• If you need more of your advisor’s time, ask for it. Students are often confused or concerned
that an advisor spends more time with some students than with others and may even (wrongly)
think that the advisor is either less excited about a particular project or (worse) doesn’t like
some students as much as others. (I remember comparing notes with my fellow Ph.D. students
in grad school about how much time our advisor was spending with each of us.) Yet, it is
important to remember that good advisors don’t play favorites. The time that an advisor spends
with a student (or on a project) is typically determined by the advisor’s perception of how much
time is needed; the required time can vary dramatically according to both the stage of the
project and the stage of the student’s development. Students who are early in their careers
typically need (and should be asking for) a lot of guidance and “closed loop” feedback. Students
who are close to graduating also tend to need more attention of a different sort—help with
building their professional network, seeking out job prospects, practicing job talks, and generally
landing on their feet. Similarly, nascent research projects or projects with substantial
coordination components (e.g., large systems-building efforts) often need a lot of advisor
attention, since they have lots of moving parts and can involve coordination between multiple
sub-projects and students. Do not be overly concerned about strict time accounting. If you feel
you need more time, simply ask for it—or, better yet, just try to take more time (walk into your
advisor’s office, approach him or her on IM, send regular email updates…whatever it
takes). Advisors tend to spend more time with students who demand more of their time.
• Keep your emails short and to the point. Here is a simple rule of thumb: If the email is longer
than one paragraph, it probably won’t get read right away, particularly if there is no summary at
the beginning of it. It almost certainly won’t get an immediate response. Additionally, consider
whether email is the fastest way to resolve something, or whether it’s quicker to have a 5-10-
minute meeting, hangout, IM chat, phone call, or whatever. Use the right communication mode
for the job.
• Do not assume that if your email doesn’t get a reply, it hasn’t been read. I read everything in
my inbox, almost always on the same day that it arrives. Unfortunately, I also receive 300-500
emails per day in my inbox (not mailing lists), many of which are actionable. Suppose that half of
those emails required action, and that each one required one minute to process and respond
to—that’s already six or seven hours a day just to process email. That is insane and can kill
anyone’s productivity. I am convinced that it is possible for a professor to do nothing else in life
except reply to email. To control this insanity, I often process emails “in batch mode”—leaving
email to (mostly) pile up for a few days and then responding to a bunch at once. I tell my
students that if they do not receive a reply right away, “retransmission” after a few days is fine. I
do not consider this to be rude, nagging, or pestering behavior; most likely I have simply just
forgotten (I have found that it’s surprisingly difficult to even keep a to do list for all of these
things that students ask professors to do, as doing so becomes a monster mega-task in and of
itself). Before sending a retransmission (or initial email), however, consider whether you have