How I spent my time in 2024

2024 was a busy year, with a focus on writing proposals to get my next projects, and more conference travel after a slow 2023. I logged 2188 hours for 2022, and 2490 hours in 2023, and a whopping 2727 hours for 2024, at two weeks before the end of the year. That is about 1.6 full time jobs – not something I want to keep doing, but something that was necessary in this season of my career.

This year, my main task was writing proposals, and we see that reflected in the data.

Here’s how I spent my time in 2024:

• Research proposals: 17.61%
• Conferences: 10.90%
• Service: 9.52%
• Teaching: 8.15%
• ACI Avances: 7.24%
• Teaching TU: 6.65%
• Papers: 5.91%
• Admin: 5.47%
• PhD Project 1: 2.84%
• BEST: 2.65%
• Learning: 2.53%
• Fire safety project: 2.36%
• Meeting TU: 2.30%
• Meetings: 2.28%
• PhD Project 2: 2.16%
• Planning: 2.12%
• Research: 1.55%
• Blog: 1.43%
• PhD Project 3: 1.29%
• PhD Project 4: 1.18%
• PhD Project 5: 0.88%
• PhD Project 6: 0.72%
• Promotion to associate professor: 0.63%
• Collaboration Denmark: 0.51%
• PhD Project 7: 0.26%
• PhD Project 8: 0.23%
• PhD Project 9: 0.17%
• Holcim project: 0.14%
• PhD Project 10: 0.09%
• Without project: 0.06% (not sure what I missed here…)
• PhD Project 11: 0.05%
• Email + Admin: 0.05%
• Student help: 0.04%

In other years, teaching was my most important category. I still have the same teaching duties, but I have the impression my courses are a bit more streamlined by now, and I simply had to focus on writing proposals this year to get funding for the next generation of my research.

Do you track your time? How did you spend your time in 2024?