Where did all the time go?

It’s one of those days – at 13.25 I have not yet worked on any of the main tasks I envisioned for myself. Where did all the time go this morning? I do know that I handled a lot of messages I received through e-mail. I can even feel a little satisfaction about having cleared away the clutter in my inbox. At the same time, I see that I am getting behind schedule on three main tasks that I was looking forward to working on. It’s the relatively quiet summer weeks before the new cohort of students comes in. As a professor of philanthropy my first task is research on nonprofit organizations, charitable giving and volunteering. I was looking forward to planning new research on Wealth and Generosity. In another role, as chair of the Research Ethics Review Committee at the Faculty of Social Sciences, my second task is to handle requests for ethics review by researchers. I was looking forward to writing up suggestions that students gave in June to create a culture of ongoing discussion of research integrity. My third main task is directing the two-year research master program at the Faculty. I was looking forward to designing a future course on Digital Society Research.

Yet I have not been working on any of these things this morning. Instead, I’ve been busy with a bunch of small tasks. They are all tangentially related to the tasks I formally agreed to. I know I can leave some of them unanswered, but I also know there’s a limit to that. They all came from emails I received, by people who are waiting for an answer. If I don’t answer them that list of people will only grow further.

• Who will we nominate for the best thesis prize this year? I revisited the theses defended by students in our Research Master program in the past year and agreed to invite a nomination letter from a supervisor.
• Is an Associate Professor in my department worthy of a promotion? I considered the invitation by my Head of Department to act as an internal reviewer substituting a colleague who is temporarily unavailable, read the instructions from the Faculty Board, sent an email agreeing with the request and created an agenda item and reminder to assess the portfolio.
• Should I support a postdoctoral researcher from China who wants me to sign an acceptance letter for a year long stay at my research group funded by the China Scholarship Council? I ignored the request for the moment because I don’t know the researcher, the institution where the person is from, or anyone there. Also the publications indicate the research does not use open science practices.
• Why do we not provide an estimate of the economic value of volunteering? I explained the methodology in Giving in the Netherlands to an interested practitioner who asked this question in an email.
• Am I quoted correctly? I checked quotes in an interview with a journalist, writing an email that all is fine.
• Is the latest paper accepted for publication already on my CV somewhere? No. I added it to my resume.
• Can I do an interview with students for their undergraduate thesis? I considered the request, declined it implicitly by answering their questions with links to some of my published research.
• Can I review an article for a scientific journal? I considered the request, and wrote an email asking for access to the data and code.
• Why can’t I login to the university system with my credentials? I called the IT helpdesk, did not get through, and wrote an email instead.
• Am I being cited correctly? I checked a reference to my work in a new article by a well-known researcher in my field, finding that it is OK. It’s an interesting study, by the way, so I filed it in a folder to read later.

So why not write up this list to tell you that you’re not the only ones who cannot get their work done in the hours that you have?