Fellow academics, when are we going to start fixing our urgent structural problems that strain family bonds and present ongoing barriers to diversifying our educational and scientific leadership? You wonder, what the heck is this guy talking about?
1/n

We’re all very familiar what I am talking about, actually: the impossibility for most academics in the life sciences to do their jobs in a reaonable amount of time, due to more and more demands on writing grants, and to a lesser degree, papers.
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As of yesterday I hadn’t intended to write about this subject, but was wondering as I finished a Saturday of straight work, what happened to all my time? Why has WFH not reduced my pile of tasks to do? Instead why is my to-do list growing bigger and bigger?
3/n

I decided to figure out how much time our jobs actually require. I estimated per year (m=month, w=week, d=day, h=hour):
Teaching: 20h/w x 20w = 400h
Meetings of all sorts: 10h/w x 48w= 480h
Replying to email: 2h/d x 365d = 730h
Attending and giving talks: 2h/w x 50w = 100h
4/n

Papers: If each person needs 2 papers during a 5y stint, and you run a 7.5-person lab, then you need 7.5 papers per 2.5y = 3 papers/y. Throw in a review and it’s 4 papers. If you need 15d at 8h/d per paper, that’s 480h writing papers.
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