Saturday, May 19, 2007

Must fight the procrastination...

I hate printing out papers, especially when I am reading them in order to cite them. It seems like such a waste of paper. So what is the green way of handling things? Download the PDF and read them in your favorite viewer on your computer screen. Which is all fine and dandy but if you are like me you then look up references in the paper. Of course this requires having your computer connected to the greater network that is out there. This means in turn, you can check your e-mail, catch-up on the sports scores, update my fantasy sports teams, read the news & blogs, check out some zany clip on youtube, download from itunes an episode of one of your favorite shows that you missed, etc. In other words, there are so many options that are more appealing than writing a review. Must fight them and write. A final draft is due on June 1st. I wish I could say that is it. In the cue are 2 research articles to write which I have been procrastinating on by thinking of new experiments, a review with another lab member and then getting my advisor to get out a larger review which has been ongoing project in the lab for the last couple years. How does the latter happen? Procrastination-which means it constantly needs to be updated with all the new info that is being published. Of course two years of doing that leads to a bloated review, so my task was to help cut so for the fat. Myself and another labmate have trimmed our parts to half the length they were before. Advisor was supposed to take the three page intro and turn it into two paragraphs. Still hasn't happened and slowly you can see the need to start adding again. So be warned-procrastinating over time can lead to more work!

Easier said than done though. My download is finished. TV on the laptop time.

2 comments:

Amit said...

Too bad they don't give you PHds in Procrastination Techniques. I would be the world's foremost expert. I wonder as one makes the transition from grad student->postdoc->faculty, you ever break the habit. I see a dissertation project here!

PonderingFool said...

A dissertation project, how about a career!