Simplify your lab life in 2019 using 4 categories.
Breaking down your lab management process can help to conserve mental energy and further save you time and money. You become less reactive and you become more proactive by organizing your workflow.
What 3 traits do top team members possess? Beliefs.
It becomes difficult to teach and train fixed mindset candidates. They can believe that their skills are inherent, or are they’re born with them. These types of mindsets are belief systems that cannot be changed extrinsically through punishment or rewards. It has to come from within. However, it can be cultivated, if you know what to listen for.
How can you find good help? Sell yourself.
A talented postdoc should be able to add their own unique perspective to the research, and they should see their role as an opportunity to be creative and to add value. However, as we plow through CVs and resumes we find applicants who expect a course to be laid out, or a lab to be already established. That’s never the case with a start up. There are so many uncertainties and variables that can lead to failure or bankruptcy. Therefore, finding a postdoc who understands this and can navigate these obstacles is critical.
Trouble keeping track of your expenses? Use a bookkeeping software.
Budgets can help you understand fixed costs, like salaries and maintenance contracts. However, everyone in science knows that the variable costs associated with research are as predictable as the hypothesis itself. Therefore, to understand what those variables are, and to predict them, requires collecting the financial data associated with the science. It requires us to be able to separate those costs relative to the projects and operations.
Easily distracted? Want to get more done? Develop Deep work habits.
Focus your efforts toward being mindful with your decisions on what to act upon. There are always going to be distractions and these distractions can derail the focus toward deep work. It is that deep work that’s important to really develop novel breakthroughs and innovative approaches to your work.