My boss asked us to track the time we spent on various tasks and projects to get an idea of areas where we could use student help or better coordination within the department. Here’s a visual representation of a (mostly) typical week:
A typical day is full of things involving the management of electronic resources that aren’t routine, but come up regularly. For the things that aren’t a part of a defined project or task group, I tossed them into the “putting out fires” category, which may be why it’s the largest.
I should note that the meeting slice included time spent preparing for meetings as well as time spent in them. I am striving to reduce time spent in or preparing for meetings, particularly since they are often not as productive as the time spent on doing my job. Unfortunately, some of that is out of my control due to being a member of several standing committees with regular meetings.
[I meant to publish this back on February 11th when I wrote it, but somehow it ended up saved as a draft instead.]
