It’s been three years since I started as an Assistant Professor at Emory! This post is a sequel to the posts I wrote after my first and second years about what new PI life is like. Like before, I’m writing this for people who want an inside look into what the job is like (from just one person’s perspective, of course).
My overall takeaway hasn’t really changed: I love almost everything I do as part of this job (research, teaching, mentoring), but there just isn’t enough time to do it all – at least not well. I am gradually settling into being ok with having a never-ending to-do list, feeling constantly behind on everything, and knowing that if I don’t block out specific time to NOT work then by default I will end up working every evening and weekend of the year.
Having now gotten used to all this, I’ve realized that I could probably get through this job without being constantly pushed to my limits if it weren’t for one thing… the unanticipated problems and disasters that constantly arise. There seem to be new problems every few days and major crises every couple weeks, which not only derail my schedule and take up all my time but cause major stress.
Just to give you an idea, here are some of the events over the last year that I might call a moderate to major “crisis”:
- lab flood
- experimental equipment stopped working
- dead computer(s) without data backed up
- important fly stocks at risk of dying
- mite infestation
- grant payment gone missing
- grant submitted with formatting violation
- finding bugs in code just before paper submission
- possibly getting scooped
- hurricanes or snowstorms derailing experiment plans
- all hell breaking loose at NIH
And here are some examples of everyday problems that don’t rise to a “crisis”, but they often derail my schedule and/or add stress:
- locked out of email account
- software stops working
- control experiments stop working
- packages gone missing
- emailing someone 100 times about an important issue with no response
- email from famous PI mad about something I wrote
My first couple weeks after Christmas were mostly crisis-free, and with many people not fully back to work I could focus on reading papers, planning grants, and getting my own lab work done… and I realized how great this job could be without constant disasters!
That was until January 20. Since then, scientific research in the US has become a dumpster fire, particularly at the NIH. With no notice or explanation, NIH (under orders from the new administration) cancelled all ongoing grant reviews, terminated long-standing grant programs, and began to revoke existing grants. As our lab is primarily NIH-funded, like most biomedical labs in the US, these events have caused a lot of uncertainty and stress. We have 3 grants scheduled to be reviewed in the next month, and I have no idea whether that will happen. We had been told that our grant for a research supplement (>$50,000) was approved and that we would receive the award last week, which we didn’t, and since this grant program was abruptly terminated I am pessimistic about our chances of ever receiving it.
Just another crisis to deal with, I guess.
Some tips for new PIs
To end on a less depressing note, I thought I’d share some tips that have helped me over the last few years:
- Set aside large blocks of time for “real work” (e.g., writing papers or grants) and small blocks of time for busy work (e.g., emails, reimbursements). For me, my real work time is mostly on the weekends and my busy work times are in the evenings or short intervals between meetings. Do NOT check emails or do busy work during the real work time, and make sure lab members don’t bother you.
- Try to block out some work-from-home time during the week. Without this, 100% of my workday time fills with meetings or experiments and I end up working 20+ hours over the weekends to catch up on grants, papers, teaching prep, etc.
- If you feel inspired to work on something, just do it. I often have a mental block about working on things, especially big things like a new grant, but then other times I randomly get excited about something. At first I tried to prioritize, like telling myself “no, you shouldn’t be working on a grant that’s not due for 6 months when you have things due next week” but now I just go with it. Drafting things well in advance is always helpful, and it’s just more fun to work on things when I’m excited about them.
- Advice from a senior PI: “Don’t mistake things that are urgent for those that are important.” There are always things to do that have urgent deadlines, but if I spend all my time trying to cross those things off my list I’ll never have time for seemingly non-urgent things like reading papers or brainstorming new ideas. So I try to specifically block out time for those things.
- Most people have a to-do list, and they delete things once they’re accomplished, but things tend to get added at the same rate that they get deleted so the list never seems to shrink. This is demoralizing. My suggestion is not to delete things you’ve accomplished, but to move them to a separate “things I did” list which only grows and never shrinks, so you can appreciate all the stuff you’ve gotten done!
If you have other perspectives or tips, feel free to comment below, although I rarely check comments here – the best way to engage with me is through BlueSky.
If you want to know more about what our lab actually done over the last year, check out this post at our lab website!