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My New Year’s Resolutions for the Lab… #PhDtips
As a researcher, I’m supposed to critically review my work on an ongoing basis…. but the New Year always brings an incentive to turn my attention to my life as a whole. So it seems timely to make a few “Lab Resolutions” that could benefit my work (and my sanity) in the long run.
Doing ‘clean-up’ duty with enthusiasm
Why is it that my lab-cleaning duty weeks always seem to coincide with a particularly busy run of experiments? But I shouldn’t really be surprised – the rota is pinned up months in advance. And during my weeks off, don’t I expect well-stocked cupboards of clean glassware, a tidy balance and sinks that aren’t overflowing with drying gel-racks? So instead of rushing through the jobs and doing the bare minimum to keep things clean and tidy, I resolve to do my duty with more gusto. If I want to be able to say I have “good time-management skills”, then I really ought to plan my experiments so that I can do my cleaning duties properly. After all, it keeps things running smoothly for everyone and stops any resentment building. As for my weeks off-duty, if I’m really up for the extra mile, I could even schlep some of my own dirty glassware to the cleaning room…
Bringing a little *happiness* into the lab
Every research PhD has its ups and downs…and with my ongoing struggles with depression, I feel the downs more than most. It can’t be pleasant for my labmates when I go into one of my ‘lows’ but they are good enough to listen to my woes and offer me some fresh perspective. So now I’m going to try and return the favour by leaving some little blessings around the place. Even simple things –sticking funny cartoons up in the office, leaving encouraging post-it notes on someone’s bench –give the atmosphere a lift and remind us that there’s a world beyond our work. And if I run out of ideas, I can always just stash some cake or chocolate in the lab sweetie drawer…
Keeping my notes in order
When writing up my lab book, I have a bad habit of making a mental note to “go back and fill in that detail/reference/reagent…” but then never getting round to it. Which makes things quite tricky when I come to write up my methods or repeat an experiment. ‘Scrupulous organisation’ is something I want to quote off my CV in future job interviews, so it’s time to put it into practice! From now on, I want a bang-up-to-date lab book with no gaps or missing details. It might even save a few headaches when it comes to writing up my thesis….
A paper a day
One of my main motivations for doing a PhD was to become a real expert in something…to feel that I had really mastered the tiny niche within which my project sits. But what I’ve learned is that this mostly involves learning about what others have done, and being able to put this in the context of a comprehensive whole. Yet reading papers doesn’t excite me nearly as much as doing actual experiments and growing up a whole new line of mutant plants to infect with parasites…. Yes, a thesis needs data, but it also needs references so it’s time I got to grips with the literature! So I will aim for “A paper a day”, at least until I’ve made some headway on my alarmingly long reading list.
Don’t be too ambitious
As I’m now in my second year, I hear the ticking of the FINAL DEADLINE clock as the backdrop to all I do…so I am often guilty of trying to pack in a bit too much into my days. This would be fine if everything worked perfectly and my schedule could run as precisely as a Swiss clock – but of course it never does. Equipment doesn’t work, reagents run out, the seeds won’t germinate, the parasites aren’t ready – yet I never leave any contingency time to deal with these problems before I’m supposed to be doing my next experiment. I need to practice being less ambitious with each day to give me some leeway to “roll with the punches”. After all, it’s better by far to do fewer experiments of a higher quality than a raft of hurried, botched jobs with gaping errors. At the end of the day, even if an experiment doesn’t have a significant result, if it’s well designed and comprehensive, you can write an awful LOT about it in your thesis!!!!
So here’s to a happy and productive 2017!
Caroline Wood is 
midway through a PhD studying parasitic weeds at the University of Sheffield. When she’s not agonising over her experiments, she loves to write and will cover most scientific topics if they stay still long enough.
In her spare time, she enjoys helping at public outreach events, hill walking and escapism at the cinema. She blogs at: