How I am spending my time

I have mentioned previously that I keep a log of how I spend my time. When I was doing my PhD the interesting question was what percentage of my time was spent on “uni work”, and how was I spending the rest of my time? That way I could look at the graphs and easily decide what I should change if I wasn’t happy with my progress. I have maintained those logs since finishing that degree, and even made use of the data when applying for my visa to move to Sweden—the abrupt increase in the amount of time spent doing “social” activities when I met my partner was part of the documentation that we really do have a relationship with one another.

However, comparing “uni work” to all of the other aspects of my life is not the full story. This morning I was struck with the inspiration that I should also track what sorts of “uni work” I am doing. Since it has only been one month since I started my new job it seemed like a good time to set up the spreadsheet to calculate that, too. I have created five broad categories into which all of my “uni work” tasks fit. I then compared the data in my descriptive log of what tasks I accomplish each day (e.g. “revised figure 2.5 to show____”, or “received a copy of my hire paperwork from HR and filed in in folder ____”) with my numeric log showing how many hours in each day were spent on uni work, and have estimated the split for each day since this job began. In addition, I also calculated my time for most of October, since I did my job interview, began reading the literature my boss gave me as background reading for this project then, and attended two different short courses during that month.

Setting up the spread sheet and doing those estimates took all morning, but since that was 58 days’ worth of data that means that I spent less than 4 minutes a day on this project. Now that the spreadsheet is set up it should be even easier to keep it up to date by entering in the new data, and I think that I can easily spare 4 minutes a day for the return of seeing the distribution of how I am spending my time. This will be particularly useful as my boss told me that the teaching component of my work should only be 10 to 20% of my time, and this way I will know if I am falling under, meeting or exceeding this target.

The categories I chose are:

* Research: which has three sub categories, the first of which is my current job (3D geochemical modelling of ore deposits in northern Scandinavia), the second and third are finishing up the papers based on my PhD and last post-doc positions.

* Learn: reading literature, attending courses, attending conferences, talks, and seminars, studying Swedish, etc.

* Teach: teaching classes, teaching prep, meetings about teaching, etc.

* Admin: administrative tasks, filing, computer maintenance issues (install programs and hardware, backup, etc.), paperwork, work-related travel, funding applications, updating logs, cleaning/organizing the office, meetings on any of these sorts of topics, etc.

* Netwk: networking, updating resume, updating LinkedIn and Academia.edu, interviews, public outreach, job applications (when this contract draws to a close), etc.

For the month of October I worked a total of 82.6 hours (which all counts as bonus time, as my job had not yet started). Of that time 68% was spent on “learn”-related tasks, 31% was “admin”, and 1% was “netwk”. There is still nearly half a work day left for November, but the month is close enough to done to report that my time this month has been split roughly:

38.9% research (10.5% this job, 20.5% last job, and 7.9% PhD research)

31.5% admin

12.5% learn

17.1% netwrk

0% teach

Assuming 8 hour work days, no work on Sat or Sunday, and only 4 hours for the one Friday in November which was a half-day holiday I should have worked 172 hours on this job so far this year. However, because I started work-related tasks back in October I am already up to 233.4 hours, or 135.7% of the hours I need.

Combining the data for October and November gives:

32.1% learn

31.4% admin

25.1% research (6.8% this job, 13.2% last job, and 5.1% PhD research)

11.3% netwrk

0% teach

It will be interesting to watch how the balance between the categories shifts each month.

What could be more fun than extending the boundaries of the sum of human knowledge?

Not too long back I got into a conversation with a friend of mine, who was complaining about his job and how little he enjoys it. It is always difficult for me to be properly sympathetic in such conversations. Having learned as a child that “work” or “a job” meant "something unpleasant that people had to do but didn’t want to do", I have done my best to avoid ever having to do such a thing myself. Indeed, this was one of the largest motivating factors in my decision to be a life-long scholar—to stay happily in the academic world, learning interesting things.

When my academic career progressed to the point of undertaking a PhD project I was totally excited about it—I was about to learn something new, something that no one else ever knew before. This is heady stuff. Sure, there can be a fair bit of tedium in research, but that is more than offset by the ability to set one’s own hours and choose for oneself the topic and direction of the research. Having finished the PhD and moved on to a post-doc position doing experimental petrology I find that I am still expanding the bounds of human knowledge. The experiments I’m doing are ones that no one has done before—each run I do provides new information that needs to be analyzed—looked at, compared with the previous information, and understood.

I am aware that there are people out there who have the misfortune to spend their days doing things that don’t interest them, and I am grateful that I am not one of them—that I have the joy that comes from learning new things. Not just new to me, but new to everyone. What could be more fun than that?

The blessings of free time

A friend of mine recently got laid off from work, as has happened to countless others in the past several months. Many of her friends offered her condolences, but I was inclined to offer her my congratulations. The wish I gave her was: “May you be inspired to use your new free time productively to accomplish what you truly want to be doing with your time, and may you find so much enjoyment in your daily activities that you don't miss working.”

I have occasionally heard people express regret when they are laid off of work, but this approach to life mystifies me for two reasons.

1) While I was growing up I never wanted a "job" or to "work"; because from an early age I'd heard people say that they couldn't come participate in whatever fun activity to which they'd been invited, or work on whatever cool project they wanted to make because they "have to go to work", and it sounded terrible to me to thus miss out on such fun.

2) After my dad retired from the military he joined his brothers working for a Labour's Union in Alaska. They'd get short-term jobs, often in remote parts of Alaska, work for a few months earning some decent money, but have no free time in which to spend it. As a result they would look forward to the seasonal lay-offs which come with such employment so that they could spend some time at home with their loved ones, doing the things they want to be doing and enjoying the fruits of their labour. As a result, I learned that being laid off from work is a good thing (so long as it happened after earning some minimum amount of cash to cover the budget for the next few months).

Yes, I do understand that many of today’s lay-offs are happening to people who do not have sufficient savings to tide them over till next they find employment, and that is sad, but still I rejoice for those who have been laid off for whom a layoff is a gift of time and who choose to make good use of that time doing things which make them happy.

Perhaps I’m even more focused upon the value of time than I was in my youth. Having finally completed and submitted my thesis I have just come off of a couple of month’s worth of concentrated effort. A period in my life wherein I was the one turning down social engagements in favour of working on my thesis so that I could finish before the deadline imposed by plane tickets to leave the country. However, as intense as that period was, and as odd as it might seem to those who have known me for years for me to give up working on sewing projects, evenings of dancing, and reading fiction, I found it easy to do knowing that it was for a limited time only. Since printing the thesis I’ve had nearly two weeks of holiday, traveling to see friends and family in the US. I’ve done dancing, I’ve started new sewing projects, I’ve picked up books to read for pleasure, and I’ve loved every moment of it. I’ve nearly one more week of vacation left, and then I’ll commence my first post-doctoral position. From what I know of the job, it should be fun, and I think I’ll enjoy it. However, I am glad to know that they will only expect a “full time” commitment—an eight hour work day still leaves plenty of time in life for entertainment unrelated to one’s occupation, and, after the past few months of “finishing up”, that will seem like a generous plenty of “free time”.