These
last few weeks, I have been thinking about how much time I spend in lab and how
much of it is truly productive (while I sit at my computer typing this… while
at lab). As a graduate student in my
first year, I spent a lot of time in the lab, and I insisted that I would be
there longer than my boss. Further, I’d
try to stay longer than anyone else – I wanted to impress people with how
dedicated I was to my work. As my
graduate career progressed, I found this schedule was frustrating for many
reasons. First, I felt like I was
wasting time in lab when I could have been at home doing something more
productive, especially on days when I didn’t have that much to do. Additionally, I found myself wasting time in
lab doing things that weren’t either necessary or my job, such as cleaning up
common areas or organizing my bench for the tenth time. Sooner or later, I stopped with this crazy
schedule and found balance.
How I avoid wasting time in
lab
At
the start of one’s scientific career (and at it’s midpoints, such as starting
graduate school, a post doc, or a faculty position [I presume]), it’s natural
to be excited and constantly working… and actually enjoying it. As time passes, that excitement wanes. Experiments fail, labmates annoy you, you are
drinking too much coffee… The shine
wears eventually. When the lab no longer
glimmers like it once did, it’s easy to find distractions: talking with virtually anyone, browsing the
internet, playing games on your phone.
The opportunities to waste time are endless! What’s worse is that academia (at least in
all of the labs I’ve seen) is very free-flowing and less strict about staying
on-task.
Probably
the biggest time-waster is Facebook. Logging in and browsing is so easy, and
the temptation to watch everyone else’s lives is too easy with Facebook. It stimulates the mind just enough to not
feel like you’re wasting time… until you’ve wasted your time already. Plus, it is kind of fun.
Of
course, there are several other time-wasters:
Reddit, imgur, CNN, BBC, Netflix, Hulu, Youtube. And the cat memes abound! How could anyone hope to get anything done
when there are videos of kittens!
For
exactly these reasons, I’ve banned myself from using any of these websites on
my computer at work. If I want to view
any of those sites, I need to do that at home, on my time, on my personal
computer. Mission accomplished: no time wasted.
Right?
Not
exactly. It’s still really easy to take
really long coffee breaks, to walk to the bathroom using the really long route,
or to take a long phone call in the middle of the day. The best way I’ve found to avoid these
situations: fill my schedule. During the day, I’m not running around with
an experiment: I’m running around with
five or six experiments. Why not? These experiments pay for my salary and
(hopefully) will lead to a promising career filled with accolades and a
sky-high salary.
My
method breaks down into two simple pieces:
1.
Stay busy.
2.
Ban distractions
Following
these two simple guidelines takes a lot of effort. Signing into Facebook would be incredibly
easy right now. My fingers are so close
to the F key on the keyboard… But no.
Later. Or maybe not. Who needs Facebook or any of those other
distractions anyway? I’ve got hobbies
that I enjoy that can take up my time.
Cute
kitten pictures… Those are a little
harder to avoid.
No! No distractions!
