Juggling Research Related Duties: How to stop putting out fires and use your time wisely

1
Juggling Research-Related DutiesHow to stop
putting out firesand use your time wisely

• Dr. Ida Llewellyn-Smith
• Department of Medicine
• Flinders University
• Adelaide SA 5042
• Australia
• Contact Ida.Llewellyn-Smith_at_flinders.edu.au

2
Three things
Prioritize
Delegate
Collaborate
3
Prioritize
Everything you do will fall into 1 of these
categories

• UrgentImportant

Not UrgentImportant
Not UrgentNot Important
UrgentNot Important
4
Prioritize
Urgent / Important

• Things that you MUST do NOW

Urgent / Not Important

• Things that you cannot get out of doing now

5
Prioritize

• Things that you MUST make time for. Often the
  things that ensure your success, e.g., writing
  papers.

Not Urgent / Not Important

• Things to put in an out-of-the-way place. If
  no one gets back to you, you can ignore them /
  throw them away.

6
Prioritize Experiments
Think strategically
Learn to say Stop!

• COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
• Will these extra experiments get my paper
  published in a better journal?
• Is this benefit worth the amount of time I
  will have to spend doing them?

7
Delegate
Challenge your staff.

• They will usually live up to your expectations.

8
Delegate
Hiring good people is key
HOW DO YOU FIND OUT WHATA JOB APPLICANT IS
REALLY LIKE? Behavioral Interviewing

• Dont tell me what you WOULD do
• Tell me what you HAVE DONE

9
Collaborate

• International
• Allan Basbaum, University of California, San
  Francisco, CA, USA
• Sue Ritter, Washington State University, Pullman
  WA , USA
• Ursula Wesselmann, Johns Hopkins University,
  Baltimore, MD, USA
• John Massari, Howard University College of
  Medicine, Washington DC, USA
• Patrice Guyenet, School of Medicine, University
  of Virginia, Charlottesville VA, USA
• Ann Schreihofer, Medical College of Georgia,
  Augusta GA, USA
• Clifford Saper and Tom Scammell, Harvard
  University Medical School, Boston MA, USA
• Stephen DiCarlo School of Medicine, Wayne State
  University, Detroit, MI USA
• Javier Stern, University of Cincinatti,
  Cincinatti OH USA
• Eileen Hasser and Cheryl Heesch, University of
  Missouri, Columbia MO USA
• Lynne Weaver, Robarts Research Institute, London
  Ontario, Canada
• Andrei Krassioukov, International Collaboration
  on Repair Discoveries, Vancouver Canada
• Peter Somogyi, Oxford University, Oxford, UK
• Geoffrey Burnstock, University College, London,
  UK
• Piers Emson, The Babraham Institute, Cambridge,
  U.K.
• Susan Deuchars School of Biomedical Sciences,
  University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
• David Jordan, Royal Free and University College
  Medical School, London, UK
• Janusz Lipski, University of Auckland, Auckland,
  New Zealand

10
Collaborate
Make sure you have something to offer

• Demonstrated knowledge and skills
• Reliability and trustworthiness

Think strategically

• What combination of expertise will produce
  data that will yield the most saleable
  package

11
Collaborate
Choose people you can work with

• Reliable and trustworthy
• Committed to the collaboration so will do the
  work

Invest the time and effort

• Communicate regularly
• Do what you have agreed to do