As it turns out, only this (click to enlarge):
It’s getting to be that time of the semester where scheduling and time management become both more difficult (because the time-uncertainties in end-of-semester-type activities are so much greater) and more important (because of the number and importance of said activities). Case in point: the above plot took me all day to make, and I really only had to generate the dotted line today. It turns out that every time I’ve solved this particular two-region reactor physics problem (at least twice while studying for my qualifying exam), I’ve done it wrong. It took me about two hours to realize my mistake, another two to find and fix it, and another hour to find the additional mistakes I incorporated in moving my solution from one piece of software to another. I can’t tell you how many other items were on my todo list today (including–I’m just realizing–eating lunch), which tasks of course I’m scrambling to do now (well, in about another two minutes, obviously). I’ll try to explain this problem and plot some other time, since they’re kind of interesting and have some bearing on the “What have we got to lose?” modeling question.
Anyway, I just wanted to sort of explain my absence from this space this week and see if anybody had suggestions for dealing with this problem of how you can manage your time when the tasks you’re juggling are both more important and more unpredictable in terms of how much time they take to finish. As far as I can tell, the standard answers include “sleep less” and “forget to each lunch.”
OK, back to work.