>I was just thinking about the division of time amongst the various things I work on – and realized it’s pretty bizarre. Unlike most grad students, I have to interface with people using my software for many different analysis types – some of which are “production” quality. That has it’s own challenges, but I’ll leave that for another day.
I figured I could probably recreate my average week in a pie chart form, covering the work I’ve been doing…

Honestly, though, It’s just an estimate – and the sum is actually more than 40 hours a week. (I do work in the evenings, sometimes – and support for FindPeaks happens when I check my email in the evening, too. – to compensate, I may have been stingy on the hours spend goofing off….)
Anyhow, I think it would be an interesting project to try to keep track of how I spend my time. Maybe I’ll give it a try when I come back from vacation. (Yes, I’ll be away next week.)
Still, even from this estimate, three things are very clear:
- I need to spend more time upfront writing tests for my software to cut down on debugging
- I need to spend more time reading journals.
- I am clearly underestimating the time I spend playing Ping Pong. But hey, I work through lunch!