Just another day at the office

I often wonder what I spend my time on since I get so little done compared to how many hours I spend at work each week.

Today went like this

9.10 am: arrive late because I am unable to learn that it takes more than ten minutes to drive to work

9.10-10.00: read e-mails from the past week, freak out over the number of e-alerts announcing a gazillion new articles I will never find the time to read, download a few anyway just for the pain of it

10.00-10.30: Find colleague's syllabus from two years ago for course I will be teaching next fall and study the reading list looking for hints of how to go about developing a new research programme on this topic. Download two random papers on the topic, which came up in a Google search, put the whole thing in bag and decide to work on it some other time)

10.30-11.30: Move new data obtained during meeting last week from usb stick to work PC and try to open the files. They don't work. Probably because they are in Russian or because something is wrong with the software or with my head. Everybody who knows anything about this software are on winterbreak, and my head is what it is. Move folders around and check if they still don't work. Make sure I have back up and put the project on hold for another day.

Lunch: Discuss meeting with public outreach group for tomorrow. Make list of how to proceed with digitalising/organisation of data. Send copy of list to co-worker. Print copy of manuscript in progress.

1.30 - 2:00 pm: Sort out bills and tickets and receipts from last week's travel. Fight with new awful software for travel expenses and watch in disbelief as it continues to delete all my previous entries when I push return. After consultation with the head of the accounts department, I finally figure out the kinks of the program and manage to send off my request for reimbursement off into the black box that is my institutions intranet. Make list for the administration of hours spent travelling .

2.00-3.00: Procrastinate aimlessly on the net while trying to avoid ever answering three complicated emails

3.00 - 4.00: Clean out some old folders and toss about ten old versions of the same manuscript in preparation. Update CV with most recent conference presentations. Archive business cards from last weeks meetings.

4.00-5.00: Write emails (no more obvious procrastination activities available)