The week before Christmas break. It has become quiet at the college, colleagues are decreasing their time balance, students have vanished after their exams and will return in January.
I log my time at work using TimePanic. Looking back at hours logged in 2011, I worked 1,921 hours, mostly at the office.
- I spent 43% of my time on research activities (820 h).
- 34% of my time went to teaching activities (649 h).
- Administrative activities accounted for 24% of my time (452 h).
This is not what I had planned.
- Research should account for 60% of my time (based on recommendation for full professor qualification). As a rule of thumb, it should account for 45% in the long run for a førsteamanuensis (associate professor). In my work plan for 2011 I had allocated 60% for research. The plan failed significantly for the first half of this year. I spent 28% less. Why?
- I spent 173 h on unplanned research, mostly on investigating the manifest related to the 22/7 attacks, especially its implications in information security research and the structure of the OOXML document.
- I spent 51 h more on proposal writing than I had allocated.
- I spent 50 h more on paper writing than I had allocated.
- I spent 46 h more on research on Trusted path implementations than I had allocated.
- I spent 24 h more on conference travel than I had allocated.
- I spent 75h less on reviewing than I had allocated.
Hence, I used 269 h of research time in a way different than planned, i.e., not on mobile malware, access control models, and traceability. In addition, I spent 358 h less on research than I had envisaged. This incurred a loss of 627 h of precious research time, equivalent to a 35% FTE (full time equivalent).
- Teaching should account for 30% of my time (based on recommendation for full professor qualification). As a rule of thumb, it should account for 45% in the long run for a førsteamanuensis (associate professor). In my work plan for 2011 I had allocated 27% for teaching. I spent 26% more. Why?
- I spent 114 h more on teaching B.Sc. courses than I had allocated, especially on teaching IMT3501 Software Security the first time.
- I spent 43 h more on supervising B.Sc. students than I had allocated.
- I spent 33 h more than I had allocated on co-supervising M.Sc. students, attending M.Sc. presentations, and guiding students towards a M.Sc. thesis topic.
- I spent 14 h more on teaching a specialization course than I had allocated.
- I spent 53 h less on guiding Ph.D. applicants towards a topic, and I spent less time on completing the course in college pedagogy for employees.
For 2012 I will need to limit time allocated to supervision of thesis projects more strictly. I will have to be more efficient teaching the software security course.
- Administration should account for 10% of my time (based on recommendation for full professor qualification). As a rule of thumb, it should account for 10% in the long run for a førsteamanuensis (associate professor). In my work plan for 2011 I had allocated 13% for administration. In contrast, time actually spent on administrative tasks was 24%, i.e., 85% more than planned. Why?
- I spent 91 h more on industry cooperation than I had allocated.
- I spent 75 h more than allocated on miscellaneous administrative tasks.
- I spent 32 h more on project management than I had allocated.
For 2012 I will adjust estimates to match experience and I will be more selective in my tasks.