute Manager.

But Pausch’s talk combined practicality, compassion and self-effacing humor, peppered with the wisdom and bravery of a man whose days were numbered. I highly recommend his speech to anyone who feels time-starved—and who doesn’t these days?

By now you’re probably wondering why I’m writing about Pausch and his speech in a column called “Mobile Computing.” The reason: Efficient time management is especially challenging for mobile professionals. You spend a lot of time in airports, in the air, or driving long distances. In addition to these time constraints, you’re got the constant waves of e-mail, voice mail, and other interruptions everyone else has. So it’s more challenging—and therefore more important—for mobile professionals to maximize their time. If you don’t, you forfeit time you could have spent with people you love, something Pausch understood all too well.

Read the entire article at CIO.com.