I am a creature of routine. I learned a long time ago this made me more efficient. Rather than waste time flitting from one task to another I have certain routines. Fridays is Current Contents day. For those who do not know this is a weekly listing of the table of contents of journals. It saves time from having to leaf through the individual journals or going online and looking at them. I began with the print version while an undergraduate and have been making this a weekly ritual ever since. Now I read Current Contents on the computer. The other Friday task is to finish up all the things from the week that have been piling up.

Today we have a seminar. I try to go to all those in our department even when the topic is not in my area. I think this supports the department and shows the speaker there is an audience. Good pr for the department. As long as the speaker sticks to the hour format at worst I have only wasted 1 hour and even then if the seminar is really bad I can just think about other things.