I am Alexandre Pinto, and This is How I Work

Today, I am interviewing Dr. Alexandre H. Pinto. Alex Pinto is currently a Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow and Faculty Member at Ithaca College (Ithaca, NY), where he leads the group for Green Chemical Synthesis of Nanomaterials. Alex was born and raised in Brazil, where he took his undergraduate degree in Chemistry and Master’s degree in Physical Chemistry, both at Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos (UFSCar), advised by Prof. Emerson R. Camargo. After that, Alex moved to USA, where he took his PhD in Chemistry at University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, advised by Prof. R Lee Penn, working on the synthesis of transition metal chalcogenides using microwave assisted reactions. Throughout his career, Alex has worked with the solution chemistry synthesis of transition metal oxides, selenides, and sulfides, and characterization by different techniques, such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman and Infrared Spectroscopies, Scanning and Transmission Electron Microscopy. Since joining Ithaca College, Alex has worked on the application of Green and Materials Chemistry concepts to solve environmental problems, such as remediation of wastewater contaminated by organic pollutants via photocatalysis and solid-liquid adsorption, and development of transition metal oxides for less expensive catalysis of organic reactions.

Current Job: The title of my current position is Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow and Faculty Member, it is a position suited to provide teaching and research advisory experience in an undergraduate institution for recent PhD graduates aiming to pursue a career in undergraduate institutions.
Current Location: I am currently working in the Department of Chemistry at Ithaca College, which is located in the city of Ithaca, in the central part of the New York State.
Current Mobile Device: I own a LG Stylo phone with Android System, I have owned this cell phone since October 2015.
Current Computer: My current computer is a Toshiba Satellite, with an Intel Core I3 processor, 4 GB of RAM memory, and 500 GB hard drive and a Windows 10 operational system. This computer has been with me since Summer 2013. Sometimes it is a little bit slow, mainly when a new update of Microsoft Office or Windows is about to be released, but in overall, it has been fully functional.

Can you briefly explain your current situation and research to us?
As previously told, I am currently a Faculty Member at Ithaca College, where I teach generally three courses per semester. Generally, it is a lecture course and two lab courses per semester. Besides that, I manage a research group with undergraduate students. The goal of our research group is to synthesize nanomaterials using more sustainable, less toxic and harmful methods, which complies with a branch of chemistry called Green Chemistry. Then, we use these materials to solve some environmental problems, for instance, wastewater remediation. Talking more in depth, we are interested to study how textile dyes present in simulated wastewater interact with nanomaterials. Currently, we are working with two classes of materials, one of them is the polymer chitosan, which is produced from a material called chitin, found in skeleton of sea animals like crab and shrimp. The second material is the graphene oxide, which is a twodimensional material, very thin and with high surface area, mostly constituted by carbon. Besides our research in nanomaterials and Green Chemistry, we are also starting to do some research in Chemical Education, we are about to submit a paper about this topic, regarding the development and implementation of a course about characterization techniques for solid state materials.

What tools, apps and software are essential to your workflow?
Besides the regular Microsoft Office package, there are three softwares that I consider essential to perform my job. The first one is called Origin 2017, it is a graphical software, which allows to plot graphs with a publishable quality, and offers more features than Excel. Besides the capability to produce high quality graphs, Origin is essential for my work because it allows me to do curve and linear fitting, as a Materials Physical Chemist, those two features are very necessary to perform my data analysis. The other two essential softwares are used to image treatment, the interesting thing is that both of them are free softwares. One of them is called ImageJ, and the second one is called Gimp. I use ImageJ to adjust contrast, sharpness, and adjust scale bars for electron microscopy images, then, I move to Gimp to increase image resolution and do small adjustments. The great thing about ImageJ and Gimp is that both softwares are free.

What does your workspace setup look like?
The majority of the week I spend in my office at Ithaca College, preparing classes, reading papers, analyzing data and thinking about the next experiments, which you can see some pictures. Then the rest of the time is spent in the classroom, while I am teaching, and in the lab space, where I go few times per
week to perform some experiments by myself.



What is your best advice for productive academic work?
Be self-driven. Science is made of ideas, but ideas themselves do not translate in results. Most people who chose a scientific career, usually have a lot of ideas, either good or bad ones, but, in general, all of them are worthwhile. However, many ideas are never put in practice, and to put an idea in practice, I consider that the researcher needs to be self-driven, because there will be a lot of factors and people trying to demotivate you around this way. So, the researcher needs to find their inner strength, take the ownership of their idea, and do everything that is feasible to make it work.

How do you keep an overview of projects and tasks?
I do not have any sophisticated device for this purpose. I am still in the phase of my career that I rely a lot on my memory to remind me about appointments. One thing that I do routinely is to take a blank paper sheet when I first arrive in my office in the morning and write as bullet points all the tasks that I have to do for that day. Then, after I have completed a certain task, I cross that off the list. This simple action to cross the task of the list, although simple, gives kind of feeling of accomplishment.

About the research, I rely a lot on the lab notebook, and monthly or every other month, I gather the results obtained by the students or myself in a certain project and write a results outline, where I paste the graphs and briefly write how those results could be interpreted, and which are the remaining questions to be answered in order to make the project as close as possible to be a cohesive story, and hopefully become a paper manuscript. I feel these outlines very helpful when it is time to write a manuscript for a paper.

Besides phone and computer, do you use other technological tools in work and daily life?
No, I do not use any other technological tool besides laptop computer and cell phone in work and daily life. Also, by looking at how long I have owned my current laptop and cell phone, you might have noticed that I try to keep my devices for as long as they continue working. I am not the type of person interested to buy immediately the latest model of a computer or cell phone.

Which skill makes you stand out as an academic?
I have always worked hard in my academic life, and one thing that I consider that essential is preparation. So, I always have tried to be prepared for when a possible opportunity could show up. Besides that, take the initiative and propose ideas that people probably would not expect from you. In a positive and humble way, I can say that I am proud to be on this point of my career so far. When I look back and see that I was the first person in all sides of my family to obtain a College education, and now I am teaching and researching in the USA, and having my work recognized is something that shows how far education, preparation and dedication led me in my life and career. I think this is one of the reasons I like teaching and academic life in general, because in the academy is where knowledge is seen as worthwhile. And that is the reason why I hope to continue researching, teaching and somehow trying
to be a good example to the student generations that will come.

What do you listen to when you work?
I am the type of person that prefers the complete silence while doing something that requires attention. If I have something to listen, like song or video, I totally lose the concentration. So, when I am seriously studying I do not listen anything.

What are you currently reading? How do you find time for reading?
In this moment, I am not reading any book outside the scientific field, unfortunately. However, this is a habit that I intend to retake in a foreseeable future.

Are you more of an introvert or extrovert? How does this influence your working habits?
For sure I am an introvert, in all fields of my life and relationships, but I see any professional activity as an opportunity to leave my introvert side away. Surprisingly, I have never felt uncomfortable talking to audiences, like classes or conferences, actually, I greatly appreciate talking in public. I think this one of reasons why I like teaching and give oral presentations, it seems that in those situations I am the extrovert person that I think I would like to be in all other fields of my life. In summary, I would say that being an introvert does not influence much in my working habits, despite influencing in most of the other fields in my life.

What is your sleeping routine like?
I sleep about 5 to 6 hours per night, generally from 11 PM to 5:30 or 6:00 AM.

What is your routine work like?
I arrive in my office right before 8 AM, this semester most of classes I teach are in the morning. They start at 8 AM or 11 AM. When the class starts 11 AM, I can work in my research activities for a while. The afternoon is filled with either by class preparation, paper reading, writing, and experiment planning. I generally leave my office around 6 PM. Until last semester, I used to go to my office and work during the weekends. For this semester, I have done the commitment with myself to avoid as much as possible going to the College in the weekends, to spend more time with my family. I am happy that so far, I have accomplished this goal.

What's the best advice you ever received?
This advice it was not given personally to me, but I heard it in a lecture more than 15 years ago, I was still in high-school that time, and to have heard this statement early in life made the difference in my professional career. The statement says: “Things like space, opportunity, and prestige will not be given to you. You have to conquest them.”

I am Rasheda Weaver, and This is How I Work

Today, I am interviewing Dr. Rasheda L. Weaver for the "How I Work" series. Dr. Weaver is an Assistant Professor of Community Entrepreneurship in the department of Community Development and Applied Economics at the University of Vermont (UVM). She is also the Co-Director of UVM’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Living Learning Community. She conducted the first large-scale study of the social, economic, and legal activities of social enterprise (businesses that have a social and/or environmental mission) in the United States. Her research analyzes how entrepreneurship may be utilized as a strategy for poverty alleviation and community economic development. In her free time, Dr. Weaver is an avid salsa dancer and loves to make spicy Caribbean food for her husband and son.

General:
Current Job: Assistant Professor of Community Entrepreneurship
Current Location: University of Vermont
Current mobile device: Samsung Android
Current computer: Mac Desktop and MacBook Air

Can you briefly explain your current situation and research to us?
I am in my first year as an Assistant Professor in the University of Vermont’s Department of Community Development and Applied Economics. Since arriving, I was also offered and accepted the position of Co-Faculty Director for the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Living Learning Community.

What tools, apps and software are essential to your workflow?
My Macbook Air is essential to my workflow because I travel a good deal and I try to stay out of the office when I am not teaching to focus on research days.

What does your workspace setup look like?
I alternate between work, office, and a café. I work in the office on teaching days and 1 day for research meetings, but I usually spend two days working from home or a café. I also have mini-writing retreats during the semester where I just work in a coffee shop near a scenic area or walking trail and take hiking/site-seeing breaks during my writing sessions.



My Office Desk (The week before classes when I am syllabus prepping)



Home Office



Café Work

What is your best advice for productive academic work?
Consistency, compassion, self-awareness.
I am consistent in that I get my work done. I may not write every day at the same time, but I try to ensure I write or work on my research every day. There is never a day throughout the work week where I do not do something involved with my research.

In regards to compassion, I focus on excellence as opposed to perfection. Excellence to me involves: 1) completing a task (e.g. writing and submitting a journal manuscript, completing a lecture) and 2) reflecting on the task over time. I usually do not complete any research, teaching, or service task without just getting it done and then putting it aside for a few days to reflect on it, make changes, and then sent it out to the world. Essentially, I accomplish every responsibility I have immediately/ as soon as possible, put it aside to see if it reflects my vision for it, and then move on to the next thing. I try not to dwell on any one project/task because that often leads to time wasted.

How do you keep an overview of projects and tasks?
My Publication Pipeline (shown below) helps me stay productive. It is on a bulletin board that I see every day. I left the names of each article out of the photo for anonymous peer-review purposes.



My Tenure-Track Portfolio keeps track of my work for promotions, reviews, and positive self-affirmation.



Also, on Fridays I make a list of all the things I have to do the following week (e.g. attending meetings, manuscript writing, teaching). I then create an agenda for each task and stick to it! I upload my class agendas to Blackboard, send agendas for my meetings, and set writing goals. This way, everyone that works with me knows what to expect and I have already prepped for my meetings for the week. It saves so much time and energy.

Besides phone and computer, do you use other technological tools in work and daily life?
Not really, though I probably should. I feel like I should make better use of Evernote and some reference management tool, but I have not come around to doing it yet. I would like recommendations of any time-saving and organizational software.

Which skill makes you stand out as an academic?
Positivity, friendliness, a strong sense of self-confidence and self-awareness, and pretty cool dancing skills. My dad is a dancehall DJ and my aunt used to sing with Bob Marley. I’m a positive and free spirit. I get along with almost every person I meet.

What do you listen to when you work?
I love Pop and R&B, as well as reggae and salsa, but it depends. When I am writing, I usually listen to Whitney Houston, Ed Sheeran, Jason Mraz, or Alicia Keys. Essentially, I like music that speaks to my soul, but not so much that it will make me want to dance while writing. However, before any kind of presentation including a regular day in class, a conference, or a keynote presentation, I like to listen to Beyoncé, Katy Perry, or something upbeat and empowering. These types of songs help me unwind so I can be the free-spirited and open-minded person that I naturally am. After a conference, I usually try to attend a local salsa or reggae club as a treat. Dancing is one of my favorite things to do and I’m of Jamaican and Cuban descent so this kind of music helps me let go, be myself, and just have a good time after all the great work I just did.

What are you currently reading? How do you find time for reading?
I just read Trevor Noah’s book “Born A Crime” and I love it!
I usually read when I traveling using audiobooks.

I also love, love, love Thoughtfully Magazine. It’s all about self-care and positivity. The issue in the picture below is particularly amazing.



Are you more of an introvert or extrovert? How does this influence your working habits?
I’m an extrovert, however every now and then I need alone time to be creative and to focus. I’m very friendly, fun, and outgoing. This influences my work in that I see the classroom as a fun experience. My students often describe me as “energetic” and say that I make learning fun and cool. I do not aim for this, I just always focus on being myself because not being myself would make me nervous (food for thought). In regards to alone time, I like to get up early to write by myself and I often work alone. I sometimes like to work in groups (e.g. writing groups) as long as we stick to working for the most part. Because I am so outgoing, I can get distracted, but if I notice that I will usually just leave and come back to a group once my work is done.

What's your sleep routine like?
I try to get to sleep by 10p.m. and wake up around 5a.m. or 6a.m. depending on whether or not my toddler son wakes me up at night haha. This gives me time to wake up early for 20 minutes of yoga and meditation, 30 minutes of writing, and time to prepare breakfast and lunch (I make salads and smoothies for lunch in the morning plus prepare my son’s lunch) before my husband and son wake up.

What's your work routine like?
I teach 2 days per week and I only focus on teaching on those days. I prep for class, teach class, and then write notes for the next class. I usually try not to meet with anyone on these days. I come to campus an additional day each week for research and other meetings.

What's the best advice you ever received?
“Being a professor is like being an entrepreneur.” In our research, we must be innovative and productive to generate knowledge that is of value.
“In order to be “here” for students, you need to be “here.”” In other words, if I spend all my time focused on teaching and advising, I will not be productive enough in my research to be “here” at the university for my students in the future.

I am Kimberley Mitchell, and This is How I Work

Today, I have the pleasure of inviting Kimberley Mitchell in the "How I Work" series. Kim is a registered nurse and has been an instructor in the nursing department at Red River College in Winnipeg, Canada since 2002 where she has primarily taught the least nursey stuff possible: research methods and academic writing. She also acts as faculty writing mentor and all-round advice giver. Kim is also currently a PhD student at the University of Manitoba in the College of Nursing where she is plotting her doctoral thesis to explore the Theoretical Construction and Measurement of Writing Self-Efficacy. She has designed, completed and published several studies exploring writing self-efficacy in nursing students. In 2016, Kim created the persona and blogs at https://academicswrite.wordpress.com and tweets @academicswrite in order to inspire, share, and create a community of practice related to academic writing, research, and instruction.

General:
Current Job: Instructor, Red River College
Current Location: Winnipeg, MB Canada
Current mobile device: iPhone 8+
Current computer: MacBook Pro

Can you briefly explain your current situation and research to us?
I am a doctoral student at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. My home department is nursing as I have been a registered nurse since 1997 and working in nursing education at a teaching focused institution since 2002 shortly after I finished my Masters degree. It took me this long to do my PhD (I started in 2016) only because I didn’t need it and I was enjoying life and the ample free time my flexible job allowed me. But the research bug crept back into my life around 2011. The most common question I get related to my nurse educator status is: “Did you ever do “real” nursing?” To which I tell them that what I do is REAL nursing, educating the future practitioners, but I did practice in a hospital for 5 years after my nursing degree and worked in Cardiac and Vascular surgery and Intensive Care. As an educator, I taught academic writing in our department from 2005-2015 and I have been teaching research methods since 2007.

In 2011 I decided that since I had developed this first year writing course for our nursing students that I should start collecting evidence as to if it was successful. I decided to focus on writing self-efficacy. I’ve done 3 studies on my local student population related to writing self-efficacy, developed an instrument, and did an analysis of all the writing self-efficacy instruments that have been used in research. These studies taught me that to increase my knowledge, the only solution was to do my PhD. My PhD focus is nursing education. I am carrying on with work in writing self-efficacy and re-developing my instrument to measure it and doing some other philosophical work in that area as well.

What tools, apps and software are essential to your workflow?
Microsoft office. I write. A lot. So my main tool is Word. But I also make use of Exel for data entry and I’ve been learning SPSS and most recently Rstudio for doing latent variable analysis.

What does your workspace setup look like?
I alternate between home and office. Currently, as I type, I am at my Red River College office but I have a PC laptop here which I hate. I much prefer working on my Mac. My workspace is really uninteresting as it is just a desk and a computer and not much of a view.



What is your best advice for productive academic work?
I am known for being extremely efficient and productive. And I don’t really know if I have any tips for anyone that would actually work for them. I just do what I do and I don't think about it a whole lot. I never stop thinking. I just don’t procrastinate. I mean, I do procrastinate but I really consider that ‘thinking time’ rather than procrastination. I’ve put off duties like writing up assignment guidelines, for example, and then when I sit down to write them out, I can hammer out a first draft in about 30 minutes because the whole thing is usually pre-written in my head. That doesn’t necessarily work for academic writing.

I am very old school in my paper writing practices. I read paper copies of articles. I take handwritten notes of those articles. I thematically analyze the articles as I am taking notes often because my ideas form during reading and then are transformed and thickened by writing.

I’m very efficient. I look for the quickest way to get things done and I tend to not dither over decisions. All things that are truely time saving. My brain just "sees" how things should be organized before I go to organize it and it helps me to work faster.

I work very independently. Meaning, I know some folk that can’t seem to make a decision or implement a change without checking in with someone or getting approval. I don’t need any of that. I do what I do and I face the consequences later if I've done something inappropriate -- which is both often, and rare at the same time. There... those are my productive work paradoxes.

How do you keep an overview of projects and tasks?
Mostly in my head. I know what I need to get done and when it needs to get done by and I tend to only work on 2 things at a time. I do have a magnet board with some listed papers I would like to tackle but it is kind of outdated right now. I mentally block off time to complete a particular task.

For example, I have a factor analysis paper I want to write about my original questionnaire and I hope to have it done by mid April. I have three papers at journals right now in various stages of the review process. I have a systematic review I am working on unrelated to my PhD life that is being conducted with work colleagues and that one will go out before the end of the month. I have a educational innovation paper I wrote on a whim last week and I would like to have that one submitted before the end of the month too but it is the second priority from the systematic review. I have another paper I want to revise but I’m still percolating on. I had a meeting last week about team writing an editorial but that is usually a day of writing and it is collaborative writing so less time consuming overall. I’m involved in about 4 research projects as a team member all in various stages of completion. So I may have lied when I said I only work on 2 projects at once. I have about 11 I am involved in but really only 2 sit at the top of the priority list on any given day and I only allow 2 of them to "call for my attention" at any given time. It’s complicated but all academic life is complicated and I am pretty sure that is normal.

Besides phone and computer, do you use other technological tools in work and daily life?
Nope.

Which skill makes you stand out as an academic?
My efficiency and my writing skills. I’m not a perfect writer. No one is. But I have a thorough metacognitive understanding of writing. I can diagnose writing issues easily. Mostly other people’s writing issues. With my own writing issues, I tend to have a bit more trouble. Also because I have been teaching research methods for 11 years, I have a very well honed understanding of a variety of research methods.

What do you listen to when you work?
I rarely listen to anything but when I do it is usually whatever is on my iPhone in iTunes which is mostly 90s grunge or sappy pop from the same era.

What are you currently reading? How do you find time for reading?
I have two books going at once at the moment. Both are things that I don’t “have” to be reading but yet neither is pleasure reading. One is William Zinsser’s On Writing Well and the other is Connelly and Clandinin’s Narrative Inquiry. Nursing is a very article based discipline so I am finding it a tough conversion to look at books. Most of the classic writing literature is in book form not in article publications. Because I am taking a measurement course right now, I am also reading a lot of Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis Studies.

Are you more of an introvert or extrovert? How does this influence your working habits?
I’ve done the Myer’s Briggs surveys numerous times and I sit right on the border of Introvert and Extrovert so the answer changes depending on my mood. I’m not shy but I do have social anxiety. My extroverted side was out in full force yesterday at the office where I talked several people’s ears off till I think they wanted to get rid of me. But I could also quite happily live in the forest on a lake and never see people for days on end and be lost inside my head writing. When I was writing as a young adult, I could often be swayed away from the pen by a phone call from a friend saying, “Hey let’s go out!” That’s probably why I never finished any of the writing I started at that age. I could easily be pulled away from it to socialize. Now in my 40s I would be more likely to say, "no thanks, I need to write."

What's your sleep routine like?
My ideal biorhythm is from about 9 am to 1 or 2 am but I often don’t get to live up to that. But I rarely work past 8 PM. I never work in the middle of the night or early in the morning. I am in bed by 10 or 1030 and lights out by 11. My partner has a strict routine and it is a good relationship practice (especially in my busy PhD student life) to go to bed at the same time so I follow his routine. But I could easily sit up and write till 1 or 2AM. When I wrote my novel that's what I did and because of it I started drinking coffee at the age of 35. But the only time I could write was when my children went to bed and I had rare children who slept and were in bed by 7PM so it worked. They were about 5 and 3 at that time. The writing got done from 7PM until I hit a brick wall. The house didn't get cleaned. It ended my marriage. But I was writing and it was one of the happiest times of my life.

What's your work routine like?
There is a lot of talk on Twitter on work-life balance which I respect but I find it doesn’t work for me to have strict “I only work from 9-5” rules to structure my work life. I work when my head is in that head space and I don’t when it isn’t. I'm not a pleasant person to be around if I have some writing or other task itching in my brain and I'm being kept from it by some obligation or other mundane task. I find my best work hours are between 10AM and 8PM. I don't watch much TV. My work routine can only be described as unpredictable.

I live outside of the city of Winnipeg which means about a thirty minute to one hour commute to get to work or to get to school. Sometimes I work at home -- whenever I can but that is not often these days. I teach 2 days a week currently and those days are spent at my Red River office. I usually have to be at the university for some student related activity for minimum one other day of the week. I will set up office in the grad lounge on those days or the research office depending on what needs to be done. My kids don't go to school in the town I live in, so they get driven into the city with me which often means I do a split work day. My office hour time is done by about 3PM and then I drive to pick up the kids and do grocery shopping and run errands and take them home. The kids are 16 and 14 now. Then I work for another hour till dinner, and, many evenings, after dinner for another couple hours.

I work when work calls, and I do life when life calls. sometimes that means working all evening or weekend and sometimes that means going for a three hour bike ride at 10AM on a Tuesday morning. As long as deadlines are met, I don't tend to fret about it much. I don't much let a clock dicate when either happens. The writing muse doesn't always appear because a clock says it should. And sometimes life needs to happen at 10AM instead of at 5PM. (editors note: sometimes there are spousal complaints). It is a crazy work life but it works for me. It is hard to describe to others. My solice is in the fact that at my current job I have 44 days of vacation a year to use and I tend to do nothing but leisure time, and read, most of the summer.

What's the best advice you ever received?
I don't know if this falls in the category of advice per se, but I've been teaching undergraduate nursing for 15 years and I had a mentor for the first 12 of those who was in the same office as me (before she retired) who really inspired my approach to learning. As the writing instructor we had many conversations about plagairism and she was also the adminstrator who had to have conversations with students when their assignments were suspected plagiarism. She always used to say, "Would we rather be police? Or would we rather teach?" And the first time I heard her say that it changed my thinking. Of course I would rather teach! I changed my pedagogial choices after that. I really don't think much about or every go hunting for plagiarism. Students are less likely to plagiarise if you are in their face about their writing process. So find a way, in every assignment, to make sure that every one of your students has to look you in the eyes with respect to their writen work.

I am Nicolai Brodersen Hansen, and This is How I Work

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Nicolai Brodersen Hansen for the "How I Work" series. Nicolai holds a PhD from Aarhus University, Denmark and specializes in Codesign and Participatory Design design processes with a specific focus on materials and materiality. He recently joined TU Eindhoven as a postdoc where he is working on empowering citizens through smart technologies using both co-design and urban prototyping strategies. Also dabbles in Human-Computer Interaction and should spend more time programming.



General:
Current Job: Postdoctoral researcher at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), the Netherlands
Current Location: Eindhoven and Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Current mobile device: Sony Xperia Z5 (I know, embarrassing)
Current computer: MSI GS63VR Stealth, a really highpowered windows laptop that feels like a gamer machine

Can you briefly explain your current situation and research to us
I am a Postdoc at Eindhoven University of Technology, researching empowerment through smart technologies, materials and creative design processes.I finished my phd in Interaction Design and Participatory Design from Aarhus University in Denmark september 2016. I am employed for three years as a Postdoctoral researcher here at the TU Eindhoven in the Netherlands, and my job is to drive and develop the agendas of a new research project focusing on empowering citizens through smart technologies, or to put it in another way, finding new bottom-up approaches to involving citizens in ie. politics, urban planning and product development through technology. A good example is how facebook for instance has allowed people to mobilize and organize around issues they care about locally, but I am also keenly interested in how we can involve people in the design processes of the now very technologically advanced products they use.

What tools, apps and software are essential to your workflow?
Evernote and Zotero are so integral to my academic workflow that its not even funny. I also use Atom, a hackable text editor... for some reason I like having barebones text editors for writing. I have recently taken up Trello too, which I really like, especially for its ability to add forwarded mails to a todo-list in Trello. Just forward a mail to a special email address, and boom, its on your todo - I think that highlights how I think about tools... they need to be lightweight but also integrated so that I don't have to switch modes or keep double tabs etc. For heavy writing I love scrivener too.

What does your workspace setup look like?
I alternate like crazy and like sitting in new places... however I seldom have the opportunity to work at home, given how I have a one-year old son and that just doesn't allow for off hours work for me. Apart from that I have two workplaces, my main one being at Industrial Design at TU/e where I am employed. We are currently in the process of moving to a new fancy building that is under construction so I currently inhabit the Play-Lab, where lots of fancy VR stuff goes down too. It's a bit of a mess using a lab as an office, and I think I am constantly disturbing work there or vice versa, but it's just three months until we move to the new building so I will suffer it for now. I also have a seat in an open office at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam in Amsterdam where I work some days of the week. The project that employs me is mainly with Amsterdam partners so it makes sense to split my time between two cities.

Amsterdam office

Eindhoven office

What is your best advice for productive academic work?
Let's get honest, I suffer from pretty bad anxiety most days, so I always always second guess and overthink. To combat that I need to let go in the moment and just do the thing... one good trick I have learned is to jump right in and not overthink it. Just look at whatever is in front of you and resolve to spend 5 minutes on it, right now, no thinking further, just get going and resolve to spend five minutes on it. That little mindtrick helps me a lot since I don't have time to plan and fear and guess, but just hack a bit on it. As they say, every paper is written one word at a time.

How do you keep an overview of projects and tasks?
Trello is probably my answer right now, along with google drive. As you can tell I use more or less the cookiecutter things, but I am also a firm believer in the best tool for the job being the one you know how to do the job with.

Besides phone and computer, do you use other technological tools in work and daily life?
I have a kindle that I sometimes read academic books on.. however I am the kind of guy who has a workflow so integrated with zotero and pdf highlighting that I kinda prefer screenreading unless I am doing the famous medium-shift trick where you write something on a screen, and then print it out and read it again and change it and back and forth, until you are satisfied. This change of medium allows me to 'see' the text in a different way I think.

Which skill makes you stand out as an academic?
I really don't think I am a very outstanding as an academic, but you can drop me in the middle of a bar fight and I will make five friends before the night is over. In other words, I am good at networking and that will take you quite far, even if you need the writing and researching skills to back it up. Typically I will be the guy who knows everyone and that makes me good to know for setting up collaborations. I am also quite a wiz at picking up a working knowledge of almost anything very quickly.

What do you listen to when you work?
This is terrible, but I like to listen to either ambient soundscapes (example here) or if I am tired and just needs to get fired up, some symphonic metal like Nightwish, Epica or even, gasp, Within Temptation. This is getting awkward isn't it?

What are you currently reading? How do you find time for reading?
So, of course I try to read a lot of academic papers and being very well-versed in Participatory Design, I keep up there, reading skimming a lot of what comes out. I did a literature review on Participation in Design too, and I feel like I should revisit it, since it draws on data from 2002-2012 and a lot has happened since then. Apart from that I just switched jobs to this new project which means that I have to read a lot of new things on play and games.

In my private time, I like to read sci-fi or fantasy, preferably anything from the Warhammer universe OR very serious history books like the memoirs of panzer generals. I was never very good at reading what most people would consider good literature, although I have dabbled a bit in a bit of Dostojevsky when I was young and depressed.

Are you more of an introvert or extrovert? How does this influence your working habits?
So, I am quite extrovert I believe most people would say, but it is of course way more complex than that - I love talking and being with people but it drains me a lot. So in other words, if you want me to do some work, you gotta offer me a secluded space and some solid chunks of time, something I currently struggle with finding. The easiest way to kill my productivity is actually sitting me in an open office and throwing lots of impressions at me. I guess I loved writing my dissertation actually, sitting there and fighting at 2 am listening to for instance this: ... all alone. Bleeding and just typing my little heart out in glorious solitude.

What's your sleep routine like?
I have a small son and now you are just being mean aren't you? It's bad trust me. Anyhow, I typically go to bed at 10 pm, then get waken up once or twice by the son before 2 am, then the night shift pulls in and we go like that until dawn where I wake up at 6:30. I am definitely sleep deprived these days and it's hurting everywhere including my budget for energy drinks and pain killers. Don't be like me kids.

What's your work routine like?
I TRY to focus on one or two easy tasks a day and one hard. So tomorrow for instance I have a poster for a accreditation meeting, a status report for the project etc. All easy enough. Apart from that, I want to formulate a research experiment or two for some of our partners - not so easy. I am also writing a paper for the Digital Games Research Association conference together with my colleagues.

What's the best advice you ever received?
Get enough sleep. I still don't follow it. My own best piece of advice is that contrary to popular belief, in academia you can polish a turd: given enough bad writing about a subject, you will eventually be smart enough to write something GOOD about that subject. What you can't do, is think and think about a subject and then write something good. So just sit down and write some bad stuff, you might not even show it to anyone. And then, after a while, it turns out that within all of those pieces of writing about a subject that you know quite well (you are a researcher remember?), you will be able to re-write something fantastic.

I am Ghayda Aljuwaiser, and This is How I Work

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Ghayda Aljuwaiser. Ghayda is a doctoral student @ SHU (Sheffield Hallam University), 4th year, in the C3RI (Communications & Media Department). Her thesis is exploring Saudi women’s online practices on social media platforms. She worked as a lecturer between 2009 - 2013 @ KAU (King Abdulaziz University), Jeddah - Saudi Arabia, taught several modules in Sociology and Communication, to - female - bachelor students. In her free time she Tweets, writes/ blogs, reads and goes to the Theatre!

General:
Current Job: I hold a position as a T.A @ Media & Communication Faculty - KAU in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, granted a scholarship from the department of communication skills to pursue my PhD in the UK since 2013 .
Current Location: Sheffield, UK
Current mobile device: iPhone 6s plus
Current computer: MacBook, 12 inches

Can you briefly explain your current situation and research to us?
Currently a PhDeir @ SHU (Sheffield Hallam University), C3RI department (Media & Communications). Started my fourth year on September 2017. My thesis is looking at Saudi women’s online practices on social media platforms

What tools, apps and software are essential to your workflow?
Google Drive (Docs and Slides): for daily writing,
Scrivener: for conferences abstracts and presentations ‘scenarios’ & monthly reports (clarify).
Microsoft word: for finalising my submissions formatting,
Evernote: to log scattered materials, such as: books to read, papers to download, ideas for my thesis chapters etc.
Calendars5: to organise my days, weeks and months.
Doodle: recently to arrange my meetings with my supervisors,
Omnioutliner: to plan the meetings agenda and record them also.
Mendeley: for pdf references,
Google Scholar: is my daily addiction: I sat a notification for certain topics - keywords, which keeps me updated with latest research in my field, and also to follow scholars and copy-paste app citations ^_^ (we all know Mendeley fails sometimes).
I also use citethisforme occasionally for referencing purposes.

What does your workspace setup look like?
I don’t have a fixed workspaces, I alternate across different locations:

• @ my office @ the Uni 

• Cafes all over Sheffield
• The Uni’s library (something Uni of Sheffield and the Diamond building also)

4. What is your best advice for productive academic work?

• Set realistic - small goals
• Believe you can accomplish them
• Stick to your to-do-list
• What you think is ‘rubbish writing’ will turn to a neat 1st draft: trust me, just write, and do what you have to do, even if it didn’t make sense, it will turn into great work afterwards
• Work from Mon - Fri, and treat yourself on Sat & Sun; build new skills, discover new places and read non-academic stuff

How do you keep an overview of projects and tasks?
Recently, I downloaded a template for: Publication Prioritising and Goal Setting, by Hugh Kearns. I wish I had discovered it earlier, yes I ‘tweaked’ the file, but overall it helped me to follow my productivity and my work progress. Recommended for all newbies in academia and PhDiers especially.

Besides phone and computer, do you use other technological tools in work and daily life?
Yes,

• Logitech Bluetooth mouse and a Foldable Wireless Keyboard

• Apple USB-C VGA Multiport Adapter to connect the uni PCU monitor to my MacBook, it helps to reduce writing neck pain 😔

• Does the Wii U Console count? I watch movies, T.V shows etc, via Amazon video, Netflix and YouTube 😄

Which skill makes you stand out as an academic?
Doing research in a multidisciplinary topic, where my readings and writings cross different fields: HCI-CHI, Sociology, Ethnography, MENA- GCC arena, Women/Gender and Cross-Cultural studies.

What do you listen to when you work?
Mainly Saudi tunes, sometimes Arabic and seldom English. Here is my Soundcloud likes list ;)

What are you currently reading? How do you find time for reading?
Since I began my writing up, mid of the third year, my reading rate has declined :(. Even on the weekends, I tend to read articles more than books. I’ve only managed to read around 10 books in 2017 😔. Anyway, I’m currently reading a book, by a famous Saudi intellectual figure: Ghazi AlGosaibi, he died in 2010. (was the Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland btw). The book is a collection of talks and articles he gave/published @/in different venues/magazines, it looks at Globalisation and National Identity, specifically within the late 1990s (1998). How - for example - Saudi Arabia should look at international models in development and business for examples and adopt them within the cultural context, how the media broadcasting was changing dramatically, and how diplomatics should adapt with such transformations. He reflects on his own - both - personal and professional experience, what he has learned and what he wishes the public and the private sectors could reform and change. I’ve dictate weekends for free reading, and recently and built a habit of pre-sleep reading!

Are you more of an introvert or extrovert? How does this influence your working habits?
I consider myself an extrovert, but living abroad/on my own, the whole experience of having my own apartment and daily routine have changed some of my preferences, such as: avoid noisy places, prefer to surround myself with less but more trustworthy and easy going people, talking less and listen more 😃 .. I don’t know if the habits I’ve already gained growing up, or the experience of studying abroad experience, but I noticed how much my lifestyle, relationships and the communication with people have changed.

What's your sleep routine like?
To be honest, I don’t have a fixed sleep routine, but generally I sleep around 12-1:30 a.m .. start my day around 11 a.m -12 p.m. This of course is subjected to change in weekends, vacations, travelling to Saudi and not mentioning surprising to do missions, such as this paragraph, which I am finalizing @ 3:22 a.m! 😀

What's your work routine like?
As I mentioned, I arrive to the office around 12 p.m., stay there until 9:00 p.m. I focus on certain to do list, what I have to write-submit, sometimes transcribing-reading comes in the middle. At the meantime, I’m working on my DA chapters, so my work is focused on one chapter: translating, reflecting then emerging themes and sub-themes for finalising my drafts for submissions. I sometimes use tomato timer to set my writing hours, I also use wordkeeperalpha to log my word count.

What's the best advice you ever received?
Keep writing .. don’t give up .. chin up .. you can do it :)

I am Susan Thomson, and This is How I Work

Today, I am interviewing Dr. Susan Thomson for the "How I Work" series. Susan Thomson (sthomson@colgate.edu) is Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies. Her research is dedicated to understanding how systems of power structure the lives of individuals in so-called times of peace. She also studies the practical and ethical challenges of doing field-based research in post-conflict settings. Thomson is the author of Whispering Truth to Power: Everyday Resistance to Reconciliation in Post-Genocide Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013); and co-editor of Emotional and Ethical Challenges for Field Research in Africa: The Story Behind the Findings (Palgrave, 2013). Her latest book, Rwanda: From Genocide to Precarious Peace is forthcoming in February 2018 with Yale University Press.

General:
Current Job: Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, and director, Women's Studies Program, Colgate University
Current Location: Hamilton, NY
Current mobile device: Samsung S7
Current computer: MacBook Pro

Can you briefly explain your current situation and research to us?
I am a tenured professor at a small liberal arts university in Central New York. I am trained as a lawyer and a political scientist, with an emphasis on international public law and African politics. I received my Bachelor of Laws in 1998, and my PhD in political science in 2009. My scholarship is dedicated to understanding how systems of power structure the lives of individuals, and how individuals subject to power experience it in so-called times of peace. This concern means that my research draws on a number of disciplines, including anthropology, feminist security studies, history, law and politics. My focus on how individuals live through and rebuild their lives after violence also drives my interest in studying the practical and ethical challenges of doing field-based research in post-conflict and other difficult settings. Working in such contexts is critical to producing academic knowledge about how ordinary people experience violence, and how this knowledge can inform government and UN responses to post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation.
I have a new book on Rwanda since the 1994 genocide with Yale UP (January 2018). I also have a book with Wisconsin UP (2013) on the resistance of ordinary Rwandans to the government's postgenocide reconciliation, and an edited book (with An Ansoms and Jude Murison, Palgrave 2013) on fieldwork ethics.

What tools, apps and software are essential to your workflow?
I use old-fashioned notebooks (moleskins mostly) to sketch ideas and sections of chapters or articles I am writing. I also use coloured pencils and markers to mind map and doodle. I am a poor speller so use the app Grammarly to double check my writing.

What does your workspace setup look like?
I work in 20-minute increments during the school week (M-F) with extended periods of writing (up to three hours) on the weekends (provided I have a deadline). I generally work at my desk at home or at the local lunch counter called Hamilton Whole Foods. The staff there have a nice set up to accommodate our campus community. I wrote about half of my new book at home and the other half at HWF. Revisions and edits also happen on airplanes and in the evening when I am doing field work (my new project is in Cape Town, South Africa).



What is your best advice for productive academic work?
My best advice is to focus on one project at a time, waiting until a draft of the text you are working on is complete. Then, while waiting for readers to return comment, move on to your next project. I also suggest writing while not connected to the internet, and away from social media.

How do you keep an overview of projects and tasks?
Paper lists that structure my week into four sections during the semester (teaching, research, service and personal). Because I immerse myself my writing, I need to remind myself of personal things like paying bills, taking my kids where they need to go, etc, etc

Besides phone and computer, do you use other technological tools in work and daily life?
No.

Which skill makes you stand out as an academic?
I think my skill is that I am able to focus over long periods of time. I also write a little bit every day rather than waiting for big chunks of time, meaning I produce a chapter or two each semester.

What do you listen to when you work?
I don't listen to anything.

What are you currently reading? How do you find time for reading?
During the semester, I read student work, my own work and one or two books of my own choosing. Right now, I am reading Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life. In the summer, I read novels.

Are you more of an introvert or extrovert? How does this influence your working habits?
Definitely an introvert. I think this helps as I am always planning ways to be home. I rarely attend evening events when I have a writing project so I can get up early to write for 40-60 minutes before the workday begins.

What's your sleep routine like?
Also disciplined. I tend to go to bed around 10 and get up between 530 and 630am.

What's your work routine like?
I generally work from 8am until 6 or 7pm. I prepare lectures, grade student work, attend meetings and consult with students.

What's the best advice you ever received?
Take care of your needs and those of your family above anything you might be asked to do professionally. Institutions will never love you back so don't prioritise work over family (received when I was 27 years old and working for the United Nations)

I am Kerry McCullough, and This is How I Work

Today, I am interviewing Kerry McCullough in the "How I Work" series. Kerry is a finance lecturer in the School of Accounting, Economics and Finance at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Her research interests fall into two broad areas: finance and education. Her doctoral thesis considered the manner in which information is assimilated into stock prices, and proposed a latent variable approach to determining which specific types of information are relatively more important to certain assets. The educational aspects of teaching finance, including an ongoing project aimed at helping first-time researchers manage their first full research project, are key interest of hers.

General
Current Job: Lecturer (Finance)
Current Location: KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Current mobile device: Samsung A5
Current computer: Acer Aspire V3 i7, 17.3”, 16GB Memory, 1750GB HDD. I used real time financial trade data in my PhD and so needed the more powerful computer to manage the large data sets. I add a second screen (a 50cm Packard-Bell) to this set-up, which I would recommend to anyone using multiple programs at once.

Can you briefly explain your current situation and research to us?
I have been a Finance lecturer at UKZN for 9 years. I have recently submitted my PhD (by Publications). I am hoping to complete my Post Graduate Diploma in Higher Education in 2018, and am currently taking an edX course with the Linux Foundation (Blockchain for Business – An Introduction to Hyperledger Technologies). My finance research interests are focused on capital markets, considering market efficiency, information transmission, volatility, and performance. In education, my research interests include active learning and encouraging meaningful research and engagement in group/team-based projects.

What tools, apps and software are essential to your workflow?
A statistical analysis software is essential. I have used R, EViews, Stata, JMulti, Excel and Nvivo over the course of the last few years. I do all my writing in Microsoft Word, and I reference manually as I go.

What does your workspace setup look like?
I move between my home office (L picture) and my work office (R picture). I find working at home more productive for writing, and so I try to reserve my non-teaching days for the home-office where possible.

What is your best advice for productive academic work?
Being part of a writing group and/or taking part in writing retreats is something I would highly recommend.

For every day advice - just get started. I find that if you can get those first 5 minutes done, hours of work usually follow.

Keep a ‘progress’ journal. I log each research day with a summary and note where I need to start next.

It is helpful to have a personal ‘reference library’ within reach. I draw on the following frequently: Prof. Carol Alexander’s series on Market Risk Analysis; Prof. Ruey S. Tsay’s Multivariate Time Series Analysis (applications in R); Prof. Chris Brooks’ Introductory Econometrics for Finance (applications in EViews) and Sean Becketti’s Introduction to Time Series Using Stata (applications in Stata).

Follow several academic blogs. I am often very grateful for a particular post arriving at just the right moment for motivation or advice. David Giles’ blog “Econometrics Beat” is great for anyone in Finance/Econometrics/Statistics, and of course there are many excellent writing and research ones, including: PhD Talk, Patter, The Professor is In, The Thesis Whisperer, Research Degree Voodoo, Explorations of Style, and Doctoral Writing.

How do you keep an overview of projects and tasks?
I keep a running to-do list in a journal style notebook, along with a small year-long calendar to track day-to-day details and deadlines in an easy to see summary of the most important things.

Besides phone and computer, do you use other technological tools in work and daily life?
I often use a tablet (iPad) for convenience rather than carrying a laptop around.

Which skill makes you stand out as an academic?
I genuinely care about my students and their achievements. I count myself lucky to be working in a job I enjoy so much, that can be so rewarding, and which offers so many opportunities for learning.

What do you listen to when you work?
At my very quiet home office, I rarely listen to anything; however, at my work office and on writing retreats I often have something playing in the background with a tempo to match my typing speed.

What are you currently reading? How do you find time for reading?
I have a long drive to and from campus (an hour each way to my primary campus, more to my secondary campus) and so I get a lot of ‘reading’ done using the Audible App. At the moment, I am listening to Brandon Sanderson’s The Alloy of Law.

Are you more of an introvert or extrovert?
More of an introvert, which is why I find home office days more productive for writing.

What's your sleep routine like?
I try to ensure that I’ve had a solid 8 hours by the time my alarm goes off at 6am. I’m often up before that however, and so very rarely start my work day later than 7am.

What's your work routine like?
The first thing I do each day is make a cup of tea, which I take to my home office computer and deal with emails and the quick and easy items on the to-do list. I then turn to the longer tasks of the day – writing, grading, lecturing, supervision, reviewing etc.

What's the best advice you ever received?
I was due to attend a week-long writing retreat, and on the morning it started a family member fell ill. I called the retreat coordinator (our College Dean of Research at the time) from outside the Emergency Room to explain that I would be running a little late. Her support and advice was that, “Some of the balls we juggle are glass – and family are one of the glass balls that cannot be dropped. Go and look after your family. If you can join us later, do; but not to worry if you can’t.” I have since found the ‘glass ball’ advice to be a great way of getting perspective when necessary.

I am Michelle Thompson and This is How I Work

Today, I am interviewing Michelle Thompson for the "How I Work" series. Michelle Dionne Thompson coaches women writers, academics, and lawyers to implement their biggest visions for their lives and society. You can find out more about her at http://michelledionnethompson.com

Current job: Coach, Writer, and Professor
Current location: New York City, NY, USA
Current mobile device: Apple iPhone
Current computer: Apple MacBook Pro

Can you briefly explain your current situation and research to us?
I wear many hats. I teach part time at City College of New York where I teach a Caribbean/Brazilian history survey course, a survey course of the History of the African Diaspora and Women in the African Diaspora. I am converting my dissertation into a monograph for publication. Finally, and the hat that takes up most of the room in the closet, I am the Founder and CEO of Michelle Dionne Thompson Coaching and Consulting where I work with women nonfiction writers and lawyers to take their writings/individual case work and convert it to the social change they really dream of.

For my monograph, I focus on the descendants of a runaway slave community in Jamaica called Maroons after slavery ended in the nineteenth century. Jamaica tried to get rid of the communities and failed miserably. The Maroons’ ability to retool the methods of resistance they used were central in preserving the community they built starting in the seventeenth century.

What tools, apps and software are essential to your workflow?
Evernote is so important to me. When I get ideas, when I need a template to answer emails, or any number of other thoughts, I turn to Evernote. Asana helps me keep track of tasks with deadlines. While I have not sorted out how to use Streak’s pipelines, I LOVE setting up emails in advance and Streak sending them when I tell it.

Then there are the anti-distraction tools. I am a big fan of http://selfcontrolapp.com that prevents me from using social media and email while writing (you can tell it what websites to block) and Forest. Forest functions both as a timer and prevents me from using my cell phone while writing by growing a tree when I’m on the timer. If I use my phone, the tree stops growing. You earn coins that allows you to grow a real tree once you’ve earned enough.

What does your workspace setup look like?
I work in my son’s room (before he was born, it was my office) and sometimes different coffee shops. I have a desk there that has a vision board and an altar so I can have a constant reminder of what I’m trying to do and what my values are. The altar has a candle so that I can stay grounded when things are going well and when things get hard. The altar also serves as a way of keeping me on my path.



What is your best advice for productive academic work?
Do a little bit daily. I, personally, would never write anything if I waited for a day to write. Further, my mind is mush after two hours and the following day I don’t write as well. It’s better for me to work anywhere from 45 minutes to one and a half hours daily.

How do you keep an overview of projects and tasks?
I use Asana to do that. It has projects (each article I’m working on, the book proposal, etc.) and then the respective tasks that need to be finished along with deadlines.

Besides phone and computer, do you use other technological tools in work and daily life?
If this isn’t redundant, I use a tablet. It’s funny, my partner prints papers to read and edit. I can’t stand having all of that PAPER everywhere. I download the papers onto my tablet and I have the feel of editing on paper because it’s the right size. I also have an Apple watch. Reminders get sent to it and I use the timer functions.

Which skill makes you stand out as an academic?
I’m not sure I would say skill or characteristic. I am headstrong. Perhaps I should say bull headed. This translates into being persistent and consistent. While I get devastated with feedback from academic journals, I take the advice and do it anyway. And when I get more feedback, I incorporate that. Wendy Laura Belcher, in her book How to Write a Journal Article in Twelve Weeks, writes about the importance of being persistent when you are trying to publish in academic publications.

What do you listen to when you work?
Nothing if I am at home. If I’m in a coffee shop, the music proves too distracting, so I actually have an app of binaural beats that is supposed to facilitate concentration (actually it does).

What are you currently reading? How do you find time for reading?
I have three books that I’m currently reading. When it’s Sunday (my day of complete rest), I am reading Anne Lamot’s Traveling Mercies. For self-improvement, I am reading Valerie Young’s The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, a book that delves deeply into imposter syndrome. I tend to read this when I am commuting to and from teaching if I don’t feel too brain dead. Academically, I am reading Abigail Bakan’s Ideology and Class Conflict in Jamaica. I do need to carve out more time for academic reading, but I insert this reading into my writing time as it is connected to my journal article that I am revising.

Are you more of an introvert or extrovert? How does this influence your working habits?
I actually think I’m a little bit of both. I can rise to the occasion and meet with people. I know how to work a room and can take a little bit of energy from that. However, if I don’t plan how to do it, I easily feel overwhelmed and withdraw. And after I have these connections, I need time by myself... or time to stare at a screen because when you have a child and partner, you can’t completely withdraw.

This has meant that I have been setting up coffee dates with people to discuss both my academic and business-related work. It has taken me YEARS to get to the point where I will do that. It is paying off. To make sure that I am not always writing by myself, I run a couple of Meetups for academic writers and lawyers, and I do enjoy being with them. We have some contact, but it’s not a completely social setup.

However, what I like the most is staying at home writing, planning, and posting on social media for work-related reasons. I find that to be much less draining.

What's your sleep routine like?
As much as I value sleep, it’s a work in process. I’m doing well when I am on a streak of 7 – 8 hour nights. Often, however, I find myself getting closer to 6 hours of sleep. Since the current resident of the White House was elected in the United States, it’s really thrown a wrench in my sleep routine. I can’t resist the news. There was a period immediately following the election where I just avoided the news. While I hoped that my sleep would improve, I was too scared to sleep well.

In order to fall and stay asleep, I often use the practice of gratitude and deep breathing. That also helps if I wake up in the middle of the night.

This may be too much information, but perimenopause negatively impacts my ability to sleep as much as I would like. There are times when I am wide awake and there’s nothing I can do about it.

What's your work routine like?
Every Sunday evening, I take time to write a list of what I want to accomplish during the upcoming week and then I take that list and put what parts of the work will get done on a given day and time in my calendar. That way, during the week, I don’t spend time wondering what I should be doing.

Generally, every weekday morning I wake up at 5 a.m. I watch the video Darren Hardy sends out and then I write until my son wakes up. At that point, although he does most of the work, I help get him out of the door while walking the dog. If I’m not teaching on that day, I do yoga and meditate so that my mind can quiet down and I can focus for the rest of the day (I find that this greatly helps my ability to sleep). I pick up work again around 9 or 10 when I devote time to my business or I teach. The afternoon is also spent on my business or teaching, depending on my schedule. I read when I’m commuting. I aim to finish my workday by 5 p.m. Generally, I succeed.

What's the best advice you ever received?
I think it was my Mom who always said that “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” I have a new appreciation of what that means now that I have such huge projects that compete for my time and attention. You have to break the big projects down into little pieces and do a little piece every day.

I am Olga Degtyareva and This is How I Work

Today, I am welcoming Olga Degtyareva to the "How I Work" series. Olga is Productivity Mentor for Scientists and president and founder of the Productivity for Scientists Ltd. She helps scientists around the world to overcome overwhelm, become more productive, get in charge of their day while feeling happier in their life. Olga teaches through workshops, lectures, online courses as well as private and group coaching programs. Over the past 7 years she worked with 100's of scientists personally and 1000's benefited from her online lectures and resources. Prior to this Olga has had a successful research career in science, having studied and worked for 15 years in the area of high-pressure physics and crystallography. She is a recipient of an international prize for her high-pressure physics research and an author and co-author of 38 scientific papers. She is also a mother of three children whom she unschools together with her husband. Olga shares her experience on "how to manage it all" in her Productivity for Scientists blog (http://olgadegtyareva.com). Start your journey to peaceful productivity with Olga's 5 tops tips to overcome overwhelm and her 126 ways to become more productive which you can find at the top of her website.

General: I had 15 years successful career as a scientist in the area of high pressure physics and crystallography, going through the Masters, PhD, two postdocs and a personal Fellowship from the Royal Society. Since then I've transitioned to being a productivity coach for scientists and founded my own company Productivity for Scientists Ltd. I am also a mom of three.
Current Job: Productivity Coach at the Productivity for Scientists Ltd
Current Location: Scottish Borders (near Edinburgh), Scotland, UK
Current mobile device: Samsung smartphone
Current computer: ASUS laptop

Can you briefly explain your current situation and research to us?
I've been a scientist in the area of high-pressure physics and crystallography, for about 15 years in total. I went through Masters degree, PhD degree, two consecutive postdocs and I also held a personal Fellowship from the Royal Society. I studied phase transitions and crystal structure of pure elements from the Periodic Table. We would order an element from a Chemical company, to make sure it is absolutely pure, and then we would put it in a special device that would generate very high pressures by squeezing the sample between two parallel diamonds. We would also change the temperature to very high and very low temperatures. We would then study the change in crystal structure of the element due to phase transitions which would then allow us to understand the change in properties of the material. In particular, I studied the crystal structures of Bi, Sb, As, Ga, S, Se and Na under high pressure.

It was exciting to work in this field, as every other experiment yielded new phase transitions and new crystal structures to solve. It was due to a revolution in technology and equipment that happened just before I started my PhD, so as the result of using new synchrotrons and detectors in combination with high pressure we could solve many enigmas and also study the elements at the conditions where no one else looked before. My career was full of new findings, great collaborations, high-profile papers, and many presentations at the conference. As the result, I am the author and co-author on 38 research papers and I am a recipient of an international prize for my contributions into the high-pressure physics.

The career, although exciting, was not without challenges. I often felt overwhelmed and tired, and cried myself to sleep asking myself "Why does it need to be so hard?" It was during my first postdoc when my career seemed to be going well, that I hit the rock bottom hard nearly giving up on everything. At that point I reached out for help and started to work with a therapist, then a coach, and got into self-help books and seminars. I focused on finding an answer to the question: "How to be successful AND happy at the same time?" In a few years time this led me to starting my own blog where I began to share productivity techniques, and how I manage to combine my family (by then I had 2 children), doing cutting-edge research and feeling fulfilled in my life. This grew into a coaching practice and my own company Productivity for Scientists Ltd. I have now fully transitioned from doing research to being a coach full time, and now work from home coaching scientists around the world via skype, and also publishing lots of free productivity resources online. I now have 3 children whom we home-educate. My primary focus is helping scientists and researchers to overcome procrastination and get their long-overdue papers and thesis written. I am also passionate about working with women scientists to help them become more confident, create their own work/life balance that works for them, become more productive and feel more in charge of their day.

What tools, apps and software are essential to your workflow?
Skype is the most essential, as this is how I talk with my private clients; I also do my group coaching calls via skype using the "group call". If someone is interested in my services and would like to share their situation to see if I can help them, we would arrange a free Getting Acquainted Conversation, also via skype. I use a private membership platform called JigSawBox, for my clients to track their progress, to study the lessons and Modules and to write their notes. TimeTrade is what I use for people to book appointments with me. Facebook is also pretty central, as I use it to create groups for my courses and programs for the participants to communicate with each other.

What does your workspace setup look like?


As I work from home, I have a home office set up. Here is the picture of my office with the book shelf that got recently decluttered, and the two new paintings that I got from a friend. I love this new look of my office! My office and the whole house (with 3 children being at home a lot of the time) constantly gets cluttered and messy, so decluttering and tidying is an ongoing process. This year I took it more seriously and started 1 year long project to declutter and simplify my whole household and the office, with a help of a friend: we've been doing a lot of sorting, putting into charity, putting into recycling or trash and even burning old papers in a fire, once a month for the whole weekend. As the result, there are less things around, more space, easier to tidy, and easier to manage. It feels like I can breathe easier, it was definitely worth the effort so far!

What is your best advice for productive academic work?
Well, since this is the topic that I mainly teach through my coaching, I allow myself to go here into more details and share some powerful and concrete strategies.

One of the huge challenges for the PhD students as well as for the postdocs and staff is the procrastination with academic papers and writing their thesis. Our work days as scientists are so busy, we find ourselves running around from the lab to the office to the meeting and to another meeting, and at the end of the day when we were hoping to get some writing done, we need to deal with the administrative stuff or reply to urgent e-mails. Then it is time to catch a plane to do the data collection, and then it is time for a conference. Week after week goes by, and sometimes months and years, and even if we want to sit down to write, for some reason it just does not happen: we are too busy!

Even when we manage to clear time and we do sit down to write, it is difficult to start writing. We sit in front of the computer and we don't know where to start, we get distracted by reading up on it, by checking for "useful information", or get sucked into the black whole of internet, checking the news and the social media... We start to doubt ourselves, whether our writing is going to be good enough, whether the supervisor is going to like it, whether we'll have enough time, or whether we are too slow and won't manage to meet the deadline at this speed anyway. As a result we stay distracted and don't write as much as we could or we find ourselves deleting more than we write. Then the time is up, and we get up from our desk frustrated realising that it would probably be another week or two before we can sit down to write again...

Now this picture may sound familiar. This is because many scientists struggle with it, so if you recognise yourself in it, you are not alone! Writing a paper is so challenging because papers often do not have deadlines, so everything else seems more urgent. Also a paper and especially the thesis can seem so overwhelmingly huge that you don't really know where to start and how to make a substantial progress in that one hour or one day that you carved out for writing. It seems like anything you would write would not be enough to make a visible progress. On top of that there are 100's of distractions that conspire to deflect our attention from writing: there is Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, there is skype, e-mail and smartphone, there are news websites and there are colleagues and students who come in the office with a question precisely in the moment when you sat down to write.

So here is how to deal with this.

You need to define clearly WHAT are you going to be working on: one particular paper, or one concrete thesis chapter. Then you need to start breaking it down into smaller manageable tasks, those that you can do in 15 min, 30 min and one hour chunks. For example, create the figures, write figure captions, write one paragraph in the Introduction about this and that, type up references etc. Once you have this list you can start tackling your paper or thesis chapter in small focused chunks of time.

About those "small focused chunks of time"... we call them a "writing ritual" or a "writing session". And you need to start developing a routine for doing those sessions regularly. You've heard this advice before for sure, now it is time to start implementing it! It could be as little as one hour per week for busy postdocs and staff, or 2 hours daily for PhD students who need to write a lot but have been procrastinating. Start with two hours first thing in the morning, then add another 2 hours later in the day. For some of my clients we come up with the writing schedule that consists of 1 hour every day first thing in the morning. It is fairly individual, but it has to be a well defined FINITE time, and it needs to be regular, even if it is short. There is a saying: "You can write a book in 15 min a day". So start shifting how you feel about your writing from avoidance and resentment to befriending your writing and checking in with it on a regular basis, adding a bit of writing every time.

There is one particular aspect of this writing ritual, or writing session, that we need to discuss. You need to remove all the distractions for this hour. Close e-mail, Twitter and Facebook, put the smartphone into flight mode, change the status on skype to unavailable: it is just for one hour, you will survive and the world will survive without you, and for that you'll get to do one hour of focused work. During this hour you can type up as many as 300 to 500 words, produce a few figures or write figure captions for all your figures in the paper. Our brain has not evolved to deal with all the amount of information and all the technological distractions that we have now going through our head on a daily basis, so if you are struggling with it, it is not your fault, and it is not because you are not good enough, it is because... it's too much for our brain. Switch off everything for one hour and get your writing done.

The other plague for an academic is being constantly distracted by other people, be that your colleagues or students who come to your office to ask a question or ask for help, or someone talking loudly in your shared office. Again, if you are struggling with it, you are not alone, this problem exists for many academics, in different Universities, countries and continents. And you can deal with it by hiding from everything and everyone just for this one hour you are going to work on your paper. This could mean going to an empty class room, library, or a café, or writing at home first thing in the morning before coming to work. We even joke with my clients, that to be able to write your paper you need to become a master at hiding from everyone and everything!

There are a few other things that we discuss often with scientists regarding procrastination and writing: allowing yourself to write imperfectly, becoming aware of your negative thoughts and how they are getting in your way, challenging your limiting believes that are slowing you down, and finally the importance of measuring your progress and staying accountable. Check out my blog posts for more strategies in those aspects.

How do you keep an overview of projects and tasks?
I use two simple tools that might sound old fashioned but they work great for me! It's a year planner (a laminated paper version that you can stick to a wall in your office) and a week-to-view year calendar (also the paper version and it's A5 format).

The week-to-view format really helps to be more focused and productive, as it gives you an overview over the whole week, and still gives you enough space to write down your daily appointments (including your writing!!) Some of us only do the daily to-do lists, missing out on the advantages provided by the weekly planning. Here is the tool I use in addition to the week-to-view calendar, I call it Weekly Summit, and you can read about it here and download it here.

Besides phone and computer, do you use other technological tools in work and daily life?
No I don't.

Which skill makes you stand out as an academic?

• The ability to break down a big goal into small doable tasks.
• Being imperfectionist, allowing myself to take small steps imperfectly and also to write an imperfect draft or create imperfect figures for discussion with colleagues or supervisor.
• Ability to use small windows of time to get a few tasks done, being it writing a paper or any other priority that usually gets pushed to the back burner because we are "so busy and don't have time".
• Having a victor mindset, and constantly working on my confidence and challenging limiting believes and rules that I've created for myself that are no longer serving me.

These skills helped me in my research career and made the last years of my career super productive allowing me to juggle it while looking after 2 young children: those years were marked by an award of an international prize for my contributions into the area of my research, publication of an extensive review article as a single author, and publication of several high profile papers with me as a co-author.

The same skills are now at the core of my career as a coach and help me balance working in my business, helping 1000's of people around the world and also remaining an involved mom for my three children.

What do you listen to when you work?
Nothing. I like to practice a complete focus.

What are you currently reading? How do you find time for reading?
I am into self-help books! So I just finished reading The dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner. A great insight into unhealthy patterns we get stuck in with our colleagues and parents. A very recommended book for all women in science! I've just picked the book called The big Leap by Gay Hendricks, I've read it a while ago, and I feel it is now time to re-read it.

I read for a bit every day when I get a quiet moment, for example when children play in the living room, they like me to be there, so I sit on the sofa and read and watch them play from time to time. Sometimes I get the time to lay in bed in quiet and read too. I also make sure I take the current book with me on my journeys, I'd read on the train or plane, and I get to read much more during holidays.

What's your sleep routine like?
12am to 7:30am most of the days, in addition most of the days I get to have a half an hour to an hour nap in the afternoon. I feel that 7-7.5 hours of sleep at night are just not enough. Ideally I'd like to sleep for 8 to 9 hours at night but with my current work arrangement (I do my client calls at 8am and 9am most mornings) and my children staying up late until nearly midnight, I only get 7-7.5 hours of sleep. So I need to be a bit more creative with catching up on sleep because of the work and the children's arrangements. I manage to clear time most of the days to have half an hour to an hour nap in the afternoon, which is a bit easier to do while working from home. Also once a week I'd sleep in in the morning until about 10am. Also once every week or two I'd go to bed early (8 or 9pm) asking my husband to look after the children and I'd sleep until morning. I take sleep seriously and it feels like these arrangements allow me to get the sleep I need.

I feel that many scientists have a sleep deprivation, and when you are a parent the situation can get even worth. The productivity and performance can really drop from the lack of sleep and there are also long term negative effects. The importance of sleep and how to make time for it is something we discuss often in my coaching calls with scientists.

What's your work routine like?
I value my morning hours and use them to get my creative work done. This is usually 8-11am. During this time I have 1 or 2 coaching calls with the clients and I also work on my writing and other creative projects. The rest of the day is less structured, and I schedule my work around my children's rhythms and activities. I'd usually get another 2 hours of work done, inserting a few focused sessions between spending time with the children at home, strolling by the sea, or driving them to their activities. My own physical activities such as a yoga session and running with my local running club are also non-negotiable.

The number of total hours is less than full time work, but I feel that by focusing on my work during short periods of time I can get more work done than in a full working day. Also, this is how I define my own work-life balance: spending 4-5 hours a day to work, and spending the rest of the time with my family, or doing other things I love. I know that the children will grown up soon, and I want to spend more time with them now when they are little. I believe that each person can define their own work/life balance and focus on what is important to them, and this is something I help scientists do as well.

What's the best advice you ever received?
Have a vision of what is that you want to create, have a dream and go for your dream! Even if right now you don't know all the details, or you can's see all the steps you'll need to take, start taking the steps before everything is aligned, and the resources and the opportunities will appear as you move along. It is important to know you WHAT, get clear on you WHY, and start taking steps without worrying too much about the HOW, the HOW will reveal itself as you progress.