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what-my-personal-schedule-is-like.md

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What my personal schedule is like

  • On a weekday, I typically wake up some time between 6am and 7am. My kids typically wake up at around 8am, so I have a window where I can focus on some task (e.g., paper writing); I am usually quite productive during this time. Starting around 8am, I help get my kids ready for school, which starts at 9:10am. In between, I can usually squeeze in quick emails or Slack conversations, but typically not anything that requires concentration.

  • If I'm in lab that day, I'll arrive around 9:30am.

  • I typically leave lab no later than around 4:00pm to pick up kids from school.

  • From when I pick up kids to when the kids go to bed (around 8:30pm) is family time. I might squeeze in light email and Slack conversations, e.g., when I'm sitting in the bleachers watching the kids' swim lessons, but I don't do anything that requires concentration. Unless absolutely necessary, I refuse synchronous calls of any type (this is consequential for collaborators on the US west coast, because it basically means that I can't do anything after around 1pm or so west coast time).

  • I'm fully engaged with work again after the kids go to bed, starting around 9pm. If you'd like to have a synchronous conference call, this time works for me. I typically work for a bit longer, depending on the urgency of various deadlines. For example, if there are paper deadlines, I might put in another two solid hours of writing. If there's nothing particularly urgent, I might do a bit of email and then call it a night. I'll unwind a bit, and I usually go to bed around 11pm.

  • I try to get 7–8 hours of sleep every night. Closer to the 8 hour mark, actually.

  • Family gets priority on weekends. I'll usually engage in email and Slack conversations. I'll work when it doesn't interfere with family—for example, if kids are at an activity or are napping. Typically, I estimate that I can squeeze in five hours of solid, concentrated work.

  • I estimate that I work around 40–50 hours a week. This doesn't include the little crevices in time when I am able to multitask effectively. For example, I don't know how to count the time I'm slacking with a student while watching my kids' skating lessons.

  • I break up my time into maker's schedule, manager's schedule based on the advice of Paul Graham. I try to pack meetings into consecutive blocks to create large blocks of time for work that requires concentration (e.g., writing papers and coding). The practical consequence of this is that if you have a scheduled meeting with me, I'm likely to be running from one meeting and going to another right after.