Summing up the work year 2025

I have just summed up my work year in 2025 based on my log of working hours. 2025 was my second shortest work year in living memory (with my work log going back to 2009), with an average work week of 46,2 hours all weeks in the year included. This amounts to 2409 work hours, which compares to 143% of an ordinary work year. 

This year I also summed up my work/life balance, focused on sleeplessness, karate training and meditation.

Overall, the work year was characterized by making room for finishing the manuscript for my book originally titled Captured: CCS and the fight for the soul of the environmental movement and now titled Carbon Capture and the Future of Environmentalism. I so did, in early August 2025. In my work log, this is reflected in the fact that book projects had the highest share of total work on record, and ended up as the largest category of work for the first time. Moreover, the share of my work time I spent on research plus book projects was the highest ever. Book projects was also the category whose share of all work hours increased the most from 2024. 

See also:

Summing up the work year 2022

2024: Shortest work year in living memory, at "only" 138% of normal work year

Summing up the work year 2022

In 2022, I logged 2.763 work hours. This is 53 hours a week (all year, including in holiday weeks). At 163,6% of a standard Norwegian work year, this is considerably longer than the average employee´s work week. And yet it was my second shortest work year in terms of work hours over the last 10 years, due to health issues (which resulted in about a month´s sick leave altogether in the autumn). However, in 2013, my first year as a father, I had a somewhat shorter work year (2.650 work hours). In 2020, as an effect of the covid pandemic and a month´s sick leave related to surgery, my work year amounted to some 2.790 work hours. My longest work year ever was 3.231 work hours (2011).

2022 stands out with a few records of different sorts: Highest share ever for academic work (vs. literary and other work), lowest share ever for "other work".

Summing up 2021 in terms of work hours

In 2021, I logged 3.114 work hours. This compares to an average work week of 59,7 work hours (holidays included).  This is my third-longest work week ever, beaten only by 2011 (when I finished my ph.d.) and 2012 (my first year as an associate professor and about the time up until I became a father), and compares to 184,5% of a normal work week.

Other highlights: As expected, the category "UIS" increased the most and reached record levels, while research and book projects had a significant decline. Also the broad category "academic" reached a record level, at the cost of literary projects and "other tasks".

2020 work year redux

In 2020 I logged 2.790,5 work hours. This corresponds to 169% of a normal work year, and is the least I have worked since 2013, the first full year that I was a father. This was due to a combination of covid-19 circumstances and a month´s sick leave. My average work week was 53,4 hours, 5,5 hours less than in 2019.

I spent the most time on University of Stavanger tasks, ahead of research and "litterært" (book projects). The share of UIS tasks and "litterært" were both the highest in recorded memory (which goes back to 2009).

Summary of work year 2019

In 2019 I ligged 3.073,5 work hours, which is 186% of the normal work year in Norway. My work week was on average 58,9 hours, up 2 hours from 2018 and up 4 hours from 2017. This is my longest average work week since 2012, and in other words my longest work week/year since I became a father.

About 31% of this time was spent on research, down 3% from 2017. Work with book-long texts was stable. UIS work (primarily as Vice-Dean of Research) was largest category, with 32% (+9%). I spent less time than ever on "other tasks" (4%); 77% on academic work; 19% on literary projects.

Work hours logged in 2018

In 2018 I logged some 2955,5 work hours. This results in a weekly all-year average of 56,7 hours - the most since 2012 (when I became a father). 

The most significant repriorization concerned quitting elected positions in the Green Party of Norway, bringing time spent on research back to normal, and spending more time on book projects than ever before in the time covered (starting with 2009) - namely 20% of my work hours. I have also spent slightly more time on my role as Editor-in-Chief of Biosemiotics, after I took over as Main EiC this last summer.

Work hours 2016

Yesterday I looked over my logged work hours in 2016. Altogether I worked for 2.901 hours, which amounts to an average work week of 55,5 hours (vs. 54,6 hours in 2015). Of this 64,9% was spent on academic work (vs. 75% in 2015), 14,1% on book projects etc. (vs. 8,5% in 2015) and 21% on "other" activities (vs. 16,5% in 2015). Among activities that contributed to more spent time doing "other" activities were the Green Party, administrative work (for one thing because we bought a house and moved), and music-making.

Work hour log

In my personal work hour log, I have just transitioned from 2nd to 3rd tertial 2016. In 2nd tertial 2016 I logged 883 work hours (vs. 962,5 work hours in 1st tertial). Average work week so far in 2016 is 53,6 hours.

2848 work hours logged in 2015

According to my regular overview, I had 2.848 work hours in 2015. This is about the same level as in 2014, and results in an average work week of 54,6 hours throughout the year.

According to my calculations, academic work amounted to 75,0 % of my work in 2015, book projects and writing for 8,5 % and other work for 16,5 %.

The work year 2012 summarised

In 2012 I worked some 3165,5 hours. This results in an average work week (all weeks included) of 60,5 hours (against 62,0 in 2011 and 58,1 in 2010), which represents approximately 192 % of a normal work week (given 35 hours per week, minus 5 weeks of holidays).

I worked more than ever (since records begin in 2009) at the University of Stavanger (where I have in previous years only graded papers), with book projects (categorised as 'Litterært' and including both co-editing and monographs in process), and  with Minding Animals and to some extent the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies.

The share of my work time spent doing research is a bit tricky to estimate; the category "Research" stood for 28,1% of all work hours, though this does not represent all research activities and is at any rate not directly comparable to previous work 2009-2011 categorised as "doctoral work" (which included work beyond research as well).