Stay on target

With today being my first day in the lab this week I had a number of "administrative" tasks to do.  I was able to knock a couple items of my list, however, I did struggle to stay on topic.

By now I've learned that my favourite types of work are planning, design and construction projects.  With my latest instrument working and ready for measurements, I am less interested in my work at hand and more keen to find a new challenge.  I never have problems coming up with new ideas myself, which leads to internal battles, but now my colleagues are starting a new project and it's taking a tremendous amount of self control to keep my nose out of their business.

Quiet day

Today was pretty much a null workday.  This morning I stayed home to run errands and in the afternoon I went to volunteer.  With a bit of a guilty consciences, after dinner this evening I wrote an abstract for my presentation at next month's workshop and responded to some PGSA emails.

Week in advance: 28 September-4 October

There are some interesting parallels between now and the beginning of the week a fortnight ago.  Namely, 1) I am coming off of an exciting and productive week and 2) looking ahead my schedule is mostly open.  Now two weeks ago I had a rather tough time staying focused on work and making any progress, but I plan not to let this happen again.

I've made a fresh to do list for the coming week.  Looking forward there are some exciting days ahead.  This will be my last week as PGSA President and in anticipation of leaving office I have some remaining business.  Additionally, I have two weeks until I leave for my workshop in Germany.  Based upon my work last week, I know I have exciting results to share, but now I'd like to push my research and yield as much new data as possible.

Week in review: 21-27 September

This week was certainly one of my better weeks.  As I discussed yesterday, a lot of work came together in the past couple of days, giving me a sense of accomplishment on a grand scale.  While I am pleased with my productivity and output this week, I don't think I can attribute my success to any particular strategy over the past few days.  That said, I did have a to do list and I was able to tick off each job.  I stayed focused on my work at hand, but I think this was primarily due to building excitement and not because of my to do list.  Even though it wasn't as necessary this week to organise my tasks, it was important to keep up the routine, to develop good habits.

3MT Final and lab work

In many ways, today was a culmination of weeks of preparation and planning. 

On one hand, this afternoon the PGSA hosted the final round of our 3MT competition.  We heard from nine fantastic students who all did a wonderful job presenting.  In the end, we gave out almost $5,000 of cash prizes and the first place winner will represent Victoria University at the Trans-Tasmin Final, in Perth, Australia, later this year.  This year's competition was the biggest in recent history and was a dramatic turn around in participant numbers compared to 2013.  Additionally, we raised the profile of the event and today the local newspaper published an article about the competition and one of the finalists.

On a completely different topic, this evening I finished analysing the data I collected yesterday and I am extremely pleased with the results.  My findings demonstrate the feasibility and function of an instrument I have been developing for the past year and a half.  Nearly 18 months of planning and preparing supported 60 minutes of data collection.  Now that I know what is possible, it's time to apply the technique to interesting samples and to push the limits of the set-up.

The days go so fast

Today I submitted a small grant application to help fund next month's workshop trip.  Late in the afternoon I attended some practice talks from our department's current Honours students.  And in between I chugged away in the lab.  I am still very pleased with my progress. I've knocked off all jobs from this week's  to do list and I still have another day to go!

Still cruising

Today was another great day and in many ways felt like an extension of yesterday.  This morning I worked on the formatting of the plots for the Journal of Glaciology paper that was accepted yesterday.  These changes are all finished and we're ready to send the final manuscript and figures to the editor.

Just before lunchtime I had a meeting with other members of the PGSA where we discussed our Associations current newsletter scheme.

In the afternoon I focused on my research and I was able to make nice progress.  I've moved into some exciting new territory with regards to the measurements we make in the lab.  Ideally I would be able to collect enough data over the next week or two so that I can write-up these results for a journal submission.  Also, I will present this recent work at the workshop I am attending in October.

Another "up" day

Today I was able to spend most of my time in the lab working.  I feel very good about the progress made today and I am looking forward to continuing tomorrow.  A couple month's worth of effort is starting to come together and hopefully tomorrow I'll make an exciting new measurement in the lab (more details to come in the future!).

Also this afternoon I received an email that a paper I submitted with my supervisors from MSU was accepted to the Journal of Glaciology.  This is particularly cool as this will be my first "first author" publication.  Once the paper is published, I'll pass on the references.

To close out the day, I attended an inaugural lecture of my wife's supervisor.  It was an excellent talk and a great opportunity for me to understand the broader implications of my wife's work.

A thoughtful visit

As it was Monday, I only had half a day at school.  The morning I did spend on campus was primarily spent visiting with an academic from Switzerland.  This was a great opportunity to meet with an experienced researcher from one of the fields relevant to my work.  However, I realised during the meeting that while I have an idea of what I am doing, I know so little about the bigger picture.  In my case, my research is strongly interdisciplinary, which means there is lot of background literature.  I struggle to know how much of an "expert" I need to be in the various fields that compose my research and after days like today, I feel like a fool when it's obvious how little I do know.

Week in advance: 21-27 September

Last week has left a sour taste in my mouth.  I explaind yesterday why I thought I wasn't as productive as I could have been, but I also mentioned that there's an ebb and flow to studying for your PhD.  Moving forward, I could write off last week as a coincidence of bad luck, foul moods and exhaustion.  Or I can take responsibility for my mistakes and the role they played in my performance last week.


As I've mentioned, my planning last week was weak.  I struggled to know what to do and that made it difficult to focus on my work at hand.  I will admit, it can be difficult to know what needs to be done a week in advance.  And it's even more difficult to grasp the time frame of individual tasks.  As a student, I am still learning to manage my time and I count myself fortunate for this opportunity to refine such a useful skill.

Practically, this week I plan to do a better job of writing.  By that I mean I will get down on paper (or on the computer) the next leading steps of my work.  As I knock a couple items off my to do list, I'll add to the bottom the next logical steps.

By extension, these will include scheduling time in my calendar.  Last week, when I struggled to keep on task, I had the fewest number of meetings in months.  Last weekend I looked greedily at the endless hours I could work uninterrupted in the lab, but in the end I couldn't take advantage.  I see now, I am better when I am busy and can work with a sense of urgency.  "Sense of urgency" is a term I remember from my days as an apprentice electrician.  Working on big job sites in California, productivity was key (and so was safety).  Of course running around a construction site would have been dangerous and frowned upon, so instead my foreman elegantly instructed our crew to work with a sense of urgency.  It's a concept I've also enjoyed as urgency doesn't imply carelessness or chaos, but it does impress a form of intensity.  I don't need to make work to fill my diary, I only need to apportion my time.  This combined with a thorough and constant evaluation of my progress and work plan should help me beat the cyclic ups and downs of a PhD.

That's the hypothesis at least, now it's time to run the experiment.

Week in review: 14-20 September

It's tough to sum up and describe the last few days.  In the course of my PhD studies, I've come to notice the ebb and flow of progress. Some weeks, things just seem to come together and in others nothing works out.  Observing these trends from a far, you'd realise this is just natural law dictating randomness in our lives.  However, when you can't seem to gain traction and you feel you're without focus, the psychological effects can be intense.

Overall I'd have to say I am lucky I accomplished as much as I did this week.  And in reality, it wasn't as unproductive as I might make it sound.  But for all the "success" I may have had over the past couple days, I can't attribute these results to any sort of plan.

My problem started at the beginning of the week when I neglected to look at the coming days and map out my work.  I had a half hearted to do list which, compared to my planning the week before, was pathetic.  Add to this my apparent lack of interest in some of my tasks which caused me to drift between projects.  I struggled at work from one task to another until I found something that was fun or until I found something with an impending deadline.  This made my week at school oscillate between crisis control and cruise mode.  And this has left me exhausted and disappointed in my efforts.

Last Sunday I mentioned that I wanted to do a better job looking after my health in the coming weeks, but again, I launched in without any plan.  Without any forethought I was doomed to be unsuccessful, but unfortunately my frustration is further compounded by the feeling of failure.  A step in, what feels like, the "right direction" quickly turns into two steps back.

A salvaged week

Today I was able to tie up a number of the threads I've been working on this week.  As I mentioned yesterday, I've been lacking focus over the past couple of days, but fortunately I was able to make something of my week. 

I finished off a number of PGSA jobs that have been hanging over my head.  Additionally a new set of PCBs came in today and I was able to populate these boards this afternoon.  This puts me in a comfortable position to continue my work next week.

Lost focus

I need to admit that today I've notice my work has lost some focus.  Especially compared to my productivity last week, I am finding it difficult to stay on a single task.

I didn't come into this week with a clear list of work to do; and it's not just a lack of a proper to do list, but lack of planning and consideration given coming deadlines, etc.  As a result I find myself scrambling more than past weeks.  This also makes me less certain about jobs at hand and I seem to drift.  Luckily tomorrow is the end of the week and I can try to regroup over the weekend.

Lull?

I spent all day at school.  I didn't have any meetings.  I didn't work on PGSA business.

Yet despite focusing all my efforts on my research, I don't feel as if I got as much work done as I would expect.  Please don't get me wrong, I made progress and I know how my time was spent, but given the luxury of an entire "free" workday I thought I'd feel more satisfied.

Today I continued with my programming, building up to doing some actually "physics."  Late in the day, a professor, and collaborator, from another university stopped by and we had a bit of a chat about ongoing work and plans for the future.  Otherwise it was a nice quiet day.

Back into work

After being away from the lab yesterday, this morning I eased back into work.  Today was mainly spent writing programs to run experiments on our NMR spectrometers.  Slowly, but surely, I am moving towards integrating our custom instruments with our NMR systems.

This afternoon I had a single PGSA meeting.  This was part of a regular monthly meeting between myself and staff members from the University.  As my term as President officially ends next month, today was the last of these meetings and served as a hand over of sorts to another student who plans to continue on with the PGSA.

Easy as

Well it's certainly easy to write about my work progress when I don't do any work.  And that was exactly the situation I had today.  With volunteering in the afternoon, I decided to stay home this morning and work on some personal chores (with the occasional work email).

Week in advance: 14-20 September

This week I plan to continue with my strategy from last week by making a master to do list.  However, I plan to focus my energy not only on work, but also on my health.  Now I've always felt this blog was a semi-professional endeavour.  While realistically my posts are for my own benefit, I've always been open to sharing my experiences with other students.  That said, I've purposefully kept my relationship with readers formal and this week will be no exception.  By tracking my efforts to be healthier, I won't be counting calories, recording my gym feats, logging my sleep cycles or sharing dinner recipes.  While the details are not important here, I can't stress enough how vital it is while studying to keep not only your mind healthy, but also your body healthy.

Looking back at my posts last week you'll notice I mentioned a few times I was pretty tired.  It's one thing to push your brain, but your body needs to be able to keep up.  Conditioning of the body for the stresses of long days in the lab is important, plus it staves off illness which causes loss of work on sick days.

While I'll briefly mention the strategies I explore this week, I will also report first hand on their effectiveness or possible negative side effects.

Week in review: 7-13 September

This week I wanted to put on some pressure at work to see more results.  My driving force this week came from the desire to check tasks off a master to do list.  In the past I've worked with to do lists and the like, but usually not at the level of this week's list.  Meaning the tasks were large and typically took many days to complete.  Overall, I'd say the week was a success.  I kept to my list and in the end I completed eight items, I have another two started and one remained untouched.  I notice this week when I finished a job, I would immediately look at what was undone.  Additionally, the desire to check off an item made me stay on track and see a task through before I strayed to another job.  This is definitely a strategy I'll be using in future weeks, but I do need to be careful to keep the list both small (I can't be too unrealistic) and I need to focus on big tasks.

The tally

Today I knocked out two more task from my list.  One of the items was the 3MT Faculty rounds, which the PGSA ran on Monday, Tuesday and today (Friday).  A great number of hours went into putting on this competition, but overall I think we should be very please with our efforts.  The second job today was to finishing reviewing the manuscript from yesterday.  I got through the paper and sent my comments back to the main author.  Now I still have three unfinished tasks.  One I've been working on and it's currently chaired until next week as I am waiting on someone else to do their part.  I started one of the other remaining tasks this afternoon and I actually made surprising progress for starting the job at Friday at 4pm.  This weekend I plan to put in some hours and maybe even knock this item off the list.

Short day

Today I wanted to tackle another item on my list, which was editing a manuscript from a fellow author (FYI - this was actually the second paper I reviewed this week, each of which are tasks on my master list).  I went into work a couple hours later than usual this morning as I've been pretty tired lately.  I actually didn't sleep in, but I just took my time getting to school.  All day I focused on a single paper and this took it out of me.  At times I wanted to move on to something else that was a little more dynamic, but knowing I needed to mark this job off my list I didn't stray.  Ultimately I had to call it quits with still another 5-6 pages to go.  I actually printed off a copy so I could finish my work at home, but I forgot the pages on my desk.

Check!

Today I was able to tick five items off my to do list.  Additionally, I have another four in progress.  I am a bit concerned that the end of the week is approaching and I still have two tasks untouched.  Especially as these remaining jobs are research tasks in the lab (i.e. very important).

Overall it was an exhausting day and when the evening came around I was ready to head home.  I notice that working from my list and trying to get all tasks done by the end of the week, I stay very focused at school.  Maybe this intensity at work is making me extra tired or maybe it's not my method, but just a busy week.

Progress made, but nothing completed

Today was the second day of the 3 Minute Thesis Competition faculty rounds.  Over the past two days we've run seven out nine heats with the final two on Friday.  After a full on Monday I was a bit tired this morning.  Luckily yesterday's experiences helped to make today's sessions go a touch smoother.

After the 3MT I continued to work on PGSA business at my desk.  At the very end of the afternoon I squeaked in an hours or so work on my research, particularly some items on my to do list.  I've got a nice handle on five out of my 11 tasks.  With Wednesday and Thursday free to focus on lab work I hope to keep moving forward and even get the chance to cross off part of my list.

Task master

Today was my first of five (maybe six) days this week to finish my list of 11 tasks.  I knew it would be tough start as I am off campus on Monday afternoons and the PGSA held the first faculty rounds for this years 3 Minute Thesis competition.  The 3MT took up a number of hours, but I was able to get a touch of work started this morning.  I've started four out of the 11 tasks.  Hopefully tomorrow I can start crossing some off the list.

Week in advance: 7-13 August

Yesterday I pointed out my difficulty in focusing without a looming deadline.  Therefore this week I've decided to clearly spell out my objective for the week.  Well what' new?  Sounds like a system I've been using for a while now.  Fair enough, but I've written out a collection of tasks that I expect to finish over the next five days; the difference is that in the past I've used my lists to tell me what to do next, not necessarily to tell me when I needed to complete a task (in this case by Saturday night!).  Will it work?  I don't know, but it's a fresh approach and worth a try.

I wrote my list, to spare you the boring details, I'll keep it to myself, but know there are 11 tasks. The items are specific so that it's easy to know when I can check a job off the list.

Week in review: 31 August-6 September

This week I certain got work done; including a talk at a meeting in Auckland, working with students in our lab, plenty of PGSA business and finally my own research.  I never skimped on hours and I even squeeze in an extra six hours today.  However, I don't feel as if I reproduced the productivity as last week.  There's definitely something to working "under the gun."  My big question is how can I push myself the same way external pressures get me to perform? I have a big talk in Germany next month and if that's not enough the countdown to thesis submission is ticking along.  I must find a strategy to focus my work and continuously yield results.

Easy Friday

Today was definitely a mild day.  I had a PGSA Executive Board meeting around noon which lead into other PGSA business in the early afternoon.  I sandwiched this work with some PCB layout in the lab.

I ended the day with a lecture from a visiting scientist, Professor Y. T. Lee, the recent past President of the International Council for Science and a Nobel Laureate.  He gave a thought provoking talk on the sustainable transformation of human society.

Tomorrow my wife is collecting data for one of her projects so I plan to head into school for a couple hours of work.

The race

I don't know if folks have noticed, but when I talk about the work I do in the lab, I tend to be rather vague.  I do this primarily because this blog is not meant to be a chronicle of scientific progress, but rather a glimpse at life as a PhD student.  That said, I also hold back details as research scientists tend to play their cards close to their chests.

Let me preface the rest of today's post with the full disclaimer that nothing I do is Earth shattering or bound to make me a rich man.  Optimistically, I hope to get a couple publications out of my current work, but that's a pretty generic goal of any researcher.  So why be protective?  Well imagine spending months or years of your time and grant money on a project only to have someone publish similar results as you're writing your paper.  The number of groups in my area of study is pretty small, add in the required expertise and equipment to reproduce our work and you'd find only a handful of labs around the world would even be capable of reproducing our work.  However, when there's a significant amount of money and time invested in your work, you tend to err on the side of caution.  Hence I stay tight lipped about the details.

So why explain this?  At least, why explain this tonight of all days?  Well last night I picked up an email from my supervisor.  In short he pointed out that another group speaking at the workshop in Germany may be working towards similar goals as we are and that perhaps we should focus on getting a publication out.  The email was brief, as my supervisor is currently in the process of flying from NZ to Europe and the message was sent briefly at some airport en route.  Additionally, I read the email sometime between 12 and 1am and was maybe too tired to be doing work.  Well, this got me concerned, as I mentioned earlier, I have quite a bit invested in my work and to hear someone else might be about to publish the same work is pretty intense.

Jumping to the end of today, I've emailed my supervisor a number of times as I try to understand our situation and plan our next steps.  I received one response to the effect of "don't worry."  We have concluded that the situation isn't as dire as it may have first appeared and regardless all we can do is to continue to focus on producing quality work.  Fair enough, sounds like a plan to me.

So today was a bit of a roller coaster ride.  And even last night (at ~1am) I was thinking of heading into the lab to keep work moving forward.  Luckily there's no need for (extreme) late nights and we will hope to have a couple publications submitted to journals in the next few months, but this process got me thinking...  while I was ready to speed ahead so as to not be "scooped" by this other research group, if we published "first" wouldn't that be doing to them what I was so afraid of?  What if there are PhD students on this project half a world away hoping I don't submit a manuscript before them?  I know this is the way academia works, but at this point, I struggle to accept this reality.  For now, I'll chalk up the lessons learned from today and move forward.

Sidetracked

Today I spent my entire morning on PGSA emails.  This was not planned, but it was necessary.  To try and make up hours, I skipped lunch, which wasn't really too bad as our group met at 1 o'clock for some coffee and cake.  With one student leaving NZ and another student having just completed his thesis we felt there was plenty of excuses to get together and have some dessert.  After the sweets and caffeine I went to work in the lab, troubleshooting some printed circuit boards.  I ended up finding the bug in my circuit just as it was time to head home.

Now what?

I went into school today knowing I had a heap of work to do in advance of this week's PGSA Executive Board meeting.  Amidst numerous emails I prepared and circulated an agenda, a President's report and three short memos.  Not too bad for a morning's work.  In the afternoon I worked with one of our Honours students and got some electrical components ordered.  By late afternoon I returned to my desk only to realise I didn't know what to do.  Now that's not to say I didn't have anything to do, I just didn't know what to move onto next.  Luckily it was at this time my wife asked if I was ready to head home.

Theme Meeting

I spent today in Auckland attending a theme meeting of the MacDiarmid Institute.  All the research presented had to do with either biological engineering, soft matter physics, nanotechnology or some combination of these areas.

I was fortunate to give a talk and overall I was pleased with my presentation.  As you could tell from my posts last week, I started to work on my slides rather late.  In fact it took me a full day's work on Saturday to complete my slides.  Having finished my presentation so late I have very little time to practice what I wanted to say during my talk.  I ran through the slides a couple times last night; then again this morning and during the lunch break, but I would have preferred more time to let my talking points stew.  It's very much like writing a paper; a first draft might get a point across and in some instances may be all the effort required for a given task, but a second draft is typically clearer and gets points across effectively.  Extending this idea numerous drafts and feedback from others yields a better product.

While I am happy with the results today thinking about presentations has perked me up for my talk next month in Germany and I am keen to make sure I am thoroughly prepared.