Summer. It has become quiet at the college, colleagues are taking vacation, students have vanished and will return late in August. Since the Norwegian rules of paid vacation state that the amount of paid vacation depends on your earnings in the Norwegian system the year before, I will mostly be found at work this year. I started here in October 2010, resulting in slightly more than a single week of paid vacation in 2011. Good for research, I guess.
I log my time at work using TimePanic. Looking back at the first six months of 2011, I logged 929 hours.
- I spent 44% of my time on research activities (408 h).
- 30% of my time went to teaching activities (282 h).
- Administrative activities accounted for 26% of my time (239 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 25% less. Why?
- I spent 184 h on proposal writing. For 2011 I had allocated 160 h for two proposals. I have been involved in three proposals this year, and I intend to write at least one more.
- I spent 78 h on paper writing. For 2011 I had allocated 120 h, and looking at time spent on paper writing in July, the time budget is probably too low.
- I spent 47 h on research on access control policies. For 2011 I had allocated 80 h, so planning seems to match.
- I spent 41 h on unplanned research. For 2011 I had not allocated time for this.
- I spent 24 h on research on malware on mobile devices. For 2011 I had allocated 520 h, so I will probably not do all the work on this topic that I had planned.
- I spent 16 h on research on Trusted path implementations. For 2011 I had not allocated time for this topic.
- I spent 11 h on paper reviews for conferences or journals. For 2011 I had allocated 82 h, so I still have 71 h left.
- I spent 7 h on research on traceability. For 2011 I had allocated 120 h, so I still have 113 h left.
I used more time on proposal writing than expected. Since I had little previous experience, I can blame it on lack of experience in planning; in addition, I spent more time on a joint proposal that came up on short notice. I used more time on paper writing than expected for the first half of the year. Compared to my publication goals for 2011, I might be more productive than planned if I manage to convert more of the paper drafts into full papers. I used much less time on planned research, mostly because I have been unable to make available longer periods to do research continuously without interruptions.
- 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. The plan was ok for the first half of this year. Why?
- I spent 71 h on my courses on college pedagogy. For 2011 I had allocated 175 h, so planning seems to match.
- I spent 61 h on supervision of a B.Sc. thesis. For 2011 I had allocated 21 h. I spent more time than planned to ensure that the group stayed on track and delivered results that are an incentive for my industrial partner to cooperate again in the future; it worked – the students finished with good results and the thesis also lead to a publication. In addition, I spent some time on supervising another group for a colleague who was on leave.
- I spent 52 h on supervision of students writing a M.Sc. thesis or considering to write one with me as a supervisor next term. For 2011 I had allocated 51 h. Taking into account that the budget includes time spent promoting topics and attending thesis presentations during the next months, I spent more time than planned. I attribute it partly to negotiations with an external student who bailed out after weeks of topic discussions.
- I spent 38 h on teaching on B.Sc. level or preparing my next term’s lecture for third year B.Sc. students. For 2011 I had allocated 164 h. I will be able to use parts of the old material, but some parts have to be created from scratch, unexpectedly. I will probably overspend.
- I spent 34 h teaching on M.Sc. level. For 2011 I allocated 34 h, so planning seems to match very well.
- I spent 15 h discussing Ph.D. supervision with prospective candidates. For 2011 I had allocated 44 h. I had not budgeted any time for prospective Ph.D. students.
- I spent 8 h on unplanned teaching.
- I spent 3 h on unplanned supervision.
For 2012 I will need to revise my allocation for supervision of B.Sc. thesis projects or I will have to do it less time-consuming than this year. I will have to be more stringent when dealing with external students. I need to include a buffer for unexpected teaching or unexpected preparation.
- 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. The plan failed significantly for the first half of this year. I spent twice as much. Why?
- I spent 129 h on cooperation with industry. For 2011 I had allocated 80 h. I have become the NISlab liaison to the FRISC value network, bringing together academia and industry. This was not accounted for when establishing the work plan. In addition, I used time for establishing contact with local industry for being able to have students work on projects with industrial partners. Preparing a consortium for a funding proposal also requires time, and my budget estimates seem to be too low.
- I spent 7 h on efficiency improvement. For 2011 I had allocated 23 h.
- I spent 102 h on other administrative tasks. For 2011 I had allocated 81 h. I used time to evaluate candidates for an open professor position in security management. This should probably have been logged as „unplanned“, because it was not in my work plan, but for a reason unknown to me today I logged it as „other“. I estimate that candidate evaluation accounts for 40 h, so I am still above what I should have spent in the first half, but it does not look too bad.
- I spent 1 h on unplanned administrative tasks. For 2011 I had allocated 46 h.
- I spent 23 h on being on sick leave. For 2011 I had not allocated time for this.
For 2012 I will need to allocate more time for FRISC and for meeting with industry. Maybe I will need to revise my accounting and count industrial cooperation as research time, because it leads to funding and that facilitates research opportunities. And I should plan for being on sick leave even if I do not plan to be.