OK, so I'm not totally gone,but posting will continue to be light for a while.
See, I'm having this problem with inertia lately (an object at rest cannot be stopped!). Usually when I have this problem it is because everything fucking sucks and I have trouble working up the motivation to do anything when it is all tres sucky (but I have coping mechanisms to deal with this conundrum). That is not currently the case. Things are going pretty fucking awesome on several fronts, and I really, really want to take advantage of that stroke of good luck and momentum. However, I am struggling to actually do as much as I should be about it.
I think it's mostly because I am juggling a squillion different balls at once, and so it's been very difficult to put several of them down and really focus on just one (or a few) that need to be my top priority at the moment. It would be a very good thing if I could make myself do this, because then I could just finish with those top priority ones and take them out of the rotation. Then I would have net fewer balls in the air and I focus my attention a little better in general.
A friend of mine said to me the other day that her favorite motivational strategy is to tell herself that any wasted day or wasted effort or just a day spent not as productive as she could be, is one more day prolonging her time here. (She's in grad school, so the getmethefuckouttahereandfast! sentiment is one I can sympathize with.) Thing is, I'm not sure this is a good strategy for me. I'm liking what I do and (for the most part) my working environment. Of course I don't want to be a postdoc forever, but it seems to me that I ought to be focused on quality (of publications, training, etc.) rather than counting down the days to just get out. Because what's on the other side? I don't know yet, and I should probably figure it out before I start racing toward the finish line (or so that I can start racing toward the finish line with some kind of prize in sight).
Any collective wisdom out there?
About Me
- Ambivalent Academic
- Ambivalence - a state of having emotions of both positive and negative valence or of having thoughts or actions in contradiction with each other, when they are related to the same object, idea or person (for example, feeling both love and hatred for someone or something [i.e., grad school, or academia]).
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10 comments:
My advice: fuck focusing. This is a myth created by people who can't multitask. The trick is being mindful of whatever you're doing. If you find you're more stimulated, creative, have more momentum, etc. by juggling a few things at once, then do that. I think that actually works better for me than focusing, although I tried the focusing shit because that's what my (male) mentors told me to do. It just made me feel more trapped and desperate when things weren't working, and made it harder to get unstuck. I think variety breeds mental fertility, if you will. Promiscuity of ideas, even. Which is really a good thing. Keep up the good work and enjoy the ride while you can! After that - don't ask me. If the economy improves by the time you're done, you might be fine. If not - figure out how to get some industry experience. I might have a job right now if I had any.
Yeah, I'm with you in general MsPhD. I am much more productive in terms of ideas when I can multitask or whatever you want to call it. I have a plethora of ideas at the moment. The problem at hand is making any tangible output or progress on any (or a few) of the most important ones. I need to get shit DONE on some of them (there are deadlines!) and my brain is way more interested in playing around with mental experiments on all of them than actually doing any real experiments. It's sort of fun and sort of frustrating. I guess the sort of "focusing" I'm trying to achieve is to get things kind of rolling on some of the more recently conceived things so I can wrap some of this other shit up and get it off my desk. And I feel sort of incompetent for not making that happen already.
But yeah, I like this "promiscuity of ideas" idea - I think that's a good one. Now, can I do that and still publish some shit? This remains to be seen.
Unlike grad school there is rarely any reward given to postdocs for doing time.
Researchwise, cast a wide net initially and the go with whatever bites. Spreading yourself too thin is not a good plan. Neither is burning yourself out because you got lucky in the beginning.
Pick the most promising lines and focus and bring them to completion. Other stuff can be put on the back-burner and picked up at a later date by you or someone else.
Don't waste time or energy doing experiments that may or may not work or may not tell you anything and don't really fit into a paper. Focus on generating publishable data and completing a stories.
I'm not a postdoc or a scientist, but I can definitely agree with you on the whole, "Don't rush through it, you don't know what's on the other side," part. The workplace is no panacea for what ills ya.
Ms.PhD - I love your multitasking rant. I freak out just a little bit if I'm not allowed to multitask. I suppose my brain's just wired that way.
Don't waste time or energy doing experiments that may or may not work or may not tell you anything and don't really fit into a paper. Focus on generating publishable data and completing a stories.
This is terrible advice. While you should not spend all of your time on speculative experiments that have a chance of breaking really new ground, but might not work at all, and which might tell you something that you don't understand, if you *never* attempt those kinds of experiments, you are never going to learn anything genuinely novel about whatever it is you are studying.
I had the same mentality as your friend towards the end: every day should get me closer to graduating. Now I feel like I should be prepared for whatever opportunity may arise unexpectedly. You don't know what's next or when the next thing will happen, but you sure as hell want to be competitive for it when it shows up. Not that I've gotten any papers accepted since I defended, so maybe that's not great advice.
Im a grad student in my last year and I have pretty much the same mentality as your friend. However on the lines of multitasking, I've found that my least productive year of this whole thing was when I was doing my PhD work full time. The other years I was juggling a job and a PhD and was very productive in both - now I am back at it. Its probably because when something is not working in one area there is something to counteract it and I dont end up going into a depressed unmotivated spiral. It may not be for everyone but not all of us are mean to "focus".
Comrade - "While you should not spend all of your time on speculative experiments that have a chance of breaking really new ground, but might not work at all, and which might tell you something that you don't understand, if you *never* attempt those kinds of experiments, you are never going to learn anything genuinely novel about whatever it is you are studying"
The first year of postdoc is for doing all those speculative experiments. Once you have good leads (as AA suggests she already has) the best course of action is to follow them through to completion.
The postdoc is too short to spend your time initiating experiments and generating awesome preliminary data for someone else build upon and take the bulk of the credit for. New direction are great, but a postdoc can only do so much and take so much with them.
Your first author projects should take priority, and not suffer because you are too busy generating preliminary data or secondary author contributions that amount to very little.
P.s I am all for multitasking so long as it calculated and not burning yourself out doing directionless experiments.
i think it's all bout goal settin.
jugglin' aint really a prob if u get things done.
how do i handle things?
i change the things i gotta do into specific tasks.
so, instead of writing ...
write a paper to be published in ...
by ....
i figure out exactly what needs to be done into *chewable* tasks that can be done in at most 1 hour.
publish paper
1. define X. what is X? D(X)=? (1/2hour)
2. comparative analysis between different definitions and the impact of each.
D1(X) vs D2(X) = ? (1/2 hour)
D2(X) vs D3(X) = ? (1/2 hour)
3. problem of X? P(X) = ? (1 hour)
4. factor of problem? (1 hour)
5. probable solution? (1 hour)
6. my solution? (45 minutes)
7. why is my solution good? (1/2 hour)
8. detail of solution? process? (1H)
9. experimentation ... owh u get the point! :P
so i chew one of em daily. when i finish a task, i stop. i dont really stretch myself. i juz kinda keep the comfortable pace till things get fun.
it gets things goin'. i make a pact with myself to work at least 2 hours a day on things i NEED to get done. rest of the time i fool 'round a bit, bug someone and what not lol.
Ms.PhD
"fuck focusing"
lol. every job that progresses into completion requires a certain level of focusing.
it aint black and white.
u write ur thesis while watchin twilight and gettin all fuzzy inside. that's considered focusing because u're dividing ur time into :
1. entertainment
2. academic
however, if u try to write part of ur thesis while correcting ur friend's publication, well, thats not focusing.
coz u're dividing time into
1. academic
2. academic
i think it's called multiple resource theory. check it out okay? :P
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