Punctuality

If I was always as good as I wish to be, I'd never be late anywhere. However this is not quite how it happens. But I have noticed that I tend to be always on time or late for certain things.

-I commute by train and I think over the past >3 years, I have missed the train twice. Anywhere I go by train, I'm on time - if the train is, but that is definitely out of my control.

-I don't think I have ever been significantly late when teaching. I think most times I start spot on time. But sometimes I finish a few minutes late. Not often though. If I teach in the morning (all the lectures but not practical supervision), I try to get in my office 1 hour before the class... ie at 7.30am. It's got some advantages (trains are quiet and on time, I get to gather my thoughts and prepare the last few details) but it's... early

-I'm generally not late in meetings. I think.

-now if I'm travelling by means other than train and walking, I tend to dramatically underestimate the travel time, and to forget to account for incidents. I'm in a shared car system, and the last two times I got a car, I brought it back 4 minutes before the end of my booking. That it pretty dramatic and does not lead to my best and most careful driving. I think with cars my mental travel time calculator is polluted by people who say they could travel by train cos it takes so long. That must means travelling by car is super fast, right? Ahem.

-There seems to be a few specific people that could really complain about my lack of punctuality. I seem to be recurrently late if I go visit them. That's bad.

In general I would really like to be a punctual person. Being late is generally a waste of time for everyone involved. I think one of the keys is be to plan for enough time for doing things and going places, which I manage to do to get the train (and I hate having to run for it in the morning) so I should be able to do so for other things as well.

What are your tricks to be on time?

Where did the week go? (how many bloggers have used this title already? sorry to you all)

Things have been a bit crazy here recently due a good and a bad reason.

The good reason is the fact that I end up being coordinator for that proposal mentioned previously. This has meant that I spent some time this week polishing our pre-proposal, collecting references, sending email reminders around, and, finally, submitting the thing. Eveybody’s been fairly well behaved (at this stage anyway) so not too much panic, but a certain degree of stress related to this brand new responsibility. Not just a PI, but a coordinator. Other new tasks this week have involved being a review editor for the first time. Again, I got the help I needed and asked for, if maybe at the last minute in order to stick to a reasonable time frame. Apart from that, I have been brainstorming for a proposal that, if I get it, would shower me and my students (to start early 2009) with fancy computers and equipment. This is quite a different proposal than the stuff I’ve been writing so far; some of it is about presenting your science in a fancy way, but also you need to show precisely why those fancy computers will be better than other crap you’ve been using so far. I suspect they’ll only fund research on such sexy topics as farts of the universe, but hey, I can make my work look sexy too. I find challenging to research technical details of how I can make this look exciting… here again, thankfully, I am finding advice.

The bad reason is that I have been sucked in a spiral of poor productivity, and this has barely translated in more time on the web (or writing posts, or even reading any). It’s odd. I think two main things happened. First, I suddenly seemed to have many extra things than what I thought a week or two ago. Because I felt like I had all that to do, I didn’t know where to start all of a sudden. Second, because I’m currently in a remote time zone compared to most people I interact with for work (and this has recently involved a lot of administrative procedures for students-to-arrive-in-2009), I get all my email during the night, meaning that I have a big pile of new emails waiting for me in the morning and barely any coming during the day. This isn’t too bad in itself, but I’ve been treating it all in the morning, when the day is young, and it ends up eating so much of my morning that I then waste the rest of it and only start the *proper* work in the afternoon, well know for NOT being my best time of the day. Before leaving for the Big Stay I had started using this trick to avoid having email using too much of my day: NOT look at any before at least 10.30, which worked very well at limiting the time (don’t remember where I read that). But I completely dropped that. A lot of this emails keeps me in touch with my home base, gives me info I’d get by catching a colleague in the corridor. So it’s difficult to resist, but I really should try.

With the upcoming conference (leaving in a week), I have to make progress on the proposal and on some data I promised to colleagues… better get a grip tomorrow morning. And please just don't even mention that long overdue draft that I promised myself I'd send to my collaborator before Christmas. Things look bad there...

Holiday D-2

After much deliberation (read torturing myself), I have decided not to bring my computer along during the holiday. I will probably not have a chance to use it the first week. And the second one, well, I’m sure I’ll keep myself busy too. I *could* work during the holiday (i.e. my slow progress could do with some extra effort)… but my couple and my health could do with two weeks of leisure and sleep. Hopefully I’ll be so well refreshed and in great mental and physical shape that I’ll work really well as soon as I am back. (Ahah. Nothing’s wrong with dreaming!). I am bringing some reading though (ack).

In any case, expect light posting in the coming two weeks. Hope the weather will be good because I firmly intend to swim in the Atlantic!

Items are being crossed off the list:
-sent final data to colleagues on vague project;
-had a great meeting yesterday with colleagues. I look forward to chew on their data;
-now dashing to finish report to sent to Senior Famous Collaborator.

I managed to de-disperse myself by making plans before I got in the office, with a short list of discrete tasks for the day, and I know which one I want to start with. So I directly start working and get on track for the day. It's worked.

And people, please knock on my office door before entering. Thanks.

Dispersed (again)

After about two weeks of blissful ignorance of the world and concentration on Main Current Research, I find myself dispersed again. I have started working on several different things again, and also been doing a series of boring admin tasks. As a consequence of that, I find it difficult to make good progress and to focus properly on anything. However, before departing for a two weeks holiday (woohoo!) next Friday I have to:
-layout, comment, and send intermediate results of Main Current Research to Senior Famous Collaborator;
-meet foreign colleagues and set up new study;
-put together some last data on vague previous collaboration;
-arrange for summer exams data and communicate them to students.

Hope nothing else falls on my plate until then…

How I miss the time when I could just focus on a limited number of tasks, and when other things to do where a welcome distraction from daily routine. I really need to adapt to constantly switching my brain on and off things; I think I also need to organise research in larger chunks of one same task or topic. The means overcoming the frustration of seeing things temporarily grinding to a halt. But for later better progress…

Battle of the busy schedule

As mentioned a couple of days ago, this is something I often think about, so please don’t consider this a final report, more like a progress report (or is it even an expression of interest?)…

I am sure you have all heard it: we are busy. We have no time. Everything is done in a rush and any social event (with friends, family,…) have to be planned months in advance. We can all identify in this.

Also, we surely can remember a few times when someone told us that (I have no time) and that we felt irritated by it. What do you mean, you have no time to come to [non-random family/friends gathering]?

How did we get ourselves in there? Do we do too much, in work, outside work? Why do we always use that justification, as opposed to the million other reasons that often exist?

A few thoughts:
-a couple of weeks ago, I heard two people in their late forties say, independently but both in the academic context: “People have become so busy”. Is that true? I’m too young to have a comparison. But if it’s true, how did that happen?
-what’s most frustrating with people telling you they have no time, is that somehow, there is always an underlying comparison of time availability between people’s schedule (I have no time, see, I am busier than you). That can become really irritating. I try to avoid using that excuse for not doing things, if there are other reasons: I don’t know if I’m busier or not. That however does not imply I agree with some people who think you can always do that extra thing.
-I find that people who are actually probably very very busy (let me think, for example my friend who is a single mother of two toddlers, went through an unpleasant divorce, and all that while on probabtion period for professorship, which she got) tend to use that excuse much less often than the average. Not with me anyway, who would take no notice of it in that case.
-Sometimes I get the impression that there is this “fashion” of having to be busy. If you’re not it means you’re either a slacker, a loser, or have no social life whatsoever. So, really the only valid excuse, in that case, is “I’m too busy”.

So… I don’t know. Are we really busier then 20 years ago? Is this just a state of mind that people have put themselves into? Is it justified to be irritated by people who constantly use that? If we are busier… to what extent is this a bad/good thing? What should we do about it?

Note: I suspect there could be difference in opinion on this depending on people’s culture. This would be interesting to understand too.

Ooh, so you can’t cope, huh?

We’ve hired a cleaning lady, and she started last week. It was absolutely fantastic to arrive at the weekend thinking that non-work time could be allocated to stuff other than cleaning the bathroom. Like having friends over and bake biscuits. After all, we can afford it (the government is covering part of the expense via unemployment schemes), and it will significantly improve our daily life.

I did expect some remarks or nasty looks meaning “tsk! She’s (household related issues are still blamed on women, come on) got no children, only an apartment and she needs help with the cleaning??” But not from my brother, who opened that series on Friday. It was a “joke” of course, which instantly turned into a battle of the busy schedule* (both our faults there).

It really pissed me, because it is none of his business. What difference does it make that he or I work late at night more often? We both work a lot, and it would not cross my mind to say such a thing if he was to do the same. He should drop the “teasing older brother” attitude when it comes to personal choices and life situation.


*: I’d like to come back to this at some point, but just a remark for now: this is one of my recurring meditations: people are SO busy. We’re all busy. But some people tend to say “I have no time” or “I’m too busy” more often than others. Are they the busiest? In a way, saying such a thing implies that you assume you are busier than the person you’re talking to…