Each year I look back at how I spent my time at work (because I track my time, and should do something with the data!). In the past, I have written about how I’ve spent my time (reflecting on the transition from postdoc to academic in 2018 and after a full year at my job in 2019), and I’ve only now realized that I failed to post my look-back at 2020, and now it’s already time to look back at 2021! One thing that both years had in common were nationwide lockdowns in New Zealand.
New Zealand took an elimination strategy to COVID-19 in 2020 that was largely successful, and continued this approach when the delta variant entered New Zealand in 2021. The elimination approach was accomplished by strict nationwide lockdowns, followed by regional lockdowns. We had two such nationwide lockdowns, one in 2020 and one in 2021, which were very different experiences for me. In the first one, I was just getting started teaching several new courses for the first time, and juggled teaching 5 courses at once during the strictest parts of the lockdown. In 2021, I was teaching a course for the 3rd time and only had a few lectures to deliver; the difference between these two experiences was striking, both emotionally and also based on the data!
If we take a look at the two graphs below, overall similar patterns can be seen: more teaching in the first half of the year (which is when I do most of my teaching), a lull in teaching at the end of the year that trades off for more data collection/fish care/mentoring (as we move into the summer months), and vacation time at the end and beginning of the year. However, if we look at the two lockdown periods, and compare the same periods in 2020 to 2021, we can see that in the 2020 lockdown there’s an increase in teaching, even though there was still a lot of teaching time in 2021, and this was partially due to the fact that I worked on teaching preparations through the mid-semester break to convert things to online teaching in 2020, which I did not have to do in 2021. Comparatively, the 2021 lockdown didn’t seem to alter the time spent on any particular task, except for maybe a reduction in meetings (which was lovely!).
The overall trends are very similar: I usually work 38-40 hours a week and I probably spend too much time in meetings and writing emails (says every academic across the world). However, I’m very pleased with the amount of time I spent on data analysis and grant writing in 2021, and I hope to continue the effort to have daily writing and analysis into 2022 (though this year I need to get back to writing papers!). In 2021 I also re-dedicated myself to regularly read papers, and increased the total number of papers read from 134 in 2020 to 163 in 2021. I would like to continue this upward trend in 2022, but we’ll see how the year plays out!
Beyond research, I went on some amazing kayaking trips, including on a stunning 6-day backwoods adventure on the Clarence River, read 106 books, enjoyed many lovely meals and happy hours with friends, and spent many hours on zoom with family and friends around the world.
I’m starting off 2022 with a fancier title (Senior Lecturer), a larger lab group (3 PhD students, 2 MSc students, and 2 undergraduates), and pipefish happily courting in the lab. New Zealand has moved away from its elimination strategy for COVID-19, so the time of lockdowns is presumably over — instead, we can expect an increase in illness in both students and teachers. How this will affect my work in 2022 is unknown, but hopefully I’ll have a cheery report to share this time next year.
Sarah Flanagan 