‘To do’s lists are found everywhere. Love them or hate them, we often make ‘to-do- lists for simple chores and such. Some of us make elaborate lists and then forget where we kept them!

In this article, I discuss how making ‘to do’ lists at the beginning of each day at the research bench, and reviewing at the end of the day, can help improve efficiency, prioritization skills and confidence in a researcher. This is very useful for a PhD student, especially one that juggles various tasks and sets very high standards for their work (aka most PhD students). This may also apply for postdoctoral researchers or anyone working in the research for field. I hope this tip is useful to you.

Here is the article.

Please share your own tips and strategies with managing your tasks in research and elsewhere. Enjoy!

I spent many years working on my PhD. The PhD program that I was a part of, gave us experience in many facets of lab research, including tasks that assist in the smooth functioning of a lab. These included-training new students, ordering lab supplies, organizing chemicals and glassware, inventory of supplies and such. Keeping up with the latest research in the field, preparing and presenting posters or slides on one’s research, all these happened alongside the actual experimental research work. Over a period of time, it can be hard to figure out reasons for repeated failures in experiments or causes of unexpected results. Having some discipline is planning and reviewing one’s research helps greatly in juggling all the tasks that go into being an active researcher. I present a few tips on just how to do that in this article HERE. Feel free to share your own tips and suggestions to improve efficiency at the lab bench. Enjoy!