I started keeping a time sheet. Results for today:
Preparing teaching: 1:22 hrs (web design course, grad students’ writing group)
Administration: 6:24 hrs (meetings, email, drafting memo, phone calls)
Research: 10 minutes (writing this blog post)
Total: 7:56 hrs, which is 26 minutes over my theoretical workday.
Percentage of day that was research: 2%.
OK, so I put the time spent making the time sheet in Excel (19 minutes) in as administration, but the rest was totally real this-has-to-be-done stuff. And I think being aware of how I actually spend my time is going to be important in managing this without imploding completely.
Having said that I’m remarkably happy – seeing all the work I’ve done makes me feel very good about leaving the office, despite the undone work, and this afternoon I’m working out and having two girlfriends round for dinner.
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David
That time breakdown sounds familiar. Welcome to my world.
torill
That’s the seduction of administration. You can actually fix things, and do things right.