My ITHAKA workday: Roger Schonfeld

This article is part of ITHAKA’s employee workday series.

"I travel a fair amount for my job, but when I’m not traveling, I try to go into the office three or four days a week. I love having a workspace that has been optimized for work!"

5:30 AM – Morning run ?

I was not an athlete growing up, but running has become an important part of my life, and it’s usually the first thing I do in the morning. Exercise keeps me physically fit and mentally balanced and gives me time to reflect on things without too much structure. I run for an hour or so in Central Park, usually listening to a podcast about foreign affairs or international relations. I like to run as part of a structured training plan, usually with a specific race in mind, and I run five or six mornings a week.?

6:30–8:00 AM – Food & family

Time to get ready for the day, and breakfast with my family. Even though there’s never enough time before school and work, I try to make eggs at least a few mornings a week. Then it’s the race to the school bus.?

8:00–8:30 AM – Subway, crossword & Slack

One of the reasons I love going into the office, odd though it must sound, is my commute. I love the liminal period between home and work—my 25 or so minutes on the subway, with some walking on either end. On Mondays through Wednesdays, I can fairly reliably do The New York Times crossword if I’m not caught up in some kind of distraction. As the puzzle gets harder later in the week, I’ll look over email or Slack instead. There is something satisfying about working my way through any overnight correspondence before I’m at my computer.?

8:30 AM – Getting started

I get situated at my desk, which I chose because I face the most open vista from our office, looking over a small park across the street. My days are very meeting heavy, and I try to spend the first 30 minutes looking over my calendar and doing any prep work for those meetings. This morning, I am also emailing a few library directors who I think might be especially interested in an Ithaka S+R report we’re publishing today.?

9:00 AM to noon – Meetings & inspiration

I end up on lots of video calls even when I’m in the office, but it varies with the day of the week. Mondays are almost entirely on video, but on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays more colleagues join me in the office. A morning of meetings might involve several one-on-ones with co-workers, along with some calls with European colleagues. This morning, I have a one-on-one to catch up on S+R’s research enterprise program area, where our team focuses on how new technologies, changing practices, and the shifting policy environment are transforming the work of scholarship. We’re helping universities, funders, and policy makers navigate these changes—an exciting opportunity to increase the impact for our community. I then have a call with the founders of a European start-up who are interested in textbook affordability—I love connecting with interesting start-ups and innovators, as they have an infectious kind of energy and the most interesting questions. I probably have three or four calls like this a week, usually with a library director or a publishing or software executive, to stay in touch with what’s going on in our communities. They help us shape our thinking for new projects and initiatives and periodically result in a piece for The Scholarly Kitchen . Best of all though is connecting with colleagues or visitors in person whenever possible.?

Noon – Falafel, mostly

I try to go downstairs for lunch a few minutes before the noon rush. I’m famous at ITHAKA for dragging one colleague after another to Sam’s , the wonderful falafel stand in the park across the street. In the summertime, the ideal is to eat outside with a colleague or a friend in the neighborhood.?

1:30 PM (ish) – Coffee & chocolate

An hour or two after lunch, I’ll make a cup of coffee. I learned to make my own pour-over during the pandemic, and I recently brought the requisite supplies into the office, so making coffee is fast becoming an early afternoon ritual. One of my favorite little things about being in the office—in addition to the free air conditioning, great desks, proper office chairs, and bottomless chocolates—is being able to get up and take a walk to the kitchen. In my small NYC apartment, my working seat and the kitchen counter are about three feet away from one another!

2:00–6:00 PM – Collaboration

In the afternoon, I find I am more likely to have project and team meetings. Today, I am participating in the executive committee meeting for the Center for Research Libraries board, where a major topic of conversation will be the search for CRL’s next president, which I am chairing. Then, with an internal team, I’ll review our upcoming Ithaka S+R project planning. Finally I have several meetings about some new product directions that are an essential part of our organizational strategy. It’s exciting to have moved beyond the first hype cycle around generative AI and into specific applications that can be valuable to the communities we serve.?

6:00 PM – Drinks, dinner & wrap-up

Roughly once a week I’ll meet a colleague for a drink or dinner, but otherwise I do the same commute in reverse. I find that in the evenings I almost always have unfinished business—one more email or Slack to send, one last loose end to tie up in a document—and that subway ride lets me finish that up on my phone and leave it behind before I get home.