On Procrastination

“Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything really good.” (William Faulkner)

It doesn’t feel good, right? The guilt, the self-contempt, when you are replying non-urgent emails, perfecting powerpoints, checking online news, while knowing well that you have this impending deadline for an important project you haven’t even started. Despite all the grand excuses, you knew what this is all about and loath yourself for not being a better person, because procrastination is ascribed to the dread of hard work.

Well, don’t be so harsh on yourself. Indolence may not be the true story. More than often, what you are afraid of is the failure to pass an unrealistic criterion. For example, you have a deadline for a grant, and your goal is to write a top-notch proposal that will get you funded the first time and eventually secure your tenure. Then no wonder you keep putting it off, because you’ve made the task unnecessarily difficult. To accomplish that goal, the proposal will have to be exquisitely crafted, let alone the science part. The story needs to hold interest; every sentence has to be punchy or precise or informative. With that goal in mind, you see the sweat, the struggle waiting ahead, but above all, the frustration of not meeting your standard despite all the effort.

Some people say, “Deadlines are the most effective cure for procrastination.” Effective, maybe, but not a good cure, because it takes time to produce quality work. A common myth about deadlines is that, as long as you finish the project by that time, it makes no difference when you do it. The truth is, the sooner you start working on something, the better. If you wait until you are left with just enough time to finish it, chances are that adverse situations will pop up, demanding time and attention. An unexpected visitor, a sick family member, car breaking on the street. Worse than those, your computer got a virus. You’d be ill-tempered and resentful since you have reserved all the time till the deadline for the project. The longer the waiting, the higher the risk. You swear that next time you’ll start earlier. No use. Similar scenarios will reoccur unless you change the habit. How about setting up an early deadline by yourself, the so-called soft deadline? Tell yourself that the deadline is a week before the official date. Try it, if you haven’t. Never worked for me.

Timing matters especially when the project involves other people. You know you will do it, eventually, but they don’t. Until you have handed them the final product, they’ll be constantly worried about whether you’ll make it. So, ask yourself two questions: do you have to do this, sooner or later? If you do, will finishing it sooner make others’ life easier? If yes, why wait, unless there are more important tasks on your list? This is not to say we should always treat other people’s requests with higher priorities. Do things in the order determined by their values and urgencies. There are circumstances in which we need to purposely delay certain duties. There are times we have to act at the last minute. But overall, try not to adopt a management style that’s deadline-driven.

Some people say, “The best way to prevent procrastination is to get yourself excited about what you have to do.” That would be nice, but how? We enjoy doing something only after we have started it, and the biggest problem with procrastination is that we keep fooling ourselves that we don’t have to deal with it now. “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.” (Seneca, 3 BC - 65 AD).

Always on alert for excuses you find for postponing a demanding task. In fact, fulfilling other people’s requests promptly, getting minor jobs done as soon as possible, those legitimate duties might just be your excuses. This type of disguised procrastination is harder to overcome because you appear to be justified. “I have to take care of these things eventually. I’m dealing with them now so that later I can concentrate on the big one.” Well, we sometimes overestimate our capacities. What if we only have half of the time that’s needed? Priorities! Always keep that in mind. If something is important to you, it shouldn’t be the one that gets sacrificed. It deserves your attention immediately.

We have all watched this scene in movies: a man or woman sitting at a desk and writing on a blank paper. After a few seconds, he or she crumples the paper and throws it into the nearby basket. More paper, and eventually a full basket. Now with computers we waste less paper---and reduce the pollution, thank goodness---but we can still waste our time. A whole afternoon is spent working on the first few sentences of an article, typing and revising and erasing. It’s good that we treat the job seriously, but as mentioned above, a high standard only matters for the end result. To get things going, you sometimes have to put up with all the “garbage” in the midst of the progress.

Hemingway said, “The first draft of everything is shit.” I found two implications in this simple quote. First, you are allowed to write an awful first draft. Ask yourself, would you rather have a bad first draft, or no draft at all? To get your ideas straight on the paper, you must refrain from paying attention to rhetoric, because dwelling on word choices and sentence structures may break the flow of your thought. The second advice is that you should never be content with the first draft. Note that this isn’t said by me, a non-native speaker who learned most of her idioms through Googling. Even Hemingway had to revise. Do we write better than him? For example, the article you are reading now has been revised three times. I know, scientific writing is boring; once you have completed the first draft, you can’t wait to put it aside and go on to start something else. Just keep this in mind: if you the author don’t enjoy what you have written, nor will anyone else. This is the time to bring back your high standard. However, if you want to revise and find no time left due to procrastination, that’s another thing.

So my solution is, lower the standard, at least for now. Make it easy enough so it no longer appears to be a daunting task. For example, tell yourself that you will write a proposal that is unlikely to get you funded this time, but will inform you of how your peers think about the project, and may provide you with better ideas on presenting the science or organizing the application, so that in the next round you’ll have a higher chance. Once the pressure has been lifted, you are more likely to hit the road. That’s why I put Faulkner’s quote at the beginning. “Get it down.” Forget about grammar or wording or sentence structures. No one but you will read the first draft. Write it as clumsily and stupidly as you wish. What matters for now is getting it done early, and then we’ll think about how to make improvements. Note that lowering the standard doesn’t mean you’ll end up with an inferior product.  In fact, your chance of being funded will only increase if you have enough time to make revisions and seek critiques.

The larger the project, the stronger your resistance. So the trick is to divide it into small workloads, especially for the first few days, and take one step a time. “Today my goal is to write one paragraph. Then I’m done, and I can enjoy the rest of the day without guilt.” Do that for a few days. If on a particular day you are bombarded, write one sentence at least. Don’t worry about being slow. The key is to establish a routine and get your mind into the mood. We can get used to almost anything we do on a regular basis. If you find yourself pondering on the project when you are not working on it, that’s a good sign. Once the project is coming into shape, however primitive, it’ll no longer appear intimidating and you may finish the rest in one shot. Here is one of my favorite quotes, though not entirely relevant to our topic: “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” (E.L. Doctorow)

Last, a warning. While you are self-disciplining, think carefully before you decide to make a commitment. Is it really worth the effort? How likely will your project pay off? Or course, we can never predict the outcome. Didn’t Faulkner say “take chances”? But if you have tried all the tricks and still can’t get yourself started, or you’re working on it but the progress drags, then it could be an indication that you shouldn’t be doing it at all. For example, you saw an attractive funding announcement that doesn’t quite fit your expertise. “Wouldn’t hurt to give it a try,” you may say, while trying your best to make the connection. But think about it. If you the investigator aren’t confident, is it likely to convince other people that your idea deserves their money? Might as well save the time for something more productive, such as finishing the next manuscript.

NIH’s New Biosketch

(Note: the following article is based on personal speculations. It has not been proved to generate successful results. Nor does it represent opinions of NIH agencies.)

On Nov 26, 2014, NIH issued a new Biographic Sketch Format (Notice NOT-OD-15-024) for grant due dates on or after May 25, 2015, but can be used before that. Compared with the old one which mostly involves cutting and pasting bibliographical information, the new format requires substantial effort to make it stand out (or even acceptable if everyone else is trying to stand out). On the one hand, it provides you a valuable opportunity to explain your qualification for the proposal and beef up your resume. On the other hand, you’ll be doomed if you try to do this as a last minute thing. So it’s not a bad idea to start working on it now.

Basically, the old section C, “Peer-Reviewed Publications”, has been replaced by “Contribution to Science”. Here are the instructions.

“The new format extends the page limit for the biosketch from four to five pages, and allows researchers to describe up to five of their most significant contributions to science, along with the historical background that framed their research. Investigators can outline the central findings of prior work and the influence of those findings on the investigator’s field. Investigators involved in Team Science are provided the opportunity to describe their specific role(s) in the work. Each description can be accompanied by a listing of up to four relevant peer-reviewed publications or other non-publication research products, including audio or video products; patents; data and research materials; databases; educational aids or curricula; instruments or equipment; models; protocols; and software or netware that are relevant to the described contribution. In addition to the descriptions of specific contributions and documentation, researchers will be allowed to include a link to a full list of their published work as found in a publicly available digital database such as MyBibliography or SciENcv.”

Intuitively, you would want to fill all “five spots” to impress the reviewers, but unless you’ve really done five completely unrelated projects, I would advise not to do so. For example, you have conducted five projects, ABCDE. A is a significant finding that is worth bragging about. B is an independent project, but somehow has connections to A. C and D share some comment features but are different in other aspects; neither alone is impressive. If you describe them all separately, what will the reviewers bring home with? They will remember A, but certain details may be messed up since B keeps jumping out with its similarity.  They won’t be able to tell either C or D. So, why not just present three themes? After all, we only need one Noble Prize to become famous. Combine similar topics, and make each individual case strong and distinct. That is, strong as evidenced by multiple publications, and distinct from any other topic so that there won’t be confusions.

In terms of presenting each topic, if it was a mentored study, I would briefly mention the place and the advisor’s name, such as “This experiment was conducted during my first postdoctoral research with Prof. XX at Impress-U.” This is because, when we review someone’s application, the first thing we do is take a quick look at the places and labs where the applicant has been trained. Very natural, and a valid reviewing process, because when we rate for the “Candidate”, we are supposed to give a higher score if his mentors have the right expertise in the areas of training he has received. So, mentioning the labs saves the reviewer’s time, especially given the fact that the list of publications has been replaced by an URL, which makes it difficult for the reviewer to take a quick peek as he moves along into different sections. The good thing about providing an external URL for publication list is that you can keep updating it with articles that are published after the proposal has been submitted (remember to do that!).

Similarly, when referring to your publications, adding an Abbreviation of the Journal before or after the year may not be a bad idea. The major reason is not about showing off your “high-profile” (since I don’t have one), but making different publications more distinct and memorable. For example, instead of writing “Me et al. 2008, 2009a, 2010b”, make it “Me et al. 2008, J Right; Me et al. 2009a, J More Right; Me et al. 2010b, J Even Better”. It is very likely that you will keep repeating some of these publications in other parts of the Biosketch. This way it’s easier to link them back to specific topics.

Another presentation tip is to type your own publications in bold. Because the instructions ask you to give some background information about each topic, you may find it necessary to cite other people’s work. You want to be clear about which work belongs to you. This is especially a problem when you are not the first author of a publication. So I would put a small note at the beginning of the section, saying that references in bold are the PI’s own work.

Anyway, these are just my speculations. I look forward to finding out whether the reviewers agree or not!