New Year Lab Goals

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Hello Everybody! And Happy 2015. May all your experiments work and all your papers to be accepted.

Now that all the hangovers are gone and it is time to go back to the lab. I've been thinking about my 2015 Lab goals. Do you have goals when you start a new year? a new session? Most of the time we have more wishes than goals, and while I was thinking of mine for this year I decided I wanted to share them and hopefully get you to share yours with me.

1. Try not to get discouraged: The key word here is try. Guys I am approaching the last year and a half (in theory, as always) of my PhD journey, and I can tell that I get discouraged faster. My friends who have finished say that is normal towards the end. However I also know that as morale goes down, so does the performance and worst the concentration. So, I want to work on this particularly during 2015 so everything goes smoothly.

2. Don't forget the tiny details: Often when we are working on the big part of the project we somehow push the little things underneath, things as simple as keeping the lab book up to date, checking that we have all the reagents necessary for that big experiment. So my goal is to work on all the details that might affect the outcome of this year. 

3. Plan ahead!: Planning in general is key when you want to get things done, that is nothing new. But I want to be more conscious of what to do next, if an experiment works and also if it doesn't. What is the next step, what is this answering and what new question might it open? I find that when I do my planning correctly, even when things don't go my way it is easier to not get discouraged (see, this helps with all the objectives!)

4. Be more aware of events and hopefully get to participate in them. Seminars, congresses, courses, you name them. There are already a couple of international courses that I have under my radar that sadly I won't be able to go to, since I also have to renew a bunch of documents during the same period of time; but off course those are not the only one, and who knows? maybe things go smoothly enough and I actually mange to go to one of them :)

5. Enjoy the things outside the lab: As much as I want to work very hard to cut my time left, I also know how important it is to not leave behind the things outside the lab, those things that help you not to feel burned at the end of the day: reading, exercising, playing video games, whatever rocks your boat. Find time for yourself, and disconnect, relax and gather your energy to go back to the lab and kick some ass.

Have a wonderful new year 2015!