How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
Hey, that’s sweet to assume we fulfill our primary objectives! Not that we don’t try, but to paraphrase Grad Student Barbie, “Research is hard!” (For the record, that’s what Grad Student G.I. Joe says, too.) Still, unless one wants to be a full-time blogger who is otherwise unemployed (which I do not), there is balancing required. Here are my strategies:
- Blogging first thing in the morning or at the end of the day. It’s useful to figure out how to write a post in one of those small chunks of time that are hard to use for “real” work — like the 20 minutes or so after I’ve gotten dressed but before it’s time to take elder offspring to school. It’s a nice mental jumpstart — if I’m lucky, I’ve actually thought about something before I embark on my commute (and then, inevitably, I rethink it while I’m driving; that can be fodder for a further post). Evenings are good blogging intervals for me because, frankly, I get really cranky if I have to grade papers after dinner, and whenever possible I try not to grade when I’m cranky. Post-prandial blogging does not make me cranky.
- Blogging as a way to rough out ideas that are part of my “real” work. One of my areas of research is ethics in science. As it happens, that’s the bulk of what I blog about. This means that my blog can help me work out at least the preliminary stages of “what’s the right thing to say about X?” (The delivery, length, and attention to detail ends up being different when I’m putting together a manuscript to submit to a journal, of course.) Since my research is in philosophy, I don’t need to have the same intense panic about being scooped that I would if I were doing scientific research, which is nice.
- Blogging as a way to reward myself for accomplishing onerous work-related tasks, especially tasks on which I would otherwise procrastinate. Sometimes I don’t feel like grading that stack of papers, or polishing that manuscript, or doing that piece of committee work, but it needs to be done. If I promise myself 45 minutes of blogging time at the completion of the onerous task, I can whip through it with more efficiency and enthusiasm.
The even shorter take on how to be a blogger and a productive academic: Take advantage of overlap (where blogging can support your research), know your patterns of motivation (e.g., when blogging can incentive getting the real job done and when blogging can fill the time you couldn’t use productively for work), and most importantly recognize that your mind needs some time “off task” (where blogging can be a release from the effort of focusing your attention on the real job).
My approach: be a laxadasical, slow, every-few-days kind of blogger
But, I have other hobbies too, all of which are “naughty” for a pre-tenure person, who’s supposed to be devoting every waking hour to getting grants and publishing.
My blogging comes from when I want to get something off my chest. It’s cathartic for me to say it and think that maybe somebody will read it. In the long run, it may save me time, because once I’ve said it, it saves me from lots of thinking about what I would say if I got the opportunity. Sometimes it helps me think through stuff. It’s rarely directly related to my real research, although it’s often tangentially related.
Glad to hear its possible. Personally, I haven’t managed it lately. It looks like I’ll be moving from full employment to grad school though, so that should free up plenty of time to blog. Because I’ll have more free time.
Uh, right?