To the world: either let me manage my own time or show me that you can manage mine as effectively as I can. I should not be forced to remain idle for long periods of time – it’s a waste of both my time and yours. My time is one of my most valuable resources: I can spend it doing anything from staring at the walls to curing cancer (something my group is actually trying to do).

As a subset of this, if you’re going to coop me up in a lab/office, please give me work to do or let me seek my own out. If I’m bringing Gödel, Escher, Bach with me to the office (and I’m not working as a professional philosopher) or I’m furiously scribbling down mathematical research (and I’m not working as a professional mathematician), that is a sign that you are not using my time effectively enough to keep me busy. Even if the work is fascinating, it must more or less fill the time that I’m forced to be there or there really is no reason for me to be there at all.