Week in advance: 31 August-6 September

Looking ahead to the coming week, I don't have any specific plans.  Thinking back to last week, my idea was simple... do as much work as possible.  Sounds good on paper, but where's the driving force?  To be honest, I don't know, but looking back at last week I am pretty pleased with the progress I made.  Perhaps knowing I had to give a talk in Auckland this week helped spur me along to get as much lab work done as possible.  It could have been a building sense of urgency with time ticking down to thesis submission.  Maybe things just came together for me last week.  I really don't know.  That's why I'd like to try and reproduce my productivity this week.

Monday I'll be at a meeting in Auckland, but I'll  be back into the lab from Tuesday.  I have a bit of PGSA work to do this week as we have an Executive Board meeting on Friday and our 3MT competition begins next week.  I have just over a month until I present at a workshop in Germany.  I would very much like to have new work to present and a finely polished presentation before I leave Wellington.  I've have time, direction and goals; let's see how I can pull them together over the next five days.

Week in review: 24-30 August

It's strange the calm I've experienced this week.  With my work in the lab ramping up, a presentation in Auckland next week, numerous upcoming PGSA events and a thesis deadline that inches closer each day, this past week I've found myself cruising along comfortably.

Surprisingly, I've easily woken up and arrived at work as early, if not earlier, than my experiment from a couple weeks ago when I tried to add a couple hours to the start of my day.

Despite knowing how much work I have to do, everyday this week I left work at a reasonable hour, without having to be persuaded or pulled away from my desk.

This all seems bizarre as I have plenty of reasons to panic and should probably be manically working every hour of the day... but I am not.

Even with last minute changes to my schedule, like judging science fair on Thursday, I've kept my course.

All I can conclude is that pressure keeps me on track.  On reflection now, the concept does not seem that ridiculous, but I am curious to understand this seemingly delicate balance between productivity and stress.

Satisfied exhaustion

Today I focused on preparing my slides for next Monday's MacDiarmid Institute meeting.  In the afternoon our research group got together to run through everyone's presentations.  As I've been having too much fun this week with experiments and business outside the lab, my talk was not complete.  I ran through my presentation (for the first time) with a number of images missing, but overall I received some great advice from my supervisor and fellow students.  Unfortunately this means tomorrow (my Saturday) will be spent fixing up (and finishing) the document.

Hot seat!

Today was a flurry of action and I think I only logged a total of 60 minutes or so in the lab.  As soon as I arrived at work I helped to judge science fair projects at the Wellington Regional competition.  As I was only available in the morning, I spoke with year 7 students and I was very impressed with the quality of all the entries I saw.  I excused myself from the science fair just before noon to head off and prepare for a PGSA BBQ.  We had beautiful weather today, a perfect setting for a BBQ lunch.  Once the last sausage was served and the final veggie burger was eaten we had fed well over 100 postgraduate students.  After cleaning up I met with a few members of the PGSA to discuss plans for our upcoming 3MT competition, before returning to my office.  I only had a couple minutes at my desk because this afternoon our school hosted a "Dangling Bonds" session which offered non-chemists and non-physicists (from within and outside of the University) the opportunity to learn about the specialities and capabilities of the labs at Victoria, in the hopes of sparking collaborations.

Overall it was a thrilling day with numerous opportunities to meet new people.  Although I was kept from my work, in a way it was nice to have all these events on one day instead of each event carving up time throughout my week.

Plugging along

Today was another great day in the lab.  I am getting to spend heaps of time on my work; slowly, but surely making progress.  Although I haven't started my slides for next week's presentation.

This afternoon I met with another member of the PGSA Executive Board to discuss plans for transitioning to a new leadership after our AGM in October.

Much improved

After yesterday's doldrums, I headed into school ready to attack my work.  I got off to a slow start spending the first half of my morning writing an editorial for this month's PGSA newsletter.  Before lunch I also had a quick sit down with my supervisor regarding our talks for the workshop in Germany and spent some time working on my latest homebuilt instrument (I know I speak in vague terms, but yes this is the same device I've been working on for the past couple months).  I made great, but slow, progress in commissioning my new machine; making some tweaks to code and electrical connections along the way.  Later in the afternoon I helped staff a PGSA table at a PhD orientation session. After the successes of today, my attitude and outlook has much improved from yesterday.

Helpless feeling

I know I am constantly mentioning how difficult Mondays are due to my commitments around Wellington and today was no exception.  Today was typical in the sense I ran to one meeting and afterwards had an hour or so before I had to leave campus. I did get my user interface to a usable point (hopefully tomorrow I put it into practice), I took some measurements on an instrument outside our lab and I managed to order some materials.

Despite the busy schedule and my attempt at making some progress, overall I felt (and still feel) overwhelmed by the amount of work I currently have queued.  What makes it worse is because there's little, if any, time on Monday to get things done it feels as if I am at a standstill.  It's one thing to worry about your workload, but it's far worse to worry about your workload and watch a whole day pass when you make no progress.

Week in advance: 24-30 August

A week from tomorrow, 1 September, I will be in Auckland for a MacDiarmid Institute theme meeting (for those of you interested, our research group is part of the "Bionano/Nanobio and Soft Matter" theme) where I'll be giving a talk on my work to date.  Also, it looks like in October I will be headed to a one day workshop in Germany where again I'll give a talk on our group's recent progress.

In preparation of these engagements, my goal this week is to do as much work as possible.  Hummm, that sounds like what you say every week Tim!?  I guess that's true, but the point is this week no gimmicks.  This week truely needs to be all about productivity.

Pour on the fact that the PGSA is hosting a BBQ this week and gearing up for out annual 3MT competition (which is looking to be the biggest ever!).  Also I am helping (briefly) with a new PhD student orientation and will have my day to day email/meeting obligations. Between a group meeting tomorrow morning and volunteering in the afternoon, my Monday is pretty much a wash for lab work.  And on Friday I am scheduled to give a talk to the group, which will partially be a practise for my Auckland talk.

This is a great opportunity to try and put the lessons learned in previous weeks to work.  An experiment where the stakes are high.  Excellent!

Week in review: 17-23 August

This week I wanted to focus on "getting work done."  Of course this is always my goal, but the key feature of this week was to finish one job and not replace it with another.  Taking inventory of my accomplishments this week, I finished a number of jobs for the PGSA, made advancements in the lab and I am pleased with the progress of the Honours students working with our research group.  In addition to striking these jobs of the slate, I am pleased to report I didn't commit to any new projects or allow myself to be side tracked by new ideas (which is a big step forward for me).

Also this week I followed through on my second goal, which was to keep to a regular schedule.  With the exception of Monday, when I left campus early to volunteer, I arrived and left work around the same time each day.  Looking for a sustainable routine I kept reasonable hours, never coming in exceptionally early or staying too late.

Thinking about what I can improve upon in future weeks, I need to continue to plan ahead and keep track of what work requires my attention.  At this point, I am swimming in to do lists and everything seems to be  just as much of a priority as everything else.  This week it worked out to just attack tasks on a whim, but I need to create focus in my work management.

Lots of work (just not mine)

Today was a full day, but most of my time was spent working with two undergraduate students who are doing term projects in our lab.  While studying for my BSc degree I was fortunate enough to be involved with various research projects and work with some awesome graduate students.  As these experiences positively contributed to me finding a scholarship and PhD programme, I am pleased to introduce these exceptional students to the excitement of laboratory science. When I had time to myself I worked on a touch of programming and some PGSA business.

One step back, two steps forward

Today I was excited to bring together my latest code with my newly assembled circuit boards (see this week's "Photo of the Week").  The first board worked as expected and I was using it to test out new features in both my firmware and interface code.  Part way through the morning I decided to move the electronics over to my desk (don't ask me why I wanted to work in the comfort of my mess).  After porting my kit to my workstation I connected the power supply.  A heartbeat later I realised something was wrong and I quickly unplugged the cable.  It took me a couple seconds to realise I had connected the power supply into the wrong jack and in the process I killed a pair of components on the board.  It's frustrating that the mistake will cost me a few dollars, it's annoying that it will take me a couple days for replacement parts to come in, but ultimately it was a foolish and avoidable error.  The lesson learned is nothing new and it reminds me of sage advice from my old boss in a machine shop; he said, "Think about every step you do, before you do it."

Moving on, after lunch, I was able to program the micro controller on the second board (the smaller board) I showed in yesterday's image.  This was exciting as this was the first PCB I've designed where I populated and program my own processor.  All the other circuit boards I've made have been "accessories" to development boards that already had a processor chip.  I shared my excitement with our school's electronics technician, but we ultimately decided my record was 1:1 for the day, and I need another success to end the day ahead.

Thus, with a couple hours left in the day, I went back to programming.  I made some great progress and have a clear spot to jump into my work tomorrow.

Slow but steady

This morning my supervisor and I had a short meeting with a Victoria University staff person as part of ongoing discussions regarding commercialising our research.

After lunch I attend a final year PhD talk from a fellow student in our school.  These days I am paying closer attention to other students as they near the end of their studies, as I plan to be in their shoes next year.

In the lab I was able to finish documenting my latest version of code and I moved on to updating the instrument's GUI to reflect the recent changes.  Also, the PCBs I sent out last week came in so I spent a couple hours soldering on the components.  In an effort to liven up my blog, I am going to try a "Picture of the Week" feature, so this week I have an image of two of the populated circuit boards.

Photo of the Week: Recently populated printed circuit boards

One of the better days

Today was an exciting day, if not a busy one.  I finished (more aptly finished for now) the code I was working on for one of my home built instruments.  On that note, I had an idea this weekend on how to improve the mechanical design of the device.  To see if I was on to something, I headed down to the workshop to talk the machinists through my latest inspiration.  The response from the boys was literally, "Why wasn't it designed that way in the first place?"  A bit of ribbing, but it tells me we're moving in the right direction. Back in the lab and thinking about programming, I spent the rest of the morning working to update the instrument's documentation.

In the afternoon I had meetings with the Director of Student Academic Services and then the President of VUWSA (the main student association at Victoria).  Both were great meetings and I returned to the lab feeling positive.

Add to all this the fact that registrations for the PGSA's 3 Minute Thesis Competition are starting to roll in, making today, truly, one of the better days in recent history.

Mild Monday

This morning I stayed home from work to take care of some chores.  This really didn't affect my day much as I volunteer on Monday afternoons.  Usually on Mondays I get into the lab right before I need to head off to the bus stop.

This evening I worked on a couple PGSA documents that have lingered on my to do list a few weeks longer than I should have let them.  Also I caught up on with my regular emails so I should be able to head into school tomorrow and hit the ground running.

Week in advance: 17-23 August

In the coming week I have two goals.  First, I'd like to keep to a regular schedule and second, I want to start closing threads on some of my various projects.

Last week, in trying to get to up to school early, it was obvious the importance of a set schedule.  To keep showing up to work at the same time each morning, I needed to make sure I left work at the same time each evening.  It's almost hopeless to wake up early if you've stayed at work late the night before.  I think a regular routine will make it easier to deal with the ups and downs of PhD life.  In this way, when my work is derailed at least I know what to do when I pick myself back up.

With my lab work, helping fellow students, volunteering with the PGSA and other tasks, I currently have a number of projects in the works.  While it's exciting (and challenging) to keep myself organised, this week I'd like to go crazy knocking items off my ever growing to do list.

Week in review: 10-16 August

This week I challenged myself to get into work a couple hours earlier than my typical start time.  Two of the main driving forces behind this decision was 1) a desire to get more work out of a day and 2) to push myself into unfamiliar/uncomfortable territory.

In the end, I think the tally came up: 1 early morning and 4 regular starts.  Overall this week I'd say I am pleased with managing my workload and for the most part I followed through on all my plans.  While I didn't rack up heaps of extra hours (at least not at the start of my days) I believe I did grow this week.

Moving forward, I think it's important to realise the difference between self motivation and external motivation.  A couple months back my wife had to start work around 6:30am, six days a week.  I tagged along because I didn't mind the extra hours.  In this case, what got us to school each day (on time) was the knowledge that we needed to be there, in this case for her to use specific equipment in the lab.  This week I set a goal for myself to do basically the same thing as was routine a couple months back, only now the drive to get into work early was self generated.

In studying for my PhD, particularly in New Zealand where we don't take classes, the onus is on me to keep up with my studies, lab work and writing.  This is a lot of responsibility and requires a great deal of organisation, planning, focus and follow through to earn you degree.  I know I can handle the organisation and planning, but the focus and follow through are definitely skills I need to work on.  To focus and follow through with my lengthy list of plans for the next 12 months, I will need an insane amount of self motivation to stay on track.  I am proud of the baby steps I've made this week towards becoming better at motivating myself.

* Also, for the record, I did go into work today, but not early!  I had a great morning/afternoon working on some programming.  I am pleased I took advantage of some extra hours this weekend.  Now on to preparing for next week.

Another typical morning

This morning was another typical start.  While I am getting up earlier, I seem to take my time getting to school which means I don't really gain any extra hours in the morning.

Again today I had a chance to work on some programming and electronics testing on the bench.  Around noon I headed down to the Pipitea campus to help staff a PGSA BBQ.  Afterwards I made it back to the lab just in time for our NMR group meeting, where a fellow student gave a great seminar presentation.  Afterwards I had a couple extra minutes of desk work before heading off to an international student meeting.

It was another great day where I had an opportunity to make progress on my research, but also meet new folks and spend time with colleagues in the lab.

Tomorrow I hope to go into school to continue making progress on my work.  I am hoping that by mentioning this on the blog I may have a little bit more motivation to make sure I follow through.

Fourth time a charm

Well I've finally made it into campus early today.  Despite struggling this week to stretch out my work day by heading into work a couple hours earlier, I find reporting my success to be rather anticlimactic.

Today was a busy day with my trademark eclectic mix of meetings, lab work and bookkeeping.  This morning I was able to spend a number of hours working on some firmware programming.  Additionally, I sent off a trio of PCB (printed circuit board) designs off to a board shop for fabrication.  In the afternoon I attended a meeting of the University Research Committee.

Also, some news I didn't share earlier in the week, my supervisor and I, together with Victoria University, have filed two patent applications.  My first ever!  Both were filed with the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) which doesn't actually grant patents, but is a logical first step before filing an application with individual patent offices.  Over the next 18 months our PCT applications will be examined in the context of current patents and other public records to provide an opinion on the patent-ability of the our devices.  This feedback would then be used to refine our applications before we submit them to individual national patent offices.  While it might be sometime before we file for actual patents, our PCT filing protects our claims and allows us to start disclosing information about these inventions without jeopardising our IP.  Which is fantastic news if you're a PhD student looking to write some journal articles.

Staying positive

An early start yesterday followed by a late night spelled disaster for my Wednesday morning.  Despite my apparent failure to get into work early any morning this week, I do want to make clear that I still make it to school at a typical and reasonable start time (I just want to make sure I haven't turned away any readers with the appearance of sloth).

This week's experiment was to add extra time into my work day by getting into the lab an hour or so before my established start to the day.  I did mention in my Sunday post that I am a night owl and after a couple days I have been thinking maybe it's just time to work later.  While the plan is to tweak a couple more hours from the day this is also an opportunity to train myself into a new habit, which is ultimately a major goal of this blog.  Along with nightly reflections on my progress towards submitting a thesis I also hope to identify what traits, habits and skill I can hone to become more productive overall.  For the most part what makes a good PhD student also makes a good researcher, engineer, scientist or other professional worker.  With that in mind, I still want to try for early mornings this week to see the challenge through.

Proof of concept morning

Those following along the past couple days will know that my goal this week is to get into work "early."  Or at least earlier that normal, which sets the bar at around a 7am start.

Today I woke up and got ready with plenty of opportunity to make my target, but I didn't leave the house right away and in the end I made it to work at the normal time.  Let's call this a proof of concept morning... it shows the theory works, but as of yet I haven't implemented the process.

Once I finally arrived at school, it was another hectic day.  In the morning I ran a training session for the PGSA representatives that sit on various boards and committees and in the afternoon I attended a meeting of the Honour's degree working group.  Throw in a little desk work and email writing between meetings and that was my day.

Now despite the fact that I am trying to extend my productivity by getting into work earlier, this evening I spent about 3 hours working on some PGSA tasks.  By nature I am a night owl, so I may have to revisit this early morning concept.

No early Monday morning

My goal this morning was to get into the lab a couple hours early and knock out some work before I left campus to volunteer in the afternoon.  Well simply put, I didn't make it to school any earlier than normal.  I still have four more days this week, so let's consider this a work in progress.

On the up-side, as I mentioned in my post last Friday, I left myself a note with all the work I needed to get done first thing Monday morning.  This was a big help to jump start my day and ultimately my week.  Last Monday night I was feeling rather unsettled with how the week had started, but my new note from the week before strategy seems to improve my situation.

Also, a bit of good news found it's way to my inbox this evening.  A paper I had contributed to when I was studying in Montana was accepted for publication in the Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering.  I'll past up a link to the abstract when I have more details.

Week in advance: 10-16 August

As I explained yesterday, currently my days are rather full and frequently I worry about the amount of time I have to dedicate myself to my studies.  At this point my University commitments are winding down so for the most part over the next 12 months I'll be able to focus primarily on my thesis.  However, for now, to balance my workload, I would like to try and add a couple more hours to my day.  As a trial this week I'd like to be into work an hour or so earlier (aiming for 7am).  From experience I know this means I need to be careful how late I stay at work in the evening as late nights turn into late mornings.  In general longer days are not a solution and if there are any other graduate students reading these posts, in no way do I suggest extended days as a solution to pressures at work.  For me I realise my preferred level of involvement on campus is "over-committed" and in the short term I need extra hours to keep up with my studies and extracurricular activities.

Week in review: 3-9 August

My goals this week were to look at planning my days and setting aside time for reflection and reading. I feel I made progress on one of these fronts, that being scheduling my days and having realistic expectations of what I can do with my time.  In looking closely at the balance between work to do and work accomplished, I can't help but see that a large part of my time goes to non-research related tasks.

At school, I am a PhD student.  Earning my degree is based upon my studies and how I present my results.  I have a scholarship which provides funding so that I can focus on my research.  And despite all this, I still spend a great deal of time outside of the lab.  I've spent time today trying to reconcile this fact.  On one hand I am concerned that my research is falling behind and that I am stunting my progress by contributing to things such as the PGSA.  However, I would point out, that it's only me that seems to have this concern.  My supervisor and I see each other almost everyday and we have very honest conversations regarding my work plans and my progress.  Despite ample opportunity to voice concern, my supervisor has never been anything but supportive of my decisions to contribute around the University.

Now it is very real that I spend a significant amount of time working outside of the lab.  And perhaps only I have a full grasp on the extent of this time.  What I do know is that I can't continue on forever with this split and that's why I will not be continuing to serve on the PGSA Executive Board as of this October's Annual General Meeting (AGM).  At this point, I'll also hand over my seats on various committees and boards to the new President or other student leaders.  By waiting until the AGM in October, this means I will serve my entire term as President; a commitment I agreed to last year when I took office.  Inside the organisation we are already looking to pass the torch of leadership and over the next two months I'll share more intimate details of my role with two excellent students who plan to continue with the Executive into next year.

For now, I need to make the most of my time and continue to manage a balance between work both in and out of the lab.

Another day gone

Today I had a PGSA Executive Board meeting, a student leaders meeting and a lab meeting.  All together that means that I had little time to work on my research.

At the very end of my day, when I knew I had only minutes left before our group was heading to the staff club for our regular Friday afternoon get together, I made a list of what I needed to do come Monday morning.  Most of these include calling lawyers, emailing administrators at the university and PGSA business, but my goal is to start next week better than I started this week.

A bit of a funk

I had another day working in the lab and this evening I went to a PGSA Interactive Forum.  Also, today there were a few emails and I had a quick meeting with the PGSA Executive Assistant.  All-in-all I could say I made progress on numerous fronts, but unfortunately I am in a bit of a funk.

I suppose studying towards your PhD is like many other jobs in the sense that there are few milestones.  Sure every 6 months we submit a progress report, but otherwise, day to day, there's little in the way of external management.  For the most part I am happy with this and when it comes to my work, my supervisor and I have found an agreeable balance between conference and independence.  What I find difficult about this arrangement is continually evaluating my output to say whether my studies are moving in the right direction.  Add in the fact that my days are split between research and other activities (e.g. teaching, sitting on boards/committees, and working with students' associations) and it's all the more difficult to know I am on the right track.

And this leads to my current situation.  After days like today, where I've had my nose stuck in code for hours on end, I have to wonder if I am making progress and if I am making it fast enough?

Trending to normal

After being out of the lab last week and a busy past couple of days, today went pretty smooth.  I focused on lab work and I am pleased with my progress.  Ultimately a head cold forced me to pack up and head home in the evening.

Not to plan

As I promised yesterday, today I went into work knowing what I needed to do and having a rough idea of how long each task would take.

The good news is I got through most of my to do list.  The bad news is that in no way did my day progress anywhere close to the schedule I had laid out last night.

Coincidentally I came across a quote in a newspaper story last night that perfectly sums up my Tuesday:

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” 

- Mike Tyson

After a chaotic day like mine and keeping in mind Tyson's quote, some folks may be resigned to giving up on planning and just take work as it comes.  However, this is a mistake.  Sure my day was derailed before I even left the house, however, my planning and tentative schedule was a constant reminder of the tasks I had to accomplish and kept me on track even when my plans were derailed.

Tyson's words resonate with me, it's easy to make plans when you're safe or in relative comfort and I am no stranger to life throwing the proverbial monkey wrench into my gears.  However, I am learning it's what we do after we get punched in the face that matters.  And for me, if I've really put forethought into my plans, after a jab I can get back on track with a quick consult of my notes.

I am not discouraged that I didn't get to everything on my list and I am not in the least put off that my day didn't go down as expected.  If anything today has demonstrated the strength in preparation and it's a trend I will continue.

Unprepared

Wow.

I knew my Monday would be busy and hectic as I had morning meetings and a volunteer shift off campus in the afternoon, but I am stunned by how quickly the day went.  I had no opportunity to sit down at my desk and I just moved from one task to another.

This week I wanted to focus on planning my time and getting the most from my workdays.  Today would be a prime example of why this is a skill I need to develop.  As my Mondays are always cut short by leaving in the afternoon, I see now I need to spend time on Sunday organising my week so that I come in and hit the ground running.  Also, if I don't plan prior to Monday, this means I am going into work on Tuesday without thinking through my week.  That's far too late.

For my own benefit, I've written myself a to do list for tomorrow.  Even in preparing my list and setting approximate time slots for the work, I had to exclude a couple tasks as there's a finite amount of time available.  This is the thinking I must train myself to do to make sure that each day I complete all necessary work and have reasonable expectations.

Week in advance: 3-9 August

Looking ahead to the coming week, I am back at uni and I have a typical "busy" schedule.  On Monday I have a morning meeting and in the afternoon I volunteer off campus.  I have other meetings on Tuesday and Friday morning and on Thursday evening, I am helping at a PGSA event at the Te Aro campus.

My goal this week is to put into practice what I've learned from my my past two Saturday reflections: 1) appropriate plan your time/days and 2) set aside time for reading and reflecting.

Week in review: 27 July-2 August

Being away from school for most of the week it was easy to escape the distractions of my desk and the lab.  As I tried to explain yesterday, I thoroughly enjoy my work, however, my enthusiasm can lead me astray during the day and cause me to lose entire days to various side tracks.

Spending time reading papers and textbooks I was reminded that these exercises are not simply to build references for manuscripts and ultimately a thesis.  In fact these source materials are boundless sources of motivation and inspiration.  Over the past two years I've spent the majority of my time tackling scientific problems through engineering and design.  For most of my studies, I've tackled basic questions in my field that were previously unanswerable because the hardware didn't exist to perform the experiments.  After considerable effort, the fruits of my labour are starting to come together, but now I need to apply these emerging methodologies to new research problems.

Last week I discussed the importance of (realistically) scheduling my days to make my time as productive as possible.  Moving forward I'll need to figure out how to integrate "quiet" time away from the lab so that I can continue to tap into the wealth of knowledge (and inspiration) that exists in published works.

Things just got real

As I accompanied my wife on her conference excursion and to her conference dinner in Queenstown earlier this week, I was introduced to a number of folks.  When the conversation turned to myself and what I did, I explained that I was a PhD student.  At this point, without fail, the next two questions were always "What do you study?" and "How far along are you?"  The question of when I'll finish my thesis always made me smile as this is the typical question of a PhD student and the inspiration for the name of my blog.

Today is the 1st of August and is hopefully the start of the last year of my PhD as I plan to submit my thesis for examination on the morning of 31 July, 2015.  For motivation I've added a timer widget onto the blog to remind me of the precious time remaining.

Now, in no way am I in a rush to complete my thesis; and why would I?  This is a point in my career where I get to ask and answer questions that I want to explore.  Not only do I get to expand my understand of physics, soft matter and magnetic resonance techniques, but I am also free to explore new tools and methodologies to perform my research.

That said, my scholarship will not last forever and at some point I need to move along to a new set of challenges.  Thus my focus on submitting next year.  Time is my most precious resource and I need to keep that fact in mind over the next 12 months as I plan and prioritise my work.