In research, productivity has become increasingly important.
Our time is precious because when it comes to getting new positions or
promotions, the main thing we'll be judged on is our research output. To be
sure, our teaching and service contributions will also be considered, but
research is still king in most institutions. Something that has bothered me for
several years is that I never have a good understanding of where my time is
actually spent. At the end of each day, I have a vague idea that I have spent a
few hours on this project and a couple of hours on that, but never any concrete
way of keeping track of how my time is spent over a week or a month. For me,
this often created an anxious background feeling that I should probably be
working on something other than the project on which I was currently working!
Not a nice way to spend my working hours. The other problem that this lack of
accurately tracking my time caused was that I was never sure how long
particular activities would take. For example, even after doing protein
extraction in the lab multiple times, I still found myself unable to predict
how long it would take me to perform the next batch of protein extractions and
I would often find myself in the lab way later than I intended.
I wanted to solve these two problems that stemmed from a lack
of accurately tracking the time it took for my work activities. For me, the
solution came in the form of an app, which allows me to track how much time I'm
spending on different projects. The particular app I use currently is Toggl
Track. I am really enjoying it so far. It's nice to know that 33 % of my work
time this week has been devoted to writing grant applications. I'm looking
forward to seeing how my time is spent over the course of this month and this
year and then adjusting my work habits if anything seems off.
How about you? Do you find it difficult the predict how long tasks are going to take? Or do you have a vague feeling that you're not spending enough time on some projects? How do you manage these things?