Academic Productivity

Noan has reviewed 23 todo list applications. This seems to be an ‘open’ problem for many people (How do you pick the right to do list program?). With hundreds of online and stand-alone applications, some people still prefer paper. Looks like there is a big cake waiting for the first software company that gets this right.

 Link to Noah Coad’s Code : Task Management Software (To Do Lists)

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I just found an excellent paper:

BIAS AND ACCURACY IN ESTIMATES OF TASK DURATION

Author(s): JOSEPHS RA, HAHN ED

Source: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND HUMAN DECISION PROCESSES 61 (2): 202-213 FEB 1995

From the abstract:

When asked to estimate the duration of various academic-type tasks (e.g., the time needed to complete a writing assignment, solve a series of problems, or read a manuscript), subjects demonstrated a marked tendency to trade accuracy in favor of minimizing cognitive effort in their selection of planning strategies. This tendency resulted in a drastic underestimation of the time required to complete the task.

This might be well known for all academics (most people I know underestimate time needed to complete an assignment).

Reading estimates are particularly bad, and this could easily be solved by tracking (automatically) how long it takes you to read each article (extremely easy if you read them off the screen).

It seems that improving your estimation skills can take you a long way. Currently I’m trying to construct a todo list with all steps that a project needs till completion (using the granularity ideas previously mentioned, and the program toDoList with time estimation visible next to each task). Hopefully I won’t be late for my next deadline, which is in 15 days!

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Here is my attempt at a general strategy for managing time. I define productivity operationally here by measuring it in terms of publications (of course, this definition may have critics).

The central point is that your time at work can be divided into productive and unproductive time (see graph), and that both are important; however we should try to maximize the productive time.

The graph may be biased towards the kind of work I do (modeling and experimental cognitive science); other disciplines may not have some of the activities, and the partitioning of your time may well be very different, so feel free to make your own graph with relevant tasks.

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