Questions tagged [productivity]
On measuring or improving workflow, organization, learning, memory, etc. in an academic context.
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How to enhance the research potential in junior academics? [closed]
Junior academics, just after graduation or Master's tend to relax after a strenuous period, and may not involve in research probably due to their inability to cope with the academic load. Hence the ...
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Would it be ethical/reasonable for a PhD student to hire an undergrad for help with research-tangential tasks (see proposed job description below)?
Pretty much what the title says (I know this question is quite strange).
I have some extra money (my research stipend is fairly generous, and I get paid by doing TA work on top of it) that I'd like to ...
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How to stay calm on days of no progress? [duplicate]
I'm a math PhD student working in Pure Mathematics. I guess, everybody is familiar with those days when you make very little progress or no progress at all. As the title suggests, I would like to know ...
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How should I not get in trouble due to my political views in academia as a student in my time left in my home country given these political conditions
This question has been in my mind for about an year. Finally, I am asking it here. I don't know I would be getting knowledge about it anywhere else. I think it is on topic here. Kindly help.
I live in ...
user135061
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How to ask my supervisor to "take the wheel" following a nervous breakdown?
I am in the third year of a STEM PhD at a top university. My supervisors have all been very happy with my progress since my project started in Oct 2019, and thanks in part to antidepressants and other ...
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What questions should be answered in a paper by sections?
I am trying to find a way to "systematize" the writing process of a paper by answering questions in each section of the paper. I am thinking of an example with the following sections (which ...
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What are good habits in learning mathematics well?
Please bear with me while I provide some background and then ask my question, which I hope you will be able to answer and thus aid my capacity to learn mathematics more efficiently and thoroughly.
I ...
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I want to learn everything and it is doing more harm than good [closed]
I got really bad problem. First of all, I am studying for exams, and we have syllabus for exams. And 80% of questions in this exam are repeated from the past year question papers of last 10 years. I ...
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Survive the postdoc stage having ADHD
I made it to a rather high level in Academia (I'm a senior postdoc at the moment) but now I am stuck at this level (doing my 6th postdoc in 7 years). I was performing quite well when I had more or ...
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Near finished with PhD, average record, academic-career hopeful, next steps?
Short Question: What to focus on for the academic-career hopeful average terminal PhD student?
Background: I am soon to finish a dual PhD focused on computer and cognitive science at an average ...
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How to get tuned into a subject faster during exams?
We have 3 days gaps during exams. It takes me about two days to get tuned into a subject, i.e ., to get into the state of flow. I get tuned to studying around the middle of the second day. Is there ...
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How to efficiently switch between two different subjects without losing productivity?
One thing I have noticed as a student is that when I have to switch between two different tasks that I am supposed to be doing, say, for example, studying for two different subjects I am reading, I ...
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How to handle a harsh negative review? [duplicate]
Context
It is the first time I am submitting a research article as a first author. The review reports finally came back.
Review A is positive, suggesting acceptance and a few modifications.
Review B ...
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Ways to improve writing, so that one needs less time spent on proof reading?
Ways to improve writing, so that one needs less time spent on proof reading?
I've been a bit annoyed, because it seems that using a "write, then proof read" -approach seems ineffective, ...
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Why are small distractions impacting my day so much?
During the pandemic, at least the premier institutes of my country are operating in work from home mode. Since this lessens the physical activity of going around labs and classrooms daily I tried to ...
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What does it mean for a (assoc.) professor to have very few first-author publications while directing a lab/group?
I've stumbled upon various professors (R1 universities in CS) having almost no first-author publications for multiple years while directing (or co-directing) their research groups/labs.
From the ...
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Addressing loss of productivity during pandemic [closed]
I haven't had access to physical books since university libraries have been closed. How do I address this in interviews, and will people dismiss my file because of this?
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How to find all references for URL [closed]
I want to find all the papers that have cited a specific URL (which is in my case http://sable.github.io/soot/, https://github.com/soot-oss/soot, etc).
I tried searching those in Google scholar, ...
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How can I quickly learn advanced math concepts for my PhD in engineering?
I am a PhD student majoring in Medical Engineering. My interest in Math is high, but my knowledge isn't. I have just a bit of knowledge in Calculus, Linear Algebra and a little Statistics (just can do ...
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Supervisor not giving helpful academic direction
I'm a second-year (almost third-year) PhD student having serious trouble due to lack of scientific direction. I initially worked well with my supervisor, but when COVID hit she essentially ghosted the ...
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Moving from a modest research laboratory to a laboratory with a prestigious research portfolio. Tips to be successful?
Background
I have done my PhD (Computer Science) at a university (in a third world country) with very limited resources. My research was not funded, my previous lab didn't provide any research support ...
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People with at least four PhDs
This is a question of pure curiosity: just like there exists polyglots who speak dozens of languages, are there any cases of people obtaining at least four PhDs? (It is okay if topics are fairly close,...
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Maximizing Output [closed]
What are your methods in maximizing research output? I, a junior researcher without teaching duties at the moment, have been trying to work more and more hours, pushing leisure closer and closer to ...
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First year Math PhD student; My problem solving skill has been completely atrophied and continues to decline
I'm a first year PhD student in mathematics and I'm in a pretty bad spot.
Over the last year or so of undergrad and first semester of grad school, I've completely atrophied my problem solving skill. ...
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COVID-19 and decrease in research productivity
I wonder if there are any statistics or study analyzing the impact of isolation, teleworking due to COVID-19 pandemic on res.earchers' productivity.
From the beginning of the pandemic, I really feel ...
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What is a good rule of thumb for the cost of a Postdoc, in the US at an R1 university [closed]
Suppose I want to pay a postdoc $65K for salary. How much research fund do I need to have to support this postdoc (on average, of course, not exactly)?
Is it only the 65K or are there many other ...
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Writing grant applications as a new academic/faculty member [closed]
I am a new faculty member at a University. In the last 5 months since I started, I have applied (or in process of applying) 4 research grants (2 internal applied, 2 external in the process).
What I ...
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Program to manage research
I'm searching for a PC program, that syncs to the cloud (to Dropbox?), that will allow me comfortable management of PhD research, kind of a digital lab book. That includes -
Comfortably adding daily/...
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How can I enable productive online meetings with my supervisor?
I am currently writing my master's thesis. My advisor is very busy, and I reckon he will allocate about 1-3 hours a month to actively supervise me, at least in the near future. Due to the ongoing ...
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Is being an event planner also part of being an academician? How do you cope?
My question is, is being event planners every semester (unrelated to deep research) considered part of being an academician? And how do you navigate or balance all of your tasks (including organizing ...
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Discouraged by advisor to take courses, is there a way to navigate through this situation?
Graduate schools in North America usually have a required number of courses that you need to pass. Afterwards, the school is usually pretty flexible at the student taking more courses (and it is often ...
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An already poor career profile turned worse this year. Any hope left for an academic career? [closed]
31 years old, with a PhD in mechanical engineering. Graduated last December, I did not get any decent postdoc position due to my poor publication record during my 5.5 years duration PhD (1 first ...
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Are Systematic Reviews Efficient To Familiarize Yourself With The State-of-the-Art?
Problem
I have to familiarize myself with a new sub-field fast, to the point where I can recommend an agenda/recommendation for further research. I thought about doing a systematic literature review ...
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How do you keep up motivation during individual doctoral research projects in the short run
I always have been extremely motivated in my research area and project. My team and I have been writing our current paper over the last 6 months, and since we stumbled upon bugs, the process became ...
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Is researchgate still useful? [closed]
It seems that researchgate is gaining some popularity in recent years. However, there is some criticism on their habit of sending requests and unsolicited spam emails?. What is your experience of ...
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Need advise on a career in academia [closed]
I am desperately looking for a sense of direction. I am about to start a career in academia and I am..I guess scared. My Ph.D. was something, it was enlightening, to say the least. I do not have too ...
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My PI is irresponsible and I worry about my career as a postdoc [closed]
I am a postdoc in life sciences in the US and have started my postdoc around 6 months ago.
I am at a great (top-10) university. I like the university, lots of smart people and friendly environment.
I ...
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Maintaining sustained productivity and enthusiasm
There are researchers who work each day, every day of the year from the moment they reach their office till late. As a young and upcoming researcher, I find that I need breaks after a few days of this ...
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Quarantined at home because of COVID19 - how can I do engineering research productively? [closed]
I started grad school last September, and so far have been primarily busy with courses, but have been trying to do a little research on the side whenever I can. I recently finished all my courses ...
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Has the rate of papers uploaded to arXiv changed due to Covid-19? [closed]
I'm wondering how much Covid-19 affected scientific productivity, if it affected productivity negatively at all (c.f. Newton actually did a lot of his most important work while the University of ...
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Is Manuscripts.io a legit tool? Any experience with it?
A colleague just tipped me about manuscripts.io which advertises itself as a collaborative writing tool, with some really sweet features like importing docx and LaTeX; searching and adding citations ...
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What is an optimal reading order for a set of related papers?
A common problem I encounter every time I do a literature search on a new subject is determining a reading order for papers. It feels akin to jumping into a prolific sci-fi fantasy series, but since ...
user108403
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How to improve the quality and visibility of research?
This might sound like quite a basic question, but the answer has eluded me for the past couple of years. I'm from a computer science background, but the question is probably relevant outside this ...
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How to Best Ask Mentor for Guidance
I'm not a currently enrolled grad student, but I am being adopted on as a "grad student" and am currently working on a project in pharmacology involving a lot of things that I'm not too familiar with. ...
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How can I increase my productivity through my daily habits? [closed]
I recently posted this similar question here but I guess even this site could help me with that it or could even be better.
I am student how can I increase my productivity for studies by adapting/...
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How to find related work in academic writing in the most time-efficient way?
I noticed that, for each research project, there comes a point where I have to consult the literature, and find all the previous research related to the current project.
Unfortunately, I seem to be ...
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Measuring daily/weekly productivity in academia
One of the things I struggle with in academia is measuring my daily/weekly productivity. Before academia, I worked in various fields and always felt productive because I could measure my productivity, ...
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Do academics actually work "full-time"?
My current postdoc position requires that I work 41 hours per week during a 5-day work week. As my first post-graduate position, I decided to take this seriously and actually track my hours. (People ...
user108403
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How to communicate realistic expectations for science faculty research to administration
I teach at a small US liberal arts college with no graduate students. There is no support for research, and the teaching load is 4-6 courses per year.
A colleague was recently denied promotion to ...
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How do I regain my momentum in research after a long period of slacking off?
I'm two and a half years into my PhD program. Recently, I finally worked up the courage to admit it — I've been slacking off for over a year and it's my fault. Now I'm determined to be productive in ...
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