Working Smart

In grad school, I've seen a lot of different "types" of grad students. There are the guys that show up just before lunch and are gone by 3. There are the guys that come in before sunrise and stay until after sunset. Then, there are the 9-5ers (which would best describe me).

The amazing thing is that the amount of time spent in the lab doesn't correlate very well with success. It probably does correlate pretty well with data accumulated (assuming the guy putting in 14 hour days isn't spending 13.5 of those hours blogging about grad school). The catch is that not all data is equal. Some data will go straight into a figure on your next paper, and some of it will never see the light of day.

If you define success in grad school by total published output, then it pays to think long and hard about what you're doing and why you're doing it. The grad student who publishes frequently (GSWPF) won't do an experiment that won't be a paper figure. GSWPFs ask themselves questions like, "will anyone care about this result (besides me and my advisor)?" or "What am I really going to learn even if I get this result?" The GSWPFs also know when to walk away from a project. You have to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em (thanks Willie). Some projects are blackholes that turn a 5 year PhD into 10 years of frustration.

So, what do grad students who never publish (GSWNP) do? They're experts at following tangents. They're great at doing controls of controls of controls. They're even better at doing experiments that are so meaningless that they're too embarassed to present them in their weekly lab meeting. In short, they spend too much time and effort on doing experiments that a GSWPF wouldn't even consider.

Now, I don't really think that it's fair to say that publications=success in grad school. I'm also not saying that doing good science (like including controls) is a bad idea, or that tangents are always a waste of time. My first paper actually came from a tangent that paid dividends. Of course, there were about a dozen other tangents that I could have followed and luckily I chose the right one.

So, if you're worried about publications (and I guess we all are at some level), then what do you need to do? The simple answer is to work smart. While I'm far from mastering this attribute, here are some things that work for me:

1. Organization. I struggle with this one a lot (my desk and bench are a mess). I think that more important than having a tidy workspace is having your thoughts organized. Think about your goals often. Think about what you have to do to get them. I find myself having to sketch this out on a piece of paper that I'll see frequently so I can stay on task.
2. Think ahead. At the end of the day, think about what you're going to do tomorrow. At the end of the week, think about what you're doing next week. As you're walking to lab each morning, think about what you're going to do first each day. Too many people spin their wheels for the first two hours of the day instead of getting things done.
3. Think ahead, part II. Depending on the nature of your research, you can often save a lot of time (and be more productive), by getting things started the night before. For my own work, I am usually short on work and long on spare time on Mondays unless I come in on Sunday night and start some cultures. It's a pain to do, but it's better than losing 1/5 of my work week.
4. Think ahead, part III. A great exercise to do is to ask yourself, "what will I do if I get result X? and what will I do if I get result Y?" Think things out like you're playing chess--always thinking 2-3 steps ahead of where you're actually at. Sometimes, you'll realize that even if you get a result to your experiment, you're approaching a dead end and you should take a different direction.
5. Talk it out. Finding a smart person to talk science with is super helpful. You have to be careful not to overdo it, though. If you have a good relationship with someone in your lab or department, then try running your ideas by them. Sometimes its good to do this with someone other than your advisor.

Having written this all out, I do have to say that none of these things are guaranteed to get you anywhere. That's really the nature of the business. The lazy, dumb guy can discover something just as easily as the smart, hard-working guy if he just happens to be in the right place at the right time. Hopefully, though, doing some of these thing will put you in the right places at the right times.