Academic Productivity Hacks for Mortals

I have 2 important postdoc papers to finish and publish, not to mention another paper I started as a PhD student. One of them has already gone through reviews at some good journals but needs some more revisions and work to get more insights into the mechanisms underlying the novel phenomena we had described fairly comprehensively. During my postdoc, I also generated data for several other projects that have now been taken up by other postdocs in my former postdoc lab. So I anticipate some papers to come out of those efforts as well, but what is within my control are these two papers that I am responsible for. For my faculty colleagues reading this, you probably already know how this has gone during my first three years as a faculty member, given the extreme amounts of multitasking one has to do (the postdoc to PI transition is hard for this reason). I was unable to get the needle moving on these papers for 3 years... until now. 

As I was grappling with this issue, one of the first books I read was David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD). It came highly recommended by academic Twitter. GTD helped me put stuff out of my head on to a well-organized to-do list. I use Microsoft To-Do for this. I flag important emails with action items on Outlook, and they go directly to my task list on To-Do (see Fig. 1). Even mundane items like "install dashcam in the car" go to one of the lists on the app. This way, I stopped having to remember to put things on my calendar or having to remember to do things. The very act of taking things out of my brain to an external tool freed up mental resources and reduced stress. There are many other excellent tactics outlined in GTD for organizing your to-do lists. However, even after doing all of this, I was still unable to get my papers moving. I did achieve a lot of other things, like submit a ton of grant applications, submit some student papers, create new courses, etc. However, to me, getting these postdoc papers out is the most critical to-do item on my list because it not only is a reward to myself for all the hard work I did during my postdoc, but it also matters for future grant success, and they're nice papers to boot. As a lab, we have struggled to get funds, as funding for basic science in India is already extremely limited. To stand out, we really need to improve our track record as a team, and getting my own papers out is a good way to start. Our excellent students have already started contributing to this mission, btw, with a few good conference proceedings papers, and we have several journal papers in the pipeline ready for submission in 2025. 

Fig. 1: A screenshot of my To-Do Desktop App. Read the book for more details. 

Now, why is it that even with GTD lists, I was unable to get my big papers moving? Like millions of other people, I faced issues of procrastination due to a hundred smaller things to take care of, leading to me ignoring the important and effort-intensive stuff like my postdoc paper for 3 years. How did I finally get moving on that paper? Well, I cancelled all student meetings for a month. These were 0.5-1 hr-long meetings where students often came unprepared and with little done. I replaced them with more informal conversations a few times a week at 4 pm when I needed a break from my data analysis. Another mistake I made in my first 3 years was that I was making myself available to my students at all hours through instant replies on Slack. I uninstalled Slack from my phone. I told my students that if they wanted a response from me in real time, their best bet was to overlap with my normal working hours by at least 4 hours. Other labs and PIs are able to enforce strict working hours, but it is not in my personality to do it, though I tried. So all I can do is take control of and respect my own time by choosing to spend time on productive meetings and disengage from the unproductive ones. I also did IDPs for everyone in the lab; the people who are engaged in the right professional behaviour in the lab know who they are, and those who aren't also know who they are. The students who continue their suboptimal behaviours will face the natural consequences of delayed graduation timelines (or, in the worst case, not being able to get a degree at all). I myself faced natural consequences for suboptimal behaviours during my undergrad. So, I realized that I should let people make mistakes and learn from them rather than trying hard to prevent them from facing such issues. These are important life lessons. These issues are also clearly outlined in the IDPs, so students cannot complain later that they were unaware of how things could go. I plan to continue the 3/4 pm coffee break conversations with most students with longer meetings reserved exclusively for people who make progress and give me regular updates. These changes have led to a massive improvement in my own mental state.

A one-week real break in Thailand during Diwali gave me the opportunity to do a lot of self-reflection, and the changes above resulted from that and reading a few books:

1. Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman argues that we should not even try to get everything done on our to-do list. When we die, we will still have items on our to-do list, but they don't matter. When we die is also not guaranteed to be too distant in the future. Every hour and every day we are alive, is a gift, a stroke of luck. So we need to make the most of it, not by trying to do everything but by focusing on the things we deem important. This perspective really helped me understand that prioritizing the important stuff and coming to terms with the fact that I'll never be on top of everything are the only ways to get better at my job.
2. Don't sweat the small stuff: And it's all small stuff by Richard Carlson - I was stressed due to a string of bad (unprofessional) behaviour that I perceived from some people. After reading this book, I decided to let it go. In fact, I even sought forgiveness for anything I may have said that provoked their own suboptimal responses. Taking this step has also contributed to increased peace of mind. 
3. Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky -- this is a quick read, but again reinforces what is said in 1) above: you can only focus on one thing at a time. Make that the highlight of your day. Get used to not responding immediately to emails and messages (I was that person). Get used to flaking out on the unimportant stuff.

There are many productivity books out there that try to teach you how to get everything done. One very popular tip is "get the most important thing done first and then get everything else done." While this sounds very similar to the advice above, it really isn't. When something effort-intensive stares you in the face and you know that there are 10 other items on your to-do list for the day, procrastination is one way of setting aside the stressful thought of getting through everything on your to-do list. This really changed for me when I set myself a deadline by scheduling a presentation to my postdoc lab (at the NIH), cancelling student meetings (except for a very few critical ones), locking myself in my office with a DND sign, and focusing on just data analysis on most days for a month. With only one main item for the day, I suddenly found energy and motivation to get it done on most days. The NIH presentation went well, and I have some concrete ways forward to getting that paper submitted within a few months from now. I take my lab meeting presentations seriously, as there are several people who take a few hours out of their busy schedules to attend these talks and give feedback. I have been unsuccessful in getting many of my students to treat our lab meetings just as seriously. Most of them show up with a few days worth of prep, very few figures, and not much data analysis done. The few who take it seriously have generally progressed much better in their projects, as expected, but sometimes people just need to learn lessons from experiencing natural consequences for repeated lab meeting cancellations and low quality effort, etc. 

I had other teaching and service work I was doing at this time, but I let others on those service teams handle a good chunk of the work. I did my part and then got out of their way. Before this, I would try to contribute as much as I could (which in and of itself caused resentment from people—I am gloriously naive about workplace politics). Trying to do everything perfectly, however, only invites more admin and service work. You have to intentionally do a less than optimal job at some of these, and this may not come naturally to people who've been trained all their life to give everything their best. Most of the service work I've been asked to do so far is effort-intensive stuff like making videos, delivering content, etc. for others who get official credit by being on committees. I have never been invited to be on an official committee. I don't think this is intentional. Typically, just as in the case of grants, you need to build credibility and trust before you are asked to be on important institute committees. I am interested in anything related to research and teaching and hope to contribute in an official capacity in the near future, but my priorities for now are to get my postdoc papers out, and I intend to say no to most service requests until these papers are submitted. 

Finally, keeping a lab notebook with notes about your daily activities is a tremendously helpful technique. I didn't necessarily do this always, but even as a postdoc, I maintained notes in my data folders, which the current postdocs who took over some of those projects told me were really helpful. Here is a glimpse of my own lab notebook as I was working on data analysis: 

Fig. 2: Detailed notes about the analysis done on each day with illustrative plots and comments about what worked and what didn't work. 

As an undergrad, I was a very unorganized person. Across my PhD and postdoc training, I've gotten much better at being organized. I have more work to do in getting more organized in my thinking. I decided to write this blog in part to help students in the lab understand just how much we all have to learn about getting things done and why popular productivity hacks do not work for mortals (like most of us). So here is a summary of the tips that I think will work for mortals with some will power: 

1. Come to terms with the fact that we all have limited time on earth and that it is impossible to get everything done. Read "Four thousand weeks" for more details. 
2. Choose the projects and activities that are the most urgent and/or give you the most satisfaction (sometimes they may be mutually exclusive, sometimes not, but strike a balance between them). 
3. From the list above, choose only one (or at most two) focus items for your current work period. 
4. On each day, choose just one highlight activity. Read "Make Time:..." for details. 
5. Nuke your phone. I uninstalled Slack and recently also uninstalled Facebook and Twitter, platforms on which I was spending more time than I should have. I suddenly have a lot more hours in the day than I realized. Again, find details in "Make Time:...". You don't have to abstain completely from them, you can always use them on your laptop at designated times of the day. Another tip in "Make Time:..." for those addicted to TV shows is to get rid of annual plans for Netflix and such. If there is an excellent series you need to watch, just get a month's worth and then cancel once you're done. This bring back more intentionality into what you're doing rather than mindlessly looking for things you *could* watch from a big menu. 
6. Get an alarm clock and put your phone far from your bed. Focus on getting high quality sleep every night. I just started doing this. Incidentally, we are about to start working on a funded project on providing CBT-based solutions to train people to sleep better. 
7. Energize efficiently: your cortisol levels will be naturally high until 8-9 am or so and having caffeine at this time is unnecessary. Try to catch some sunlight in the morning. Then, if you are a coffee drinker, aim to have your first cup by 9:30-10 am and the latest by 2 pm. The half-life of caffeine is around 5 hours. Hence the recommendation to have the last cup by 2 pm. Caffeinate before you crash/feel tired. If you prefer lower doses of caffeine, then you can consider green tea instead for more sustained energy levels. Ultimately, these work differently for different people, you've got to try different methods and see what gives you the most energy levels throughout the day. None of the tips above work unless you have sufficient energy during your work time. If you are opposed to depending on the mildly-addictive caffeine, then you might really need to optimize your sleep, take nature walks (the IIITH campus allows you to do exactly this) when you need breaks, etc. Also do some light exercising in the morning if possible (some in-place jumping jacks, pushups, squats, a bit of walking, whatever rocks your boat). Even a 10 min workout/jog works great as an energy-booster. 
8. Quit drinking/smoking - this is not a moral statement but only if you take care of your body will your mind work well. There are zero benefits to smoking and drinking. I too did these in college but as a singer in a band, a few months of smoking had clear effects on my ability to hold long notes. You become aware of the impacts on your lungs immediately but to others, these effects may not be apparent until much later in life. So I was fortunately able to quit just after a few months of doing it. Similarly, I used to drink very occasionally, in social settings. After embarking on a new journey embracing fitness, I quit even social drinking. Socializing over drinks shouldn't be necessary and if your friendships revolve around drinking, then you might need to find better friends who value what you have to say beyond just the usual alcohol-fuelled conversations. Drinking has a detrimental effect on sleep. It reduces the quality of your sleep, even if you think you sleep for longer hours after drinking. This has an immediate effect on your energy levels. Quitting now and paying attention to exercise and nutrition (do not consume more calories than your body needs and have sufficient protein) can potentially save lakhs in hospital bills in the future.  

I hope that my students, all of whom are super smart and brilliant, will find this post helpful to improve their working habits so that they can get the success they deserve.