I get this ques­tion a lot from stu­dents, friends, and fam­ily, but I’m never quite sure how to answer it. Research? Teach­ing? Ser­vice? Those don’t really cap­ture what the job is really like. So I decided to write every­thing down in a big long list at the end of today, cap­tur­ing every sin­gle goal accom­plished, every sin­gle e-mail I sent, and every sin­gle con­ver­sa­tion I had. See if you can find the  research!

• 6:30–6:31 Woke up at 6:30 am still feel­ing under the weather and with another recur­ring corneal abra­sion in my right eye. Applied eye-drops.
• 6:32–6:40 Read e-mail in bed for a few minutes.
• 7:00–7:15 Read more e-mail while eat­ing break­fast, set meet­ing with tech trans­fer depart­ment for next week.
• 7:15–7:30 Loaded CHI PC chair­ing site and assigned a few 2ACs
• 7:35–7:50 Left for work and arrived in the cen­tral garage
• 7:50–8:00 Got cof­fee from Mary Gates cafe and briefly said hi to Karen Fisher and Joe Ten­nis in the hallway.
• 8:00–8:02 Sent e-mail about paper con­flicts for CHI PC for assign­ing 2ACs.
• 8:00–8:05 Sched­uled doctor’s appoint­ment about eye.
• 8:05–8:35 Spent 30 min­utes assign­ing 2ACs to 25 papers
• 8:35–9:10 Spent 35 min­utes craft­ing epic e-mail to junior Ph.D. stu­dent who is wor­ried about his Ph.D. topic and unsure about next steps.
• 9:10:9:30 Revised slides for lec­ture for 18 min­utes, improv­ing clar­ity over last year’s version.
• 9:30–9:32 Responded to fol­lowup e-mail from direc­tor of cor­po­rate rela­tions about cor­po­rate con­nec­tions I made at last week’s research fair.
• 9:32–9:35 Responded to e-mail about affil­i­ate sta­tus renewal for affil­i­ate faculty
• 9:35–9:45 Spent 10 more min­utes assign­ing 2AC review­ers for CHI papers
• 9:45–10:10 Spent more time improv­ing slides for lecture
• 10:20–11:00 Left for class and lec­tured for 30 min­utes about lim­i­ta­tions and assump­tions in designs
• 11:00–11:20 Led activ­ity using sim­u­lated impair­ments on mobile devices to elicit assumptions
• 11:20–12:15 Led activ­ity in which teams brain­stormed assump­tions in their own design projects
• 12:15–12:25 Fin­ished class at 12:15 and spend 10 min­utes eat­ing lunch
• 12:25–12:30 Responded to e-mail about plan­ning dub retreat
• 12:30–12:35 Responded to e-mail about when 2ACs need to fin­ish their reviews by
• 12:35–12:40 Responded to e-mail about cor­po­ra­tiz­ing universities
• 12:40–12:45 Spoke briefly with Scott Barker about how many in-class hours the new cap­stone should include
• 12:45–12:50 E-mails to stu­dent who wants into INFO 461 next quarter
• 12:45–1:15 Drove to Kirk­land to work at library to avoid traf­fic from 1
• 1:15–1:18 Responded to e-mail approv­ing new mem­ber to EUSES consortium
• 1:18–3:18 Copied pro­posal draft to hard drive for writ­ing and worked on dia­grams for Cyber­learn­ing pro­posal draft.
• 3:18–3:23 Dri­ving to car line
• 3:23–3:30 Wait­ing in car line
• 3:30–4:20 Get­ting snacks for Elle before swim practice
• 4:20–4:35 Writ­ing e-mail to col­leagues about frus­tra­tion around method­olog­i­cal rifts among faculty
• 4:35–4:45 Tak­ing Elle into swim practice
• 4:45–4:58 Writ­ing stu­dent ser­vices staff about Spring cap­stone event
• 4:58–5:00 Reply­ing to stu­dent about spring cap­stone team
• 5:00–5:08 Reply­ing to request about all school meet­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion con­flict­ing with my final exam schedule
• 5:08–5:15 Writ­ing co-PI about updated fig­ures in pro­posal draft
• 5:15–5:25 Writ­ing this list
• 5:25–5:30 Call with ex about Thanks­giv­ing plans
• 5:35–5:41 Fin­ish­ing this list
• 5:41–5:48 Edit­ing this list and press­ing the pub­lish post button.