On motivation in the lab

Without going into too much detail about the state that our lab is in due to the economy and sequestration, there is a great lack in motivation in some people in the lab. This is not new, as I have written about this before, but it does make me wonder what PIs do to motivate people in their lab. How do you make sure people stay enthusiastic about doing experiments and if they’re not, how do you try to help them? Personally, I find that it helps to associate with people that are working hard and are trying to be productive rather than to hang with the people that seem to have given up hope to get experiments done and papers written. But other than that, when I am in the position to mentor someone (like an undergrad, summer student or tech) I find it hard to find a balance between giving someone the freedom to schedule their experiments and plan their time for them for example. How do you go about motivating the people in your lab? Or do you feel that’s not necessary as people should come with enough intrinsic motivation?

What's in my desk?

Obviously I'm procrastinating finishing my to-do list, so here's my contribution to Dr. Isis' What's in your Desk-Meme.

1. Three nutmegs. A colleague gave them over a year ago, but what are you going to do with whole nutmegs..?

2. A converter-thing to plug my apple laptop into the projector. Sadly said apple laptop died 3 years ago.

3. An empty vial of Alexa Fluor 568.

4. A laser pointer that is also a pen. However, the laser pointer doesn't work anymore.

5. A whole bunch of invitations to my thesis defense and party, they were supposed to go into my thesis booklet, but I forgot.

6. A whole bunch of cage cards from experimental animals that are no longer with us.

7. Empty (and used for crackers) ziplock bags. You never know when they might come in handy.

Outside the picture but in my drawer (because it's kind of awkward to take a picture of your drawer with 3 other people in your office: Shea lip butter from The Body Shop and an empty tiny vial of Ralph Lauren Glamorous.

Staring at other people’s grants

So I’m writing this grant that (or which???) is kind of important because if I get it I have a job back in the home country. I have papers that I need to read, I thought about the aims, hypotheses and experiments and I have a bunch of successful and unsuccessful examples of this particular grant. But instead of reading and writing I am staring at these example grants, wondering if I need a better CV or a different topic to work on. “Oh hey, this person got a travel award in 2005 to go to meeting such and such”. I’m thinking this is NOT why you need those example grants…

The way I work best is by reading background papers first, then thinking about what I am going to write, and then sit down and in a short amount of time write the background. However, at the moment I haven’t read enough to do that. So I think instead of marveling at other people’s grants, I should read papers, do a boring task in the lab and think about how I am going to write MY background. Alright, I’m off to do some histology or aliquoting or something. Also, what are your sekrits to successful writing??

All play and no work?

I generally love the lab that I am in: I’ve learned to patch cells here and even though I (still) don’t have my own funding, my PI allows me to do the research that I want, and I even got a technician who is helping me with that. I love that we go sailing in the summer on a weekday, and I love that every single person in my lab likes to cook and eat delicious food (which we often do). I love that we help each other out: this past week all 15 of us helped a labmate move to a new place. I love a lot of other things about the lab that I am in too.

What I don’t love (and I’ve written about this before), is that all this fun that we’re having means that some people rarely ever do any work anymore. There are days when people come in, start with coffee at the coffee table that is strategically placed in the middle of the lab, sit there long enough for lunch to start, and then hang out until it’s time for an ever-present beer from the lab fridge. New people that join our lab do so because they like that we’re having shots at 2PM or because we have a potluck every week when the PI is traveling. 

And I hate to feel like such a grumpy person, but this really annoys me (as I said this morning on twitter). Especially now that I have BlueEyes, I try to work pretty efficient, which means that for most of the day I am busy doing something. And being busy while other people are sitting at the table laughing together makes me feel lonely. It makes me feel a loser for being at work instead of hanging out. And when I’m doing a slice experiment, I’ll usually hang out and talk when I’m waiting for my drug to wash onto my cell, but especially on days when I’m working hard but stuff doesn’t work, it makes me feel alone. 

I’ve debated whether I should talk to my PI about this, but that feels too much like telling on people. Besides, I leave everyday around 4PM to pick BlueEyes up from daycare, so who am I to say something anyway? And my PI takes pride in his so-called ‘hands-off’ mentorship. The one time I suggested that one of the grad students could perhaps use a bit more guidance (he’s in his 7^th year with no papers yet); he said that he wasn’t that type of a mentor.

So I guess I’m going to continue to find a balance between work and play, keep a smile on my face and remember that somewhere in the world there are people working.

The inverted U shaped curve of productivity

Over the years I discovered that there's a inverted U-shaped relationship between how many things I need to do and how productive I am. With almost nothing to do I also get nothing done, because I'll be procrastinating forever before I do that one thing that I need to do. The past few weeks I discovered that having too many things on my To Do List is also not beneficial for my productivity, because I just don't know where to start. When I am trying to write I am constantly obsessing about all the other things that need to happen in too little time... And running three experiments at the same time makes it hard to not get sloppy. I'm trying to go back to the optimal amount of things on my to do list to be super efficient again!

Is it okay to watch Netflix in the lab?

Because of the success of my last question; Is it okay to cry in the lab?, here’s another one:

Before I moved to the US I thought that most people that work in academia in the US work more than 5 days a week and more than 8 hours a day. I thought that a lot of post-docs worked on competing projects, where only the one who finished first would become an author on the paper, and I thought that people would come into the lab at crazy hours just to show their ever-present PI that they were in the lab too. And I know this happens in some labs, because I interviewed at a lab like that. But I was afraid that this would turn me into a deer in the headlights because of all the pressure, and I secretly was looking for a lab where I could have a baby and not be yelled at for not being productive enough during that time.

So I chose the lab that I am in now: my PI is a senior professor, who has lots of grant money at the moment, and who works in a niche that makes it possible to sit on data a little longer (or a lot longer), and still be able to publish them in a decent journal. He likes to take us to conferences, and was very supportive when I had my baby (I got three months of maternity leave!).

However, this relaxed atmosphere makes people in the lab procrastinate and hang around. It is normal to check facebook several times a day (but who doesn’t), but it also seems acceptable to watch entire movies on Netflix (and then I don’t mean watching a movie while doing something at the same time, but just watching a movie). Many people knit entire sweaters while in the lab, and it is not uncommon to sit around for an hour (or two) after lunch. It is also not that people work very long days; most people will be in the lab for 8 hours at most. The best (or worst) example is when I walked into my PI’s office to discuss my data and he asked me to come back 30 minutes later. I said that that was fine and sat at my computer and checked my facebook only to see that he had just been putting holiday pictures on facebook during those 30 minutes… (Whether one should even be facebook-friends with one’s PI is another question).

I wish that I wouldn’t care, but I think that this unproductive environment brings everybody down. One post-doc has already left the lab because she wanted to work in a more inspiring setting. I’ve noticed that I like to work hard when other people work hard too.I found that I’m pretty good at motivating myself though, and what also drives me is the fact that I want things finished in time to pick up BlueEyes from daycare.

So do you think it is acceptable to watch Netflix in thelab? And are you influenced by how hard people around you work?