NOTE: Every English paragraph is followed by the corresponding Chinese translation
注：每段英文后為該段的中文翻譯
Summary | 摘要
In this blog post, I analyse my time spent on the PhD work in the year 2020, identify what goes wrong and propose some solutions to solve the identified issues in the future.
In the year 2020, I worked 1298 hours in total, much lower than the 2080 hours expected for a normal nine-to-five job. From this perspective, I fail my PhD this year.
I fall short of the 2080-hour benchmark mainly because I either worked less than 6.5 hours or did not work at all in over 50% of the working days.
The working duration of previous days is contagious. If I shirked or did not work yesterday, I will be very likely to do so again today.
The time I start my work affects how long I will be working on that day. If I did not start the work on time (i.e. later than 9am), I will be less likely to reach the expected 8-hour working duration for that day.
The biweekly meeting with my PhD supervisors greatly influences my working duration. If I finish a meeting with them recently, I tend to work less than 6.5 hours on the day when the meeting is held and the day after it.
To achieve the 2080-hour benchmark next year, I should (1) start the work on time, (2) set up some goals that are due soon after the supervisory meeting to keep me engaged during the between-meeting period, (3) create a dashboard to monitor my working duration on a daily basis.
To better understand my work productivity, I should keep a daily record of the tasks I complete next year as well.
我在這篇文章里分析了我2020年花在博士工作上的時間，分析了我哪里沒做好并提出解決方案。
2020年我總共工作了1298小時，遠(yuǎn)低于一個朝九晚五員工應(yīng)有的2080小時。從這個角度來說，今年我的博士工作沒達(dá)標(biāo)。
我沒能達(dá)到2080小時的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)主要是因?yàn)橛谐^50%的工作日，我工作少于6.5個小時或者完全沒在工作。
前段時間的工作時數(shù)會影響我現(xiàn)在的工作時數(shù)。如果我昨天偷懶或者完全沒做任何工作，那么我今天有很大概率會再次偷懶或者完全不工作。
我從幾點(diǎn)開始工作也影響了我當(dāng)天會工作多久。如果我開始工作的時間晚了（晚于9點(diǎn)），我當(dāng)天就不太可能會工作到8個小時。
我和我導(dǎo)師每兩周一次的會議也會影響到我的工作時長。如果我最近剛和他們開過會，那么會議當(dāng)天和之后的一天，我一般會工作少于6.5小時。
如果我想要在明年達(dá)到2080的工時目標(biāo)，我需要：（1）按時開始工作；（2）設(shè)定一些很快會在導(dǎo)師會議結(jié)束后到期的目標(biāo)，以此讓我在下一次導(dǎo)師會議前保持動力；（3）建立一套系統(tǒng)來監(jiān)測我每日的工作時長。
若要更好的了解我的工作效率，我還需要在明年收集我每日完成的任務(wù)。
1. Introduction | 引言
It is near the end of another year. When it comes to this time of year, we usually reflect back upon the entire year. Oftentimes, our first reaction is: "OMG, time flies so quickly, but I haven't done much!" Another question we commonly hear is: "Where has my time gone?"
又到了一年的年末，每年到了這個時候，大家都會回顧這一年。通常，大多數(shù)人的第一反應(yīng)都是：“天呀，時間過得真快，但我好像都沒做什么事情！”我們也常聽到另外一個疑問：“我的時間都去哪了？”
As a PhD student, I am also interested in how I spent my time. Since my PhD is funded by the university, the relationship between me and the university does not, essentially, differ from an employer-employee relationship. I am expected to work on a daily basis as well. However, unlike a normal nine-to-five job, I have total freedom in managing my work; no one is monitoring whether I go to the office on a given day or how long I work per day. Under this special setting, I am very curious about how disciplined I am when it comes to working duration.
作為在讀的博士生，我也很好奇我是如何安排我的時間的。由于我的博士學(xué)習(xí)是學(xué)校贊助的，我和學(xué)校的關(guān)系在本質(zhì)上和一般雇主與員工的關(guān)系差別不大。每日工作也應(yīng)該是我的日常，但和大多數(shù)朝九晚五的工作不同，我可以全權(quán)安排自己的工作。沒人會來檢查監(jiān)督我是否去了辦公室或我每天工作了多久。在這種特殊的設(shè)定下，我也很好奇我會自覺地工作多長時間。
I happen to keep a record of my time use in my Outlook calendar. With this data, I can analyse my time use and answer the following three questions in this post:
碰巧的是，我一直用微軟的Outlook來記錄我的時間分配。通過分析這個數(shù)據(jù)，我將在這篇文章中回答以下三個問題：
[Question 1] How many hours did I work in the year 2020? Does my annual working duration hit the required amount for the full-time employee?
[Question 2] If I fail to reach the required the working duration of full-time employees, what is causing this failure?
[Question 3] What actions can I take to avoid this failure in the future?
[問題1] 在2020年里，我總共工作了多少個小時？我今年的工作時長是否達(dá)到了全職員工的水平？
[問題2] 如果我的工作時長沒達(dá)到全職員工的水平，是什么原因?qū)е碌模?/p>
[問題3] 若要減少今后工作時長低于全職員工的情況，我可以采取什么措施？
2. Compare My Working Duration & Benchmark | 比較我的工時數(shù)和標(biāo)桿值
Answering the first question simply needs to compare two numbers. The first number is the benchmark - the total number of hours a full-time employee should work in a year, and it can be calculated as follows: 8 hour/day * 5 day/week * 52 week/year = 2080 hours.
回答第一個問題僅需要對比兩個數(shù)字。第一個數(shù)字是標(biāo)桿值 —— 一個全職員工一年里應(yīng)工作的總小時數(shù)。它是這么算的：每天工作8小時 * 每周工作5天 * 一年里共有52周 = 2080個小時。
The second number is the total number of hours I worked this year, which is approximately 1298 hours. Comparing this number with the benchmark (2080), there is no doubt that I have failed to reach the target by 782 hours (equivalent to 13 days). As most people, after seeing this big gap, I also wonder what is the reason behind it.
第二個數(shù)字是我個人今年工作的總小時數(shù)，大約是1298個小時。對比標(biāo)桿值（2080），我的工時數(shù)顯然沒有達(dá)到目標(biāo)值。我比目標(biāo)值少工作了782個小時（相當(dāng)于13天）。和大多數(shù)人一樣，當(dāng)看到這個巨大的差距后，我也想要知道背后的原因。
3. Explain My Failure | 解釋我為什么沒達(dá)標(biāo)
To figure out the reason, I first visualise my working hours throughout the entire year in the figure below. The x-axis is the date, and y-axis represents the number of hours. Each point in this plot corresponds to the number of hours I worked on the select day. For example, on 1st January I worked for over 11 hours. The red dashed line represents the 8-hour benchmark. To make sense of this figure, I need to categorise the days according to the working duration.
為了找到這背后的原因，我首先把我一整年的工作的小時數(shù)呈現(xiàn)在下方的圖表里。圖表的x軸代表日期，y軸代表工作小時數(shù)。圖表中每一個點(diǎn)則代表了某天我工作了多少小時。例如，2020年1月1日，我工作了超過11個小時。圖中還有條紅色的虛線，它代表了8小時的標(biāo)桿值。想要更好地解讀這個圖表，我還需要根據(jù)工作時長把每一天分類。
Points that are above the red dashed line mean that I worked overtime on those days. I use the yellow shading to enclose them. On the other extreme, for points that have a y-axis value of zero, it means I did not work at all on those days (purple shading). Meanwhile, even though we are required to work 8 hours per day, we don't actually work that long if we consider the lunch time, Internet surfing etc. Thus, for days when I worked between 6.5 and 8 hours (both ends are included), I called them a normal day (green shading). Finally, the rest of days (i.e. 0 < working hour < 6.5) are classified as shirking (blue shading).
在紅色虛線以上的點(diǎn)表示我當(dāng)天加班，我用黃色的陰影區(qū)域來表示它們。那些y值為0的點(diǎn)表示我當(dāng)天沒做任何工作，它們屬于另一個極端（紫色區(qū)域表示）。雖然我們的工作制為每天8小時，但如果我們把午飯時間，網(wǎng)上閑逛等時間算進(jìn)去，我們通常不會工作8小時那么久。因此，我把那些我工作6.5到8小時的日子（包括這兩個數(shù)字）歸類為正常工作日（綠色區(qū)域）。所有剩下的還沒歸類的日子（工作時長大于0但小于6.5小時的日子），我將它們歸類為偷懶的日子(見藍(lán)色區(qū)域)。
A quick glimpse at the new plot would reveal that most of points fall in the areas shaded by blue and purple, meaning that I either shirked or did not work at all for the majority of weekdays in 2020. This impression is indeed confirmed by the raw count shown in the table below.
快速一瞥這個圖表，我們會發(fā)現(xiàn)大多數(shù)的點(diǎn)似乎都落在了藍(lán)色或紫色的區(qū)域。這意味著在2020年的大部分工作日里我不是偷懶了就是壓根沒做任何工作。下方表格里的數(shù)據(jù)也證實(shí)了這個感覺。
As can be seen from the above table, I shirked or did not work in more than 50% of the weekdays in 2020. They are undesirable as the more they occur the fewer hours I could work, taking me further away from the benchmark of 2080 working hours. For brevity, hereinafter, I decide to the days when I shirked and did not work as unproductive days.
如上方表格所示，2020年里的所有工作日里，有超過50%的日子我偷懶了或者完全沒在工作。這兩個情況是我不希望發(fā)生的，因?yàn)樗鼈兊陌l(fā)生意味著我的工時會下降，最終結(jié)果就是我離2080的工時標(biāo)桿越來越遠(yuǎn)。為了行文流暢，接下來我會把我偷懶或者沒工作的日子稱為效率低下的日子。
Some actions must, therefore, be taken to minimise the occurrence of unproductive days in the future. However, I first need to figure out the reason of me shirking and not working before coming up with any meaningful solution. I have three hypotheses regarding what is causing both unproductive days.
若要減少這些效率低下的日子，我必須采取相關(guān)的措施。但找到任何有意義的措施前，我必須知道是什么原因?qū)е铝宋以谀承┤兆有实拖?。對此，我提出了三個假設(shè)。
Hypothesis 1 - past effect | 假設(shè) 1 —— 過去的影響
I assume that the productivity today is positively associated with that of the day before. For example, if I shirked yesterday, I tend to shirk again today. Because this hypothesis involves events in the past, it is the past effect.
我的第一個猜想是今天的效率和昨天的效率是正相關(guān)的。例如，如果我昨天偷懶了，那么我今天就會繼續(xù)偷懶。因?yàn)檫@個假設(shè)涉及到了過去的事情，所以也可以理解為過去的影響。
Hypothesis 2 - current effect | 假設(shè) 2 —— 現(xiàn)在的影響
Given a normal working hour is from 9am to 5pm, if I start the work late (i.e. later than 9am), I will never be able to reach the eight-hour target for that day. Hence, I assume that starting the work late will make that day unproductive. Since it is at what time I start the work that matters the most, the second hypothesis focuses on the current effect.
一個正常的工作日從早上9點(diǎn)到下午5點(diǎn)，那么如果我開始工作的時間晚了（晚于9點(diǎn)），那當(dāng)天我絕不可能工作到8個小時。因此我猜想開始當(dāng)天工作的時間晚了的話，這天就會成為效率低下的一天。在這里，因?yàn)槭俏耶?dāng)天什么時候開始工作起著最大影響作用，所以第二個假設(shè)主要探究的是現(xiàn)在的影響。
Hypothesis 3 - future effect | 假設(shè) 3 —— 將來的影響
As you can guess, the final hypothesis is about the future effect. I usually have a meeting with my PhD supervisors every two weeks. Just like any meeting, I have to get something done and give it to my supervisors so we can have things to discuss during the meeting. In this case, the date when I have the supervisory meeting is like a deadline to me. Thus, I assume that if I meet my supervisors recently (defined as today or yesterday), then I will relax on both the meeting day and the day after it and work fewer hours (or do not work at all).
正如你能猜到的，最后一個假設(shè)是關(guān)于將來的影響。多數(shù)情況下，我和我博士導(dǎo)師每兩周開一次會議。和任何會議一樣，我需要在會議之前完成一些任務(wù)并把成果發(fā)給導(dǎo)師以便我們會議的討論。因此，每次有會議的日子對我來說相當(dāng)于一次項(xiàng)目的截止日期。因此我猜想，如果我最近剛和導(dǎo)師開完會（“最近”指會議當(dāng)天或前一天），那么我會選擇在會議的當(dāng)天和會議后的一天休整，減少工作時長（或者干脆不工作）。
Which of these three hypotheses is true? To answer this question, the time use data from my Outlook calendar is analysed.
這三個假設(shè)里，哪一個是對的呢？要回答這個問題，就需要分析一下我Outlook日歷的數(shù)據(jù)。
Test Hypothesis | 驗(yàn)證假設(shè)
The following bar chart tests whether the productivity yesterday affects my performance today. There are two interesting patterns in this chart. Firstly, productivity yesterday indeed positively associates with the performance today. For instance, if I did not work yesterday, I also tend not to work today (with a probability of 34%). Similarly, if I shirked yesterday, there is a 40% chance that I would shirk again today. On the other hand, if I worked overtime yesterday, I would be productive today (30% + 23%). The second interesting finding from this bar chart is related with the probability of shirking. Regardless of how I was doing yesterday, there is always an unignorable chance that I would shirk in the next day.
下方的柱狀圖驗(yàn)證了我昨天的效率是否會影響今日的效率。我們可以從這個柱狀圖里發(fā)現(xiàn)兩個有趣的規(guī)律。第一，昨天的效率和今日的效率具有正相關(guān)性。例如，我昨天沒有工作的話，那么我今天也不太可能工作（這個事件發(fā)生機(jī)率是34%）。如果我昨天偷懶了，那么我明天就有40%的機(jī)率會再次偷懶。另外，如果我昨天加班了，那么今天有較大的概率成為高效率的一天（30% + 23%）。第二個有趣的發(fā)現(xiàn)和我偷懶的機(jī)率有關(guān)。從圖中可以看到，不管我昨天的效率如何，第二天我偷懶的機(jī)率都存在且占有不可忽視的比例。
This bar chart supports the past effect; that is, unproductive days are likely to lead to another unproductive day. An intuition would be to break this vicious cycle. Nonetheless, from this chart, it is still unclear why some days were unproductive at the very beginning. Without the knowledge of the root cause, there is no way to propose any solution to break the cycle. The finding from the second hypothesis, however, provides a possible direction.
前面的柱狀圖證明了過去的影響是存在的。也就是說，效率低下的日子有較大機(jī)率導(dǎo)致緊接的日子也變得效率低下。一個正常的想法自然是設(shè)法阻斷這個消極的反饋鏈條。然而，我們無法僅靠上面的圖表了解最初是什么因素導(dǎo)致某些日子效率低下。若不知道這個根源，就沒法找到打破這個反饋鏈條的對策。幸運(yùn)的是，第二個假設(shè)提供了一些思考方向。
Another bar chart is displayed below to test the second hypothesis about the relationship between starting the work late and working duration of the day. Again, shirking is an unignorable issue. Apart from it, what is more interesting is the supporting evidence for the current effect. Compared to starting the day on time (or earlier than 9am), starting to work late would see my chance of shirking increase from 38% to 54%. Once combining this finding with the one from the past effect hypothesis, there is one action I could take to break the negative feedback loops between unproductive days. That is, start the work on time or earlier. As such, I not only have a higher chance of being productive today but also reduce the likelihood of being unproductive tomorrow.
下方是另外一個柱狀圖，它驗(yàn)證了第二個關(guān)于開始工作的時間點(diǎn)和當(dāng)天工作時長的假設(shè)。這個圖仍然反應(yīng)出偷懶是一個不可忽視的問題。除此之外，另一個更有趣的發(fā)現(xiàn)是它證明了現(xiàn)在的影響的存在。相比于按時開始工作（或早于9點(diǎn)開始工作），開始工作晚了會讓我偷懶的機(jī)率從38%上升到54%。把這個發(fā)現(xiàn)和前面關(guān)于過去的影響的發(fā)現(xiàn)結(jié)合起來考慮，我就可以找到一條對策來打破前面提到的消極反饋鏈條。那就是：按時或提早開始每日的工作。這樣做不僅提高了今天變得有效率的機(jī)率，同時還能降低我第二天低效率的可能性。
Findings from testing the third hypothesis are also useful. The bar chart below seems to indicate that I am a deadline-driven person. For example, when the deadline passes (i.e. supervisory meeting is finished recently), I have a high chance (63%) of shirking. People who are deadline-driven tend to be most productive when the deadline is approaching and then spend most time relaxing after meeting the deadline. However, looking at left bar in the plot (i.e. the period when I do not meet my supervisors recently and I should be preparing for the next meeting), I am still be very likely to be unproductive (24% chance to be not working + 28% chance to be shirking). Given that all my supervisory meetings are about two weeks apart, it implies that I might have already completed the tasks for the next meeting within a week and then choose to relax in the remaining period prior to the next meeting. In other words, the goal I set for the between-meeing interval may be too easy to achieve.
第三個假設(shè)的檢測結(jié)果同樣很有用。如下方的柱狀圖所示，我似乎是一個以截止日期為導(dǎo)向的人。例如，一旦過了截止日期（我的情況里指剛和導(dǎo)師的開完會），我就很有可能偷懶（63%的概率）。通常，以截止日期為導(dǎo)向的人在臨近截止日期時會最有效率。而當(dāng)截止日期一過，他們會把大多數(shù)時間拿來休息。然而，如果我們把目光聚焦在圖中左邊的柱子（這個柱子代表了我最近沒和導(dǎo)師開過會，但正在準(zhǔn)備下一次會議的時間段），這個時間段的我仍然沒有效率（24%的機(jī)率不工作 + 28%的機(jī)率偷懶）。考慮到我和導(dǎo)師的會議差不多兩周一次，這意味著我可能已經(jīng)在其中的一周內(nèi)就完成了下次會議所要求的任務(wù)，然后就拿剩余的時間休整去了。換句話說，我給兩次會議間隔的時間段設(shè)置的目標(biāo)太容易達(dá)成了。
5. Recommendations | 推薦對策
Based on all the findings, there are three possible actions that I could take in the upcoming year to improve my time use and hit the 2080-hour benchmark:
基于以上所有分析結(jié)果，在即將到來的一年里，我需要采取三個對策來改善我對時間的支配以及達(dá)到2080的工時標(biāo)桿：
- Action 1: start the work on time.
- Action 2: set up some goals that are due soon after the supervisory meeting to keep me engaged during the between-meeting period.
- Action 3: create a dashboard to monitor my working duration on a daily basis.
- 對策1: 按時開始工作。
- 對策2: 設(shè)定一些很快會在導(dǎo)師會議結(jié)束后到期的目標(biāo)，以此讓我在下一次導(dǎo)師會議前保持動力。
- 對策3: 建立一套系統(tǒng)來監(jiān)測我每日的工作時長。
6. Limitation & Future Work | 本文的不足之處 & 將來的計(jì)劃
This post simply uses the total number of hours I work this year to evaluate whether my PhD of the entire year fails or succeeds. However, we all know that working longer hours does not necessarily imply the success of the year. We can work productively and get things done within a short amount of time. Alternatively, we can multi-task between doing the work and checking our own social media, resulting in a lengthy working duration.
這篇文章只用了總工作時長這一個指標(biāo)來評價我一年博士工作成功與否。然而，我們都知道工作時間越長并不等同于這一年就成功了。我們有可能很有效率可以在很短的時間內(nèi)完成既定的任務(wù)。我們也有可能一邊工作一邊刷社交媒體，這就拉長了我們的總工作時。
A more suitable measure for evaluating our work performance might be the average number of tasks completed per day. By taking into account both the output the input (i.e. working time) and (i.e. completed tasks), the calculation of productivity is more meaningful. Therefore, in addition to take the three actions above, I will be keeping a daily record of the completed tasks next year.
日均完成任務(wù)的數(shù)量也許是一個能更恰當(dāng)?shù)睾饬课胰旯ぷ鞅憩F(xiàn)的指標(biāo)。這個方式不僅考慮了投入（即工作時間）還考慮了產(chǎn)出（即完成的任務(wù)數(shù)量），因此更有參考意義。所以我決定，在即將到來的新的一年，除了執(zhí)行前面提及的三個對策，我還要收集每日完成的任務(wù)量。
