Recently I found this urgent need to prioritize both at work and at home to get the best of my time. I don’t know if it’s specific to my job, or to being in Japan where working long hours is common yet with poor productivity, but I feel inefficient. At work it’s quite difficult to prioritize because for me the most important is research and teaching, but I spend most of the time doing paperwork, administration, budget plan and research proposals, though what I really want to do is spend more time with my students and read and write more. In the lab I’m on my own, without any assistance and a growing number of problems to solve, all being more pressing and paying often for others poor organization. At home it’s much more simple and rather the contrary, I have a lot of help, good organization and sharing tasks allow to always have time for urgent matters, and for cooking. Which is absolutely important for me because the kitchen is the place I can make the transition from work to home, set my brain to a quieter pace after the bustling day by keeping it busy with thinking and inventing but on a diffferent topic, by keeping my hands busy with a knife requiring velocity and precision. The more veggies to cut, the more relaxed. And only after that can I sit and relax. That’s why for me going to the restaurant after work is hard because I lack the transition.

So here is a little pasta dish, nothing too exciting but still delicious with trofie, plenty of leek cut in small pieces and diced tomatoes, olive oil of course too!  Something that just require the perfect amount of time to move on and of knife manipulation to stay focused. Happy Wednesday!