@JoranJongerling@academicchatter My bar for contributing as senior author is that I need to be involved enough to be able to write a decent first draft of a methods section. I've found empirically that if I have more than ~8 grad students or postdocs in the lab (each with their own project), this bar becomes hard to meet.
As for meetings, I like my weekly hour-long science meetings with lab members. But with service and teaching, I have too many meetings in total: 5-8 per day.
The number of projects is entirely dependent on the number of collaborators (including advisees). More collaborators means I can participate in more projects. How thinly you spread yourself juggling multiple things seems to be a matter of taste and (to some extent) experience. I wouldn't know how to count the number of projects I am involved in. @JoranJongerling@academicchatter
Interesting, in my experience larger groups of collaborators doesn't necessarily mean being able to do more projects, but it probably depends on how well you can divide tasks 😊.
And personal taste will definitely play a role, but interested in getting a general idea anyway 😊.
It's definitely all about dividing/distributing projects. Once you move into the position to advise/supervise on projects, the idea of juggling more things becomes a lot less insane-sounding. Maybe I'm asked to drop in on a monthly basis (or as-needed). Or maybe I have some meetings to put a grant proposal together, but the effort is time-limited (because of the grant deadline). Do these things count as "projects"? Not sure. But I sure have a lot of them! @JoranJongerling@academicchatter
Yup. And as I have gained experience, I end up "doing" far less and "advising" far more. So I have many more pieces of pie, but each has grown smaller. @JoranJongerling@academicchatter
@academicchatter@JoranJongerling I think I’ve got about five projects rn outside of my postdoc work. It feels ok. I use my salaried job hours to work on them though. Maybe that’s why it feels ok?
If I have more than one or two meetings in a day it feels like a waste. I just hate meetings. Whether or not if they move things along, it still feels like a waste of time.
@JoranJongerling@academicchatter fewer projects then what I currently have (10+, it's complicated) and I wish I had only 3 meetings a day. Good days are under 5, bad days are over 8.
@JoranJongerling@academicchatter for me, it's one and none. I really struggle to maintain the level of creativity, focus, and unhealthy obsession if I'm trying to do more than one research project at once. We shan't talk about how many things I'm trying to do at the moment.
@JoranJongerling@academicchatter sometimes, I'll write a paper in under a fortnight in a frenzy (and then be burned-out), and other times it'll take me a year or two. I try to publish something every 12-18 months, but I wouldn't want to force that if the ideas aren't working out. Our research culture rewards publishing smaller numbers of really good publications over large numbers of average ones, so the pressure isn't too bad.
I have a project that is just starting, writing up two previous projects, and planning for a future project. I don't feel rushed on any of these (more like positive time pressure) but I can feel overwhelmed.
However, like @menge@mathstodon.xyz , the up side is that I can plan the day according to where I will be most productive. I didn't intentionally plan to have projects at different stages but I find it really works.
@JoranJongerling@academicchatter Not often overwhelmed. I'm a big fan of lists. Being realistic about deadlines also helps - I find things always take longer than I allow for!
@Stancliffe
Good to hear...and yeah I love lists too although I'm not great at making them or sticking to them 😅.
And I recognize that need for realistic deadlines too. I also often underestimate and don't compensate for that enough yet. Thanks for mentioning that again! Build in a buffer!
@JoranJongerling@academicchatter The decisive question for me is not the number of projects I have in parallel. It is more important to have projects in different stages, i.e., early exploration, doing the actual work, wrapping things up, preparing submissions, ... When I have projects in different phases, it is quite easy to juggle them. It also allows switching to the type of work I feel like doing on that respective day. That way I can be productive even when I am not in good shape. In contrast, having more than, say, several projects in the same phase is always very difficult for me.
I think there is no universal answer to your question. It depends on what you are working on, what your tasks and responsibilities are, how much you depend on others' inputs for your work etc.
I.e., I am in the final stage of my PhD where I am writing everything up. I do this alone, so except for occasional meetings with my supervisor, all other meetings just keep me from getting my work done.
However, I have also been responsible for the admin of a research project. There, I depended on others to work with me and regular meetings were saving me a lot of time in e-mail communication.
@JoranJongerling@academicchatter define "project".
I wouldn't feel much more comfortable to lead 1-2 projects, having contributions on a few others would be fine.
I guess it also depends on your teaching load and other commitments.
@CCochard
Thanks Charlotte, and very true, teaching matters a lot!
And with "project" I think about a study for an article. I'm a statistician, so projects I lead would be first author papers on methodological/stats stuff and "smaller" projects would be me helping applied researchers with their analyses.
So would you say 1-2 first author "projects" and a few smaller collaborations?
@JoranJongerling@academicchatter I tend to have a lot of projects going on in the background, waiting for something, so if I include those, it would be 10-15. Just "active projects" would be more like 2-3. Since I supervise some stuff, 2 - 3 short meetings or 1 - 2 big meetings a day are completely fine by me.
@modrak_m
Thanks Martin! 😃. I really appreciate it!
And how do you make sure those background projects don't all turn "active" at the same time giving you 10+ things to deal with? 😊. Or do you just indicate when you can work on them when they turn active and spread out the load that way? 😊.
@JoranJongerling@academicchatter I just hope it doesn't happen :-D Also most of those inactive projects tend to be small (stat help for clinical investigators) and few are highly time sensitive, so it is usually easy to prioritize if there are conflicts.
I currently co-teach one class each year in two language mutations for ~250 students total + some practicals. The class was new last year, so still modifying and building up materials and infrastructure, and it is a huge time sink.
@modrak_m
Hahaha 😂...yeah I've used that "hope it doesn't all come back at the same time" strategy too 😄.
And that does indeed help with prioritizing 😊.
And thanks for sharing Martin! Very interesting to hear how someone else combines (a lot of) teaching and research and manages there time when doing so 😊. Helps a lot! 😊
Add comment