Time Management and Efficient Lab (work) Practices Darren J. Lipomi

1. Time Management and Efficient Lab (work) Practices Darren J. Lipomi Department of NanoEngineering, UC San Diego

3. Being Out of Equilibrium: Dissipate Energy! Doing truly creative work Doing standard creative work Potential Energy Responding to emails Checking Facebook Watching Game of Thrones

4. Just 24 Hours in a Day • Your time is your most valuable resource • Time is (almost literally) money: $75,000 per year per GSR in stipend, tuition and fees, and overhead • 50 weeks per year, 40 h per week (hahaha) = $37 per hour • More importantly time is precious: once one hour is gone, it’s gone • Is your time getting you where you want to go? • My hope today: one hour (+ free food) saves you months over time • (I am sometimes a hypocrite)

5. Why Am I Here? • A professor is a teacher, mentor, editor, small business owner, mechanic, etc. • You learn a lot about how to manage your time • There are many ways to do well; there are many more ways to do…less well  • If you can’t make an omelet, you stand to learn something from anybody who can • While I will not tell you anything scientific, I’m hoping that this hour of your time is as valuable as any scientific lecture • If not, at least you got lunch!

6. Not Efficiency but Effectiveness • Is your goal to send 100 emails in a day? • Or is your goal to send 10 and achieve the same outcome? • Fallacy to equate “doing stuff” with producing valuable things • Often the way to achieve your goals is not by doing more, but by doing (a lot) fewer low-value tasks • The 80:20 principle says that 20% of your tasks produce 80% of your success • The goal is to get the ratio to 100:100, but by then “success” will be redefined, and 80:20 returns • The goal is not to work 100 h per week; the goal is to accomplish more per hour and do other things with the rest of your time!

7. Batching • Why does the unit price of a product go down with the number you order? • Molto Mario and his orange Crocs • Creativity seems to follow Newton’s law of inertia • Emails, texts, meetings, IT issues, meals, bathroom breaks all wreck your flow • For me, 1 h working on a task interrupted 6 times for 1 min each is approximately equal to 15 min of uninterrupted work • Batching works for • Experiments (instrument time) • Meetings (calendar) • Homework • Emails (ctrl [cmnd] + Q to quit applications quickly)

8. Batching Your Email • Email—and increasingly texting—can be an enormous time-suck • Do not check your email if you are not able to respond to it until later • Close Mail/Outlook/Webmail if you are not actively tending to your inbox • Consider responding to email 2x per day at set times • Do your most important task of the day before even checking email (this is hard and I am rarely successful at it, but always grateful to myself when I am) • Don’t just delete unwanted emails; mark as spam (easier than unsubscribe, though clutters your junk folder)

9. Writing Effective Emails • Get the response you want from an emailto avoid multiple emails on the same topic • Suggest a time and place for a proposed meeting, along with alternate times • If a topic is complicated, do not use email, use the function on your phone called “phone” • Learn shortcuts (cmd+shift+D, send for Mac) • Use a signature, simple “Best, Darren” or full address and affiliation for formal emails • Consider starting the body (starting with the main point) of an email in the first line so it shows up in the preview of the receiver’s email viewer

10. Batching Similar Tasks • The most valuable periods are those in which you have nothing scheduled: preserve them for what really matters! • What really matters? Things that push your degree forward: papers, long experiments, presentations, exams, studying, homework • Put meetings with colleagues, lunches, exercise, meals, experiments, trips to the restroom back-to-back whenever possible • The period of time immediately before or after an activity is useless from the standpoint of creative work

11. Delegating Responsibilities • You may feel as a graduate student that your PI is delegating tasks to you (you are right) • You can do the same thing! • There are far more undergraduates who want positions in a lab than currently have positions • Find the tasks in which your highly trained brain is least engaged/necessary and train an undergraduate to do it • Your PI gets at least 100 emails per year from prospective undergraduates • Experienced undergraduates can do the same thing with new undergraduates! • Don’t feel bad about this: Everybody turns the crank!

12. Putting a Dollar Amount on your Time • Spending a day to make something that you can buy for $150 is a horrible use of your time (don’t reinvent the wheel) • It may help to put a monetary value on your time • Work hours: (salary + benefits + overhead) per hour times 2. GSR: $75/hour • Weekends: multiply your hourly salary and benefits by a factor of 5 • Why the multiple? Because you are being compensated for the experience and skills you have now; paying to offload low-value work allows you to gain experience and skills for which you will be compensated in the future.

13. Deliberate Constraints: Scheduling Time with Colleagues & Instruments • There is no freedom without discipline • A good way to stay on task and avoid drift is to make it so that other people are counting on you • Scheduling meetings in advance forces you to have results to share • The desire to not be perceived as useless in a collaboration is a powerful motivator • Leverage peer pressure to stick to deadlines • For experimentalists, scheduling time on hard-to-book instruments in advance forces you to have your samples ready • No-shows are often charged anyway

14. Try Coming in Earlier • It is common practice in graduate school to come in sometime between 9:30 and 11 • Have a distraction-free morning by coming in at 8! • Circadian rhythm matches diurnal cycle! ;) • Coffee never tasted so good • Instruments are free • The lab is empty! • Your friends are not talking to you because they are not here! • Get your most important task done before the day even starts for everyone else

15. Avoid Computer-Related Headaches • Computers crashing are a perennial time-suck • Make ctrl/cmd + s as natural as breathing • Back up your data • External hard drive / time machine • Google Drive for UCSD students is free • Dropbox free version good enough for recent versions of important files (get desktop client) • Engineering controls: put your drinks no less than 18 inches from your laptop, no exceptions

16. Block Time-Sucking Websites

17. Block Time-Sucking Websites • Despite our best efforts, we are sometimes sheep • Consider blocking addictive websites on your work device, especially during election season • nytimes, CNN, washington post • May consider for the following • Facebook, linkedin, twitter • Make it somewhat difficult to override • Consider adopting a “low-information diet” • Most Internet journalism is crap anyway

19. Turn Off Your Phone • The act of owning a phone entitles your friends and family to interrupt you at any time • Resist this societal transformation! • Use the “night mode” feature and respond to texts when you’re damn ready! • Texting should not be used in place of email • Use email for routine work related items • Use texts only for • emergencies • coordination of real-time events • hilarious videos and images • While you may want a response immediately, the receiver may not necessarily want to be interrupted • It is also possible that I am old.

20. Turn Off Your Phone

21. Selective Multitasking • Multitasking is another word for continuous interruption • But, it can work if channels in your brain are orthogonal • E.g., it is possible to ride a stationary bike and write papers and respond to emails • (It is also possible to do strength training while eating breakfast so long as it is in liquid form) • (It is not possible to stand and read or write anything deep) • It is possible to listen to classical music and work up data (some people can also write, I can’t) • Listening to music with words or audiobooks while making figures • Speaking of audiobooks and podcasts, they are great, especially nonfiction, since you can miss stuff without losing the plot

22. Using Creativity where it Counts • We seem to have a daily allotment of creativity, don’t waste it • Routinize tasks you don’t care about or are not a big part of your life • Dressing yourself (Steve Jobs) • Meals • Breakfast • Lunch • Dinner can be creative • I still batch my dinners in a big brewpot, even though I like cooking

23. New Age Stuff • Effectiveness is not a product of being smart, it is a product of concentration • Concentration can be trained • Mindfulness and/or spiritual practice • Language training • Exercise • Playing a musical instrument • Increase your energy • Exercise, walking, standing at work • Walking meetings • Experiment off of caffeine and energy drinks • Increase the likelihood of creative “flow” • Surround yourself with positive people

24. Further Reading & Bibliography • The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker • The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey • The Four-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss (and associated podcast) • Deep Work by Cal Newport • 10% Happier by Dan Harris • Bold by Stephen Kotler and Peter Diamandis