Well, how did I get here?
There are a lot of things grad students in the sciences are expected to pick up by osmosis. Good work habits are one of them. However, as academics tend to be ambitious perfectionists in a zero-sum world, sometimes its helpful to have a friendly conversation on setting goals and the tactics used to achieve them.
The fact is the information explosion is a full-on reality and folks that continue to hone their skills will enjoy an advantage. The web is full of blogs, many very excellent blogs, that report on these tools and tactics. I sift through them and see how they help scientists who teach, sit on committees, and most of all eat, breathe, and think science.
Its a nasty job, but someone’s gotta do it. 
February 9, 2007 at 10:28 am
Excellent site! Would that we had one for postdocs! Any suggestions?
February 24, 2007 at 8:57 am
I’ve just found your blog, and I will promote it at any given opportunity to anyone who might show even the slightest interest. I am at pains to expose as much of my own troublesome writing and research process (pretty much the same, no?) as possible on my blog (in Danish, not very international, but you’ve gotta start somewhere).
Academics tend to make what they do look almost effortless or at least reasonably straight forward if only you’ve got the brains. This makes students think that something must be wrong with them when they struggle to succeed. A lowly Ph.D.-student myself, I have realized that I have, in fact, got it in me to become a real academic: I procrastinate. And quadrant II, please don’t mention quadrant II…
Great site, thanks!
February 28, 2007 at 2:45 am
I would like to congratulate the team efforts by all those contributors for the excellent articles ,as well as for the material as well. From my poor english you can very well know that it is very difficult for any one to get such pieces of information which not only encourage the graduate students from developing countries to get access to the guidance which they always are hungry. But free access also gives them oppurtunity to learn and share what things are going on global scale.
With kindest regards
ashwini
September 7, 2007 at 9:41 pm
I got here by googling images of pencil drawings birds
May 16, 2008 at 10:35 am
I cannot remember how I got here, but I bookmarked it and “re-found” it today.
I am trying to kick this nasty habit of procrastinating, and trying to improve time management skills. I think I’m just not motivated enough. No sense of urgency about anything.