When asked to show up at the lab three days a week, I quickly noticed a change in my work patterns: after about the first week, I noticed I was “saving” work for the three days in the lab. Prior to this, any time was fair game.

The change was brought about by simple boredom. By being coerced into the lab, I was being withheld from pursuing other creative activities (such as finishing the Treatise on the Objective Reality of Ideas, which is running far behind schedule thanks to my general unavailability). As a result, I had three or four hours of time to focus on solely research work each day (a 7 hour day minus 3 hours for commuting and about a half hour for lunch). However, because I was finishing this work at home, I found myself staring at the walls for hours, exactly as had happened in industry. Since this is something I wish to avoid, I’ve been saving research work for my “lab days”.

It is also ironic that I was asked to be in the lab for the purpose of communication, yet I am frequently the only person there. When my advisor is present, he usually either has no advice to give me (do I really need to be there just to receive pats on the back?) or is too busy to speak with me. This completely negates any communication benefit that may have arisen from being there.

The moral of this story? When time is partitioned into discrete scheduling units and ceases to be a continuum, less work gets done. And a commute time that dominates total work time is the equivalent of thrashing in a virtual memory system: lots of work gets done, but none of it is useful.

Score another point for society for depriving me of my independence and usefulness. At this rate, perhaps I can be stopped from making any meaningful contributions at all!