I'm off to the lab this afternoon to do some seriously mindless work. If I'm lucky I'll tick off 6 more samples from the counter at the sidebar. Even though this task is crummy, tedious, boring, and dirty, I enjoy it as long as I don't have to do it every day for weeks on end. Candid Engineer has a post about why big brain thinky types like to do repetitive lab work (actually, there are a bunch of great posts at Candid Engineer in Academia) that I think is pretty much spot-on. It feels good to see the work get done. Also, I like to get my hands dirty with the project so I develop a more intimate knowledge of it.
So you say, "EGF, you don't work on weekends! That violates your 40 hours rule." That's true, but I do want to graduate and the only way to do it to get things done. However, unless I have a huge and looming deadline, when I work on weekends I reserve the right to choose whatever I feel like doing rather than worrying about what has highest priority. I figure it's bonus work so whatever I get done is great. I don't want to be resentful of being there; I want to be pleased with myself for getting something extra accomplished.
Every thing I do today is one thing I don't have to do tomorrow.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
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7 comments:
Productivity is great. I'm hoping I will have occasional places where I have a list of things that requires time but not so much thought. However, it all needs to maintain a balance.
I wish I could say I don't work weekends, but my weekends are pretty much the same as the weekdays. Except I absolutely refuse to go to my office on weekends unless it is absolutely, unavoidably necessary. Hope you get some mindless work done!
Way to be productive. :o)
Sometimes you just have to push through, especially in the home stretch of the grad school years... Thanks for that link to candid engineer--the writer is indeed spot-on about pipeting and the (at least illusion of) productivity! Good luck being productive this weekend!
yay for your productivity! Most of my work is computational, which makes it hard to feel productive sometimes -- different bits than yesterday are not so convincing. Thus, on some days I feel that the most productive thing I do is washing the dishes :o Not work, of course, but it has a tangible outcome.
I bet the sidebar counter helps to make you feel more productive, right?!
I did an obsessive-compulsive countdown thing when doing multiple samples and there was no-one else in the lab to talk to. I would work out how many steps x how many samples there were in the procedure, and then work out what fraction of the work I'd completed at the end of each pipetting manouver. Hitting the halfway mark and counting up to 2/3, 3/4, 5/6 etc just felt so satisfying.
(Is that really weird? Will you be sending men in white coats round to my desk now?)
I do the same thing, only I usually count down how many days remaining, e.g., "if I do 6 samples today and 4 tomorrow, then 15 next week, then I'll be 2/3 done!" The counter is awesome. I want to do that work just so I can update it. Unfortuately, I haven't had much time for that project (I have been doing other stuff instead).
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