I do a lot of diverse things and much of that ends up in some visible form (writing, classes, etc). I get asked about my daily routine and workflow a whole lot.

So, tomorrow I'm going to tweet my entire day and what I'm working on. I'll thread here if you want to follow along.

I don't think I have a lot of particularly unique workflow hacks, but I do use some simple repeatable systems that work for me. I'll share some of those too.

I do think one of my most useful skills is the ability to monitor and estimate my time well.

That's important since I context switch a lot -- teaching, research, writing, doctoral work, nonprofit work, family, etc.

Tomorrow should showcase a lot of that context switching and how I budget my time. It'll be fun to share!

Good morning! Time to #TweetMyDay. I’m up about 7 these days. I don’t usually set an alarm.

First things first: shower, teeth, hygiene, etc.

I’d normally be straight up to the office now, but pandemic mode means daycare is cancelled. Dr. Wife has patients starting at 8, so I’m watching young’n until the babysitter shows up here at 8:30.

He’s pretty content to play on his own this time of day, so I use the time to read the papers. I read parts of the local Gainesville Times, my hometown Mayfield Messenger, The NY Times, and the Washington Post.

Up to the office after a surprise stage 5 stinky diaper change (the baby, not me).

First things first, e-mail. Some of my online classes are pretty interactive, so I get e-mail notifications when people post to discussions. I get a lot of these overnight because many students do classes after work, and I have lots of international students.

One student posted some investigation questions related to a malware alert prompt. They're good, but a bit broad. He needs to do more research on the malware to make his questions more specific so he can confirm that it's on the box. I typed that up and challenged him to do so.

Another student posted in response to a prompt about the limitations of an evidence source they like. Not much to add here so I upvote the response.

I went through several of these, some requiring responses from me and others not.

Writing good discussion questions is hard. You want to make them accessible enough so everyone can participate, but challenging enough that it forces deep thought and reveals opportunity for improvement. I'm constantly trying new things here.

Student e-mails done... now I've got a few e-mails from colleagues to respond to. A couple of former coworkers I checked in on since I haven't heard from them in a while, someone asking for an update on a class we're working on.

Done with e-mail. I keep my inbox at or pretty close to zero. Right now there are 2 things in there, one of which will get addressed later today. Of course, lots more things will come in over the day and I'll go to sleep with a lot more in there.

I'm pretty diligent about creating folders and sending things to them with rules, or manually once I've looked at them.

Next, are course feedback forms. Anyone who takes my classes fills out a survey at the end. I read every single one of them and I have some to read this morning as well.

A couple charity things next.
- I made a note about @DAkacki's fundraiser for a school in Belize, so I'm going to research that.
- I need to review two new applications for @RuralTechFund funding.
- Send a note to a guidance counselor to let them know about scholarship winner

- Sent $1155 to support 3 kids for @DAkacki's Belize fundraiser (learn more here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bucks-for-belize?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet)
- Sent the scholarship award letter
- One RTF app wasn't eligible, let them know
- Needed more info on another one, sent a message requesting it

Spent a little time thinking on some cover designs for the new book I've hinted at. Here's are two of the options I'm weighting. Let me know if you have a strong opinion :)

(Surprise book title drop)

Now, onto some content work. I'm giving an online writing seminar for a private company next week, so I'm customizing that curriculum to fit the time frame and adding some new components.

Good progress on the writing seminar content. My stomach's been rumbling for an hour and I got to a good stopping point, so I'm going to find some lunch.

No good leftovers today, so it's a turkey sandwich, a couple sweet pickles, and some pieces of cheese I smoked.

I normally eat at my desk for lunch and take care of simpler batch tasks. If it's a cognitively demanding day I'll sometimes watch netflix and detach a bit.

Now that Dr. Wife is working from home a lot more, she pops in and eats with me sometimes if schedules align.

Speaking of Dr. Wife. Shout out to her. She's had two patients die from COVID this week and diagnosed a few more. She is also donating these two months salary to the free clinic in our county, which really does a great job helping underserved communities, particularly now.

While I'm eating... some thoughts on how I keep my to-do lists organized.

First, since I keep my inbox at or close to zero it and a series of folders serve as a de facto to-do list. If there's something in there it means I need to address it.

I have a whiteboard on my wall with two columns: this week and next week. Pretty self explanatory. I don't plan down to the day because I want flexibility to go with the flow when certain tasks are clicking for me. This two week plan gives me pretty good workable altitude.

Otherwise, I rely on my calendar to keep track of scheduled things I need to worry with in the future, and check it pretty regularly.

I have a LOT of balls up in the air at any given time between AND, RTF, family, doctoral work, etc, etc. My systems for managing the "to-dos" are super simple but work incredibly well for me. Not much slips through the cracks, but I do reprioritize things often.

I also carry this notebook around with me everywhere. I regularly write down ideas, to dos, etc in it and migrate them to my whiteboards, etc frequently. That happens a lot at night when I’m not by a computer, particularly when reading.

Lunch done. Running through e-mail to include some student questions and RTF correspondence related to this mornings request.

My RTF applicant responded with the information they needed, so I approved their grant request. We'll be sending a 3D printer to a rural IL school to help build a makerspace. She has some info to get me so that'll probably happen next week.

Time for some research + writing. I'm working on Ch 8 of the IDH book focused on honey credentials. Going to do some experimentation with placing credentials into memory so attackers find them when running something like Mimikatz. I'll test the process then write it up.

That worked pretty well. A few kinks to iron out and make it easier for folks, then writing it up.

I listen to Spotify while I'm labbing, but usually prefer silence or some sort of white noise while writing. Rain sounds, keyboard sounds, etc.

Did my process refining and testing, as well as outlining. Got to a good stopping point so I stopped to return a call about an invoice, look at twitter, and purge the inbox once again. It's afternoon snack time and then I'm going to try and write out some of this book section.

Roughed out the draft of this section -- about a thousand words. That doesn't sound like a lot but it's 2% of a 50K word book. Not bad for an afternoon! Tomorrow I'll take screenshots and make diagrams for it.

Now, I'll spend the next 30 minutes reviewing some research papers for my doctoral class tonight. Then, I'll need to relieve the baby sitter until Dr. Wife wraps up. Work day isn't over, but it'll shift to family stuff for a bit before it continues.

Baby handed off to wife, so now it’s time to cook supper. It’s homemade pork vindaloo tonight.

Quick garden check while supper finishes cooking. No watering needed today.

Aforementioned Vindaloo. Nomming this and then family time until I need to go prep for class around 8.

Back in the office for class prep. I have two 1.5 hour doctoral classes weekly. They're live online. Everybody has webcams and we all see each other. Lots of discussions and critical review of literature and practice. I really enjoy the diverse group of colleagues.

Tonight is an instructional design course where we're talk ID theory. It's fascinating, particularly as a guy who spends a lot of time designing curriculum. That'll be 8:30-10 but I spend 15-30 minute prepping for each class.

And that's a wrap on class. I'll head downstairs now and spend some time with the wife. Then, I'll read for about an hour and call it a night.

So, you can see that my day is really broken into block. I have big blocks for project work, and then a few smaller blocks to batch out shorter tasks. That works really well for me.

This works for me because my day doesn't include much surprise. I can probably tell you what I'll be working on six months from now with some certainty. I like tackling big projects and setting up systems that help me maintain ongoing projects efficiently.

So, that wraps up #TweetMyDay. If you were following along, I hope seeing some of the ways I structure things was helpful to you or at least a little entertaining :)