NYR review

I bet you thought I forgot about my New Year's Resolutions. I did not. I just thought reviewing them made for boring blog posts. But it's been a while since I did an update, so here we go.


Project Efficiency

Recap: I was going to stop procrastinating by 1. not fake working 2. setting goals for each next day 3. not blogging at work at all.

Progress: Not bad, but certainly not perfect.
1. I really do try to ask myself if what I'm doing is actually getting me closer to a PhD, or if I'm doing it to avoid what really needs to get done. Keeping this in mind has been remarkably effective at curbing the fake work habit but I could do better.
2. The days when I arrive a work with a to-do list on my desk that I wrote the previous day are definitely the most productive. Unfortunately, I don't make a list for every day. Need to be more consistent.
3. Okay, I confess that I read blogs a little. My rule is to only read blogs in bloglines which means that I can't read or write comments, the big time suck of reading blogs. It also means that while at work, I don't read blogs that don't syndicate the entire post, nor do I move laterally among blogs. So it's restricted to a break time activity rather than a vortex that sucks me in for hours (like it does at home). In addition, I've cut way back at looking at other websites, like MSN and such.

Money

Recap: I was going to save three months' expenses and pay for two overseas trips as well as open an IRA.

Progress: The IRA is humming along, losing money but for the automatic transfers from my savings account each month. The savings was doing great but has been depleted. I only ended up making one big trip, but I had to help EGM with some expenses. So the total is down, but EGM will eventually pay me back. And I still have time, so I might be able to get to the 3 month mark by January.

Health

Recap: I vowed to cook decent meals at least three nights each week and start eating chicken again.

Progress: We eat chicken about 4-6 times per month, which is about what I wanted. I eat some other meat as well, but not too often. We have been cooking pretty regularly but fell off the wagon during busy times this summer. I have clearly gained weight, so I'd like to get a handle on our eating and exercise to reverse that trend.

Work

Recap: 1. submit two papers 2. finish lab work for chapter 2 3. finish lab work for chapter 3 4. get started on or eliminate chapter 4

Progress: 1. Chapter 1 is getting closer to submission form. Research Advisor still hasn't read it, but I did get some good feedback from another colleague. She pointed out some flaws that had me uncomfortable, so I feel like after I deal with them the paper will be really close to ready. It's unlikely that I will get another paper out before the end of the year.
2. done, with the exception of a handful of analyses that will take a few hours.
3. See counter at side bar. After the samples are processed, I'll be delightfully over the hump but I'll still have a bunch more work to do before I have all the data.
4. I dramatically reduced the lab work required for this chapter at my committee meeting, which is a start. I might get started on the lab work before the end of the year, but it will mean trade-offs with other work, like writing chapter 2. Since I think I work best when I divide my time between the office and lab, I'm thinking I might put this lab work off so I don't spend the spring in writing jail. On the other hand, it would feel really good to see this project get rolling.


So that's that. I think I'm still on track to defend in late spring/early summer with some money in the bank and reasonable cholesterol levels. How are your NYRs faring?