7:00 a.m. Wake up and have my medicine. Go back to sleep; it is too early yet to rise.
8:00 a.m. An alarm clock rings — silence it and snooze just a few minutes more …
8:30 a.m. Yet another alarm clock.
8:45 a.m. Wake up.
9:00 a.m. Coffee!! I need it. Review my plan for today’s teaching and the papers that will be discussed in class.
9:45 a.m. Go to class.
10:00 a.m. Teaching trade models followed by an exciting discussion in class e.g., on how information frictions work as a barrier to trade.
12:00 p.m. Class just ended, feeling somewhat exhausted, grab lunch, go to the office and take care of various administrative issues. Attend the department or division meeting depending on the day of the week with conversations on how to increase diversity and inclusion, faculty hiring and other agenda items. Or attend the internal data seminar.
1:00 p.m. Meet my students individually to discuss questions or issues they encounter in their research, coordinate with my grader, plan for the next classes and assignments.
2:00 p.m. Have a meeting with co-authors to discuss findings and coordinate the paths forward.
3:00 p.m. Invite external seminar speakers and organize their visits to Grinnell (which these days are in-person or online depending on the geographic location of our invitees). Read seminar speakers’ papers or meet with the seminar speaker and exchange ideas on research.
4:00 p.m. Respond to journal editors’ request for refereeing by carefully studying research papers in my field of expertise submitted for publication. Write reports with recommendations for the editors and the authors. Or attend the external research seminar if it is Wednesday. Or prepare my own talk for the upcoming conference/seminar where I am invited to speak on my research.
5:00 p.m. Coordinate and communicate with my research assistants on their research and work with them to resolve issues they encounter.
5:30 p.m. Tend to my tasks as an associate editor of the Review of International Economics by reading papers submitted for publication, selecting suitable scholars as referees and contacting them to ask for their service, writing letters of decision.
6:00 p.m. Prepare dinner. Watch crime shows while having dinner.
8:00 p.m. Prepare teaching for upcoming and future classes.
10:00 p.m. Working on research projects or editing my research papers by responding to the comments from editors and refereeing scholars. I learn a lot from most, but don’t agree with all.
11:30 p.m. Call and wake up my husband, who is on a time zone 7 hours ahead of Iowa, and talk about various things as he is getting ready for the morrow already.
12:00 a.m. This is the time when I get the most exciting ideas for my research.
1:30 a.m. – 2:00 a.m. Bedtime.
