By necessity or experience, I have gotten more efficient over the years. My better half tells me that it hasn't allowed me to work less; it just lets me to work more. Ironic, isn't it? Then again, perhaps we're just part of a greater trend: We work more, we play less.
But I digress. Today, I want to consider how my ideas of efficiency, expressed through multitasking, have changed as I've gotten older. There has been a slow and steady creep as I've progressed in my academic career, and I wonder if others have seen this happen, too.
Undergrad
Guys, I have problem sets due Wednesday and Friday this week, so I guess I can go to Fourth meal on Thursday night. Maybe only for an hour, though; my roommate and I are going to make another coffee-filter parachute.
Grad school
Ugh, I just cannot write the intro to this stupid Ph.D. proposal. There are too many papers to read and not enough time. I just can't get in the "zone." I'm going to get some coffee and cookies before seminar.
Postdoc
If only I get these five more data points, I'll have enough to write this up and submit it to Nature. Or submit it anywhere, really, so I can have it on my CV when I submit this job application next week. In the meantime I need to finish revising this manuscript of my grad work. I'm not even in that field anymore! I am so over it. Maybe I need to start exploring plan B in case this all comes crashing down.
Faculty
So if I get in by 8:45am today, I can start running a sample, prepare my lecture, start the next sample before faculty meeting, teach, meet with with a student after class, start a third sample, work on my manuscript, meet with the visitor, and prepare tomorrow's first sample before leaving at around 7:00p.
If I get in after 9:00am, though, or if something goes awry, I probably won't get any research done today because everything will by out of sync. Wait, what? I thought my meeting with the visitor was at 3:00, not 2:30. Ack, I'll figure it out.
Maybe I'll start writing that proposal that's due next week. Never mind, I need to send in that review today or else the editor won't look kindly at that paper I submitted last week. I guess I still have time to run two samples.
TRUE STORY.