Last weekend I took the entire weekend off guilt-free, because I had absolutely nothing to do; my e-mail inboxes were empty, any research tasks were in the hands of collaborators, and I was three weeks ahead in my lab planning. I had a normal life for two and a half days.
This weekend, I still kind of took the weekend off, but with plenty of guilt. There were any number of things I could have been doing, should have been doing, but I was seduced by a sale on the "Chuck" Season 1 DVD, and couldn't quite pry myself away from my TV. I still got something (one, tiny thing) done, and I'm not behind - but I'm not ahead any more, either.
Much as I said in my response to ScienceWoman's poll on taking time off between semesters, and in the graduate school survival kit I gave to a friend, I refuse to stress out about my failure to get work done. I have no home life, and can make up for it by just working 10- to 15-hour weekdays. And even if I don't make it up, there's no point fretting about it now.
Still, I do need to develop a strategy for getting work done on days when I have no meetings or classes or any reason to leave the apartment. That's the downside to a studio apartment; it's impossible to have one productivity area set aside.
Showing posts with label procrastination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label procrastination. Show all posts
Monday, February 2, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Working the Fees System
I shell out almost $1K a semester in student fees and (admittedly, heavily subsidized) health insurance. The savings of the previous semester are entirely wiped out in one check to the Bursar's office, as the university recoups some of the money spent on my paycheck. Working the system is just one way of saving money in the current economic situation.
The tuition and fees system seems completely incomprehensible. For tuition, you pay an extra dollar amount per credit up to 9 credits, at which point you can add another 9 for no additional charge. For fees, you pay an amount determined by some combination of the number of classes as well as the number of credit hours, up to 7 credits, at which point you can add another 12 for no extra charge. It makes far less sense than the abacus or slide rule to me.
But, there is an obvious way to make the system work for you, at least when it comes to flexible things like dissertation hours. Say you need to take 28 credits in four semesters. The balanced approach would be to take 7 in each semester, but this would be foolish. Then you pay maximum fees in four semesters. Instead, you can spread them out 6, 6, 6, and 10. Then you pay maximum fees in one semester only, with no extra charge for those last three credits, and save over $300. A small sum by some standards, but massive savings to the graduate student budget.
This is one of those examples of how procrastination can be useful. Think of the money I would have given the university if I had instead felt compelled to actually do the work my advisor had sent me.
The tuition and fees system seems completely incomprehensible. For tuition, you pay an extra dollar amount per credit up to 9 credits, at which point you can add another 9 for no additional charge. For fees, you pay an amount determined by some combination of the number of classes as well as the number of credit hours, up to 7 credits, at which point you can add another 12 for no extra charge. It makes far less sense than the abacus or slide rule to me.
But, there is an obvious way to make the system work for you, at least when it comes to flexible things like dissertation hours. Say you need to take 28 credits in four semesters. The balanced approach would be to take 7 in each semester, but this would be foolish. Then you pay maximum fees in four semesters. Instead, you can spread them out 6, 6, 6, and 10. Then you pay maximum fees in one semester only, with no extra charge for those last three credits, and save over $300. A small sum by some standards, but massive savings to the graduate student budget.
This is one of those examples of how procrastination can be useful. Think of the money I would have given the university if I had instead felt compelled to actually do the work my advisor had sent me.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
How Many Hours Is Full-Time, Really?
For my own entertainment, when the pay period switched to summer and the lovely full-time RA status (i.e., twice the paycheck), I started an Excel spreadsheet to track how much time I was really spending on work, with separate calculations for teaching, general student work, the specific projects I was working on. What I've found is that it's very difficult to actually spend 40 hours a week on my work.
This is a system that records the work I do in 3-minute chunks. It does not include the time I spend reading blogs online, chatting with other graduate students in the hall, or assorted other activities that frequently break up the work day of those on the standard 9 to 5 schedule. I had thought that this might account for only an hour's worth of time, in little bits and pieces over the course of a regular day. Yet even with my careful on-task-only, there is not yet a week with even 35 hours dedicated to graduate school work of any type.
It could be that I'm just more interested in spending some time in the sunshine than in getting more work done. It could be that, as much as I love reading, there are very finite limits in the number of journal articles one can focus on in a single day. It could be that the 8-hour workday is design to really only get 5 or 6 hours of productive work (which is what I usually manage). I might just take the delusional road and declare this last to be the case; spending 40 hours a week in the office just translates into 30 hours of time spent on task.
Meanwhile, only a third of my time is being spent specifically on the project for which I am funded this term. Throw in the basic "student" time (dealing with the never-ending emails, etc) and general lab time, and it gets up toward 60%. This was the real purpose of the spreadsheet; I'm not neglecting the project. I'm just neglecting comps and data collection.
This is a system that records the work I do in 3-minute chunks. It does not include the time I spend reading blogs online, chatting with other graduate students in the hall, or assorted other activities that frequently break up the work day of those on the standard 9 to 5 schedule. I had thought that this might account for only an hour's worth of time, in little bits and pieces over the course of a regular day. Yet even with my careful on-task-only, there is not yet a week with even 35 hours dedicated to graduate school work of any type.
It could be that I'm just more interested in spending some time in the sunshine than in getting more work done. It could be that, as much as I love reading, there are very finite limits in the number of journal articles one can focus on in a single day. It could be that the 8-hour workday is design to really only get 5 or 6 hours of productive work (which is what I usually manage). I might just take the delusional road and declare this last to be the case; spending 40 hours a week in the office just translates into 30 hours of time spent on task.
Meanwhile, only a third of my time is being spent specifically on the project for which I am funded this term. Throw in the basic "student" time (dealing with the never-ending emails, etc) and general lab time, and it gets up toward 60%. This was the real purpose of the spreadsheet; I'm not neglecting the project. I'm just neglecting comps and data collection.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Procrastination Lite
Jorge Cham, the mind behind Piled Higher and Deeper Comics, is giving a talk in my area this evening. This will be his second appearance since I arrived on campus. Fortunately, the first was within months of my enrollment in graduate school, and this one occurs after I've received my master's diploma, so a second visit doesn't make me feel like I've been in graduate school far too long.
The talk itself hasn't changed much. The title ("The Power of Procrastination") is still the same. But then, I'm not going for the talk. I'm going because I've had a complicated and stressful week, and probably need some refresher instructions on how to procrastinate purposefully. I'm going because it's fun to see how the actual talk matches up to the "Tales from the Road" he creates. I'm going to see if the talk has improved over the two years (last time, he had to borrow a computer, and PowerPoint version discrepancies caused his "What I Learned In Graduate School" fancily animated point about learning PowerPoint to fail completely, to tremendous laughter). I'm going to get an autographed copy of the 3rd book, to match my autographed copies of the 1st and 2nd books.
And I'm going because my name has an uncommon spelling, and I want to see if it will stand out in the mind of a man who must sign hundreds of books a year. There's always the possibility of being notable enough to get mentioned in the Tales from the Road myself.
The talk itself hasn't changed much. The title ("The Power of Procrastination") is still the same. But then, I'm not going for the talk. I'm going because I've had a complicated and stressful week, and probably need some refresher instructions on how to procrastinate purposefully. I'm going because it's fun to see how the actual talk matches up to the "Tales from the Road" he creates. I'm going to see if the talk has improved over the two years (last time, he had to borrow a computer, and PowerPoint version discrepancies caused his "What I Learned In Graduate School" fancily animated point about learning PowerPoint to fail completely, to tremendous laughter). I'm going to get an autographed copy of the 3rd book, to match my autographed copies of the 1st and 2nd books.
And I'm going because my name has an uncommon spelling, and I want to see if it will stand out in the mind of a man who must sign hundreds of books a year. There's always the possibility of being notable enough to get mentioned in the Tales from the Road myself.
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