Supertasking
Academic life is complicated. It comes with a lot of flexibility and freedom, but also a lot of responsibility. With great flexibility comes huge complexity and variety. Let me explain. A professor has many roles. First, a researcher, working usually on several projects at the same time with many co-authors, usually spread out all over the globe nowadays. Second, teaching, which itself involves many activities, from preparing classes to teaching in class, to setting homework and exams, to meeting students, advising, dealing with co-teachers, scheduling, etc. Third, university service, which includes many activities such as department chair, program head, committees of all type, raising money, and several other time sinks---like P.R., which professors are terrible at---and many other administrative make-work tasks, that have no productive purpose, but which universities excel at perpetuating. Fourth, editorial and referee work, which in itself seems light but is deceptively t...