by Joanna K. Sandilos Rega, Ph.D. 

PharmTalk - A Blog for Young Scientists is a new ASPET blog primarily written by postdocs Joanna Sandilos Rega (Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA) and Uyen Chu (University of Wisconsin-Madison). The primary objective of this blog is to engage postdocs and graduate students in topics helpful to your experience as a young scientist, focusing on but not limited to communication skills and core competencies of leadership and management as defined by the National Postdoctoral Association's set of "core competencies." Our hope is that this blog will be a valuable source for pointers on how to enrich your experience as a young scientist.  

During graduate school, I met a fellow student who managed to publish Nature paper after Nature paper. Many of us were dumbfounded, not by his success, but by the effort he appeared to put in to realize his success. While the rest of us were slaving away ten to twelve hours per day, often including weekends, he worked more civilized hours and managed to have a life during his nights and weekends. Most of us were quite humbled by the quality of his work; however some students grew resentful and chalked it up to luck.

Looking back, I now realize that it wasn't luck at all. This guy had incredible project management skills allowing him to work more efficiently than your average graduate student (the most inefficient creature in the natural world). Now, you might say that there’s a level of necessary inefficiency that comes with being an academic. Hallway conversations with colleagues, chatting over coffee in the afternoons, and happy hours with the lab are often important for maintaining professional relationships and establishing collaborations. A good scientist (or professional of any sort) is not a robotic workhorse, but rather strikes a delicate balance between work efficiency and those important, open ended "away-from-the-bench" moments that get the creative juices flowing.

Here are three project management skills that contribute to efficiency in the lab:

1. Project planning and prioritizing:  

Science can be nebulous sometimes, which makes it even more important to be diligent about setting goals to help maintain focus. Goals can be defined as short (daily/weekly experiments), moderate (publishing a paper), and long-term (securing your next job).

In order to keep my eye on the ball, I find it useful to have a running outline of a future paper. Even when I have only a few experiments done, I ask myself, "How could I fashion this into a story?" and put together a presumptive paper outline. Organizing and re-organizing data into figure panels helps me to see where the holes are and what the logical next steps might be.

Finally, I can't stress enough the importance of lists. I am a ravenous list maker, both for daily tasks and weekly/monthly tasks. The lists keep me from getting side-tracked, and the simple act of crossing off items on a list can be so satisfying!

2. Maintaining effective collaborations:  

There is a reason why high profile papers seem to include so many authors. Man is not an island, and this is especially true in science. The best, most complete stories are those that tie together multiple disciplines and may require the expertise of complimentary labs (genetics, high throughput screening, chemical biology, and animal models).

Collaborators can save you from tunnel vision by lending a fresh, critical eye to your grants and manuscripts. Finally, these colleagues are often the ones that write recommendation letters and serve as references when you go through the job application process, both in academia and industry.

3. Minimizing distractions:  

The lab can be a bustling, energizing place rampant with distractions. This can be a fun environment for experimentation and exchange of ideas but may not be as conducive to reading and writing. I like to minimize distractions by focusing on these tasks during quieter times of the day. I can get so much more done at work during the couple hours before most other lab members arrive. Additional options include going to another location (e.g., the library or home) to write or simply closing the door to your office for a few hours.

As a researcher, it's so important to strike a balance between efficiency and creativity. Being mindful of these project management skills will help any scientist make the most of their time at work.