Google Reader is a fantastic way to keep track of new papers that are appearing in many different journals, and also to follow some of the interesting research blogs (and blogs on other topics) that are out there. Google Reader checks websites for you and lets you know of any new material that appears. Instead of [...]
Posts about productivity
Using Google Reader
Feb 16
iPhone apps for research
Feb 1
I love my iPhone and I thought it might be helpful to others who use iPhones to list the top 10 apps that I find useful for research.
Gmail. It is easy to sync the native iPhone email app with your gmail account and this works pretty well for most purposes. But if you want to [...]
It seems everyone has 7 secrets to success, and now someone has hopped on the 7-secrets bandwagon with something for PhD students. Thinkwell is an Australian company offering a seminar and associated work book on “The 7 secrets of highly successful PhD students”. I bought the book out of curiosity, but “book” is a gross [...]
Workflow in R
Sep 18
This came up recently on StackOverflow. One of the answers was particularly helpful and I plan to adopt this for my future work. In fact, it is close to what I already do, but is a little more structured.
The idea is to break the code into four files, all stored in your project directory. These [...]
Take a break
Sep 13
Occasionally, the best research is done in long periods of concentrated effort. Allegedly, Isaac Newton used to sometimes write for eight hours standing up without a break.
At other times, taking a break helps the research process. Think of Archimedes and his Eureka moment. Many of my best ideas come while walking, or taking [...]
Backing up
Aug 21
Ever since I deleted the only copy of my honours thesis, one week before it was due to be handed in, I’ve been obsessive about backups, often to the amusement of my family and colleagues. But every time one of them loses a file or has a hard-disk fail, the smiles fade and they ask [...]
Time management
Jul 25
I am frequently asked how I manage my time, and how I manage to get so much done. I don’t know that my approach is right for everyone, but in case it helps here are some comments on how I work.
One of the main traps that people fall into is to do things that are [...]
