Category Archives: Mentoring

About productivity…

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It is not enough to be busy… The question is: what are we busy about?
― Henry David Thoreau

Productivity is not the same creativity, though being creative will get you lots of things to do for which you will need to be productive to get them done. In short, you need both 😉

I have known individuals who define their work productivity by being present at work 7 days a week, non-stop for 12 hours per day. I must say these encounters were mainly while working as a postdoctoral fellow in the USA. While it might appears more acute in that country, it is encountered in others as well.

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On creativity in scientific research

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“Creativity is contagious, pass it on”
– Albert Einstein
  • Being in the lab long hours, does not make you more creative.
  • Throwing brute force at a problem can work but it is creative thinking?
  • Creative thinking does happen anywhere and anytime.
  • I found that some of the best ideas I had did not happen while at work…
  • Be ready to capture that great idea when it happen.
  • Do not censured yourself with possible practical limitation yet (money, engineering, theoretical limitation, …).
  • Brainstorming is great: to refine a good idea or to launch a creative process that will be completed after the session i.e. the best idea might not be obtained at the end of such session (I contend that it is almost never the case).
  • Once in a while, take time to explore your ideas more deeply to see if it sticks. Throw them at colleagues (see brainstorming above).
  • Store all of your ideas, even the weird ones, in a system (physical or digital) where you can go back at them once in while.

Zotero on the go!

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In the previous post I was describing the free Zotero scientific manuscript management software. Through a comment via this blog and others, I was pointed out that there are some solutions for access to your PDFs on the go.

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Invest in a good manuscript (PDF) management system

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If, as starting graduate students, you are following my first key advice of reading on a regular basis scientific manuscripts related to your field of research in general and your project in particular, you’ve probably reach an obvious observation:  you are collecting a large number of PDF files very quickly.

There are, of course, a few more observations to be made:

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Take the time to explore the “impossibles”…

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There is no use trying,” said Alice. “One can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

— Lewis Carroll

To you, starting grad students out there, expect to be told many times that something is impossible. This does not mean that you should listen though…

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Turn it all off…

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Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has had an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference. — Nolan Bushnell

Creative thinking happen anytime, anywhere. But have you noticed that it tends to happen more often when your brain can wander at will. A simple thing like a long walk away from work is sometime beneficial. It is not because you are at work, sitting at your desk and typing on your computer 10 hours a day that your are automatically creative. A great idea won’t happen as often (if at all!) if you keep your brain busy at all the time with the necessity to tweet, respond to e-mails, passively watch TV (which is usually done to turn off your brain) and  so on.

“Keeing busy” is the remedy for all the ills in America. It’s also the means by which the creative impulse is destroyed.”
― Joyce Carol Oates

Once in a while, turn it all off and do something else for a few hours or a few days, especially during a difficult portion of your thesis or of an ongoing project. See what comes out of it 😉