My new productivity plan

I’ve been really slacking off lately.  It’s been a combination of my attitude and laziness and the attitudes of other people in my lab.  So I have concocted a plan to get me back on the straight and narrow.

Step 1:

Start lab work BEFORE sitting down at computer.

My usual routine has been to come into lab and spend at least an hour or so sitting at my computer, drinking my tea and generally letting my brain warm up.  I am not at all a morning person, so I convince myself I need some time to get going.  That’s out.

Step 2:

Make a to do list for every day.

I’ve gotten pretty slack about this lately, and I need to do better.

Step 3:

Actually do things on said to do list.  Really.

Step 4:

Set goals.  Short term and long term. 

Step 5:

Make a plan for how to achieve goals with concrete milestones.

Step 6:

Take over the world!!!

Seriously, I think I need to be much more specific and concrete with the things I need to do.  I think deadlines, even if artificial, are key to me convincing myself to actually do something.

Over the weekend, I was thinking about Step 1, and I decided I needed to come up with a way to reward myself.  I was struggling to come up with an idea, but just now it hit me.  If I manage to start my lab work before sitting down at my desk every day for a week, I get a trip to Lush!!!  Maybe after a month of success I get a new pair of shoes.  I haven’t decided that yet.  So I’m trying really, really hard to have a good attitude about this, despite blowing up everything I have touched this morning.  

A new baby! And other lab musings...

Congrats to Post-doc Friend on the birth of a baby girl!  This is an especially sweet occasion because of previous fertility issues and miscarriages.  It feels really good to see her so happy after all that she’s been through over the past year or so.  Hopefully we’ll get to see the little one today!  (I tried to knit some booties, but didn’t check my gauge, so I ended up with not so cute booties that would fit Bigfoot Baby.  Oh well.)

In other news, I’m sitting here collecting my first crappy data this week.  I had been on a roll since late last week, generating awesome data out the wazoo.  Of course, we all knew it would end.  Life’s just like that. 

I finally got around to reviewing Post-doc guy’s paper last night.  It sucks.  Okay, that’s not entirely true.  The data is interesting.  Let’s just say that brevity and organization are not his strengths.  Crazy man wants to submit it to a fairly high tier journal, but I don’t think that’s going to fly.  I understand why he thinks it’s so interesting and splashy enough to be accepted there.  On the other hand, it’s directly related to my favorite project and I was bored to tears.  If I had been reading the paper after it’s published, it would be one of those where I make it through a paragraph or so of the intro and then resort to just looking at the figures and legends.  I guess you could say the text didn’t add much.  And that’s not good. 

Now back to the data collection already in progress.

Bored! (a.k.a. no motivation)

Today has been a slow day.  Well, I guess it’s just been a slow afternoon.  I was working like crazy this morning, the fruit of which was a fabulous repeat of Glorious Result #2.  One more repeat of that (assuming the dumb mice ever breed), and my longsuffering manuscript from my work as an undergrad will be completed and submittable.  Once I find it and freshen it up and add references that aren’t 5 years out of date.  I think the end is finally in sight for that project.

And now here I sit, not wanting to do anything.  I tried to talk TM into letting me go home early today since crazy PI is “working from home”, but that’s a separate rant.  I need to get up and do something worthwhile.  I wanted to go home and get some writing done, and I’m supposed to be reviewing a paper that Golden Post-doc wants to submit by the end of the week.  All good stuff to do at home.  But nooooo…TM insists that there is grand science to be done.  Maybe I’ll get up and do a little something.  Motivation is definitely lacking.