Thursday, July 25, 2013

Not so much.

I'm struggling with this postdoc thing.

I love it.  People listen to me.  The work is new and interesting.  I'm making slow but steady progress with my projects.  Some of the projects I'm working on are nearly done (!), so soon I'll get to work on some brand-new questions.  The group is great; they have a lot of expertise and like to talk about work.  I feel like my work matters.

I also sometimes feel really worried I'll be fired.  Is my supervisor happy with the work I'm doing?  Am I making rapid enough progress?  Am I a good postdoc?  Am I doing enough real science?  Am I a good worker?  Is my ADHD spilling over in ways I need to address?  Does my shirt smell too noticeably?

I don't expect to be ecstatic all the time, but I'd like to have more control over my anxiety.

Something I've been trying has been writing at the end of the day: summarizing the work I did, and then pointing out something that I did particularly well and also something I feel I'd do differently in the future.  Me, I love concreteness.

However.

Uh, writing doesn't usually happen at the end of the day.  So I'm thinking I need to change this plan up so it's a little easier for me.  I'm thinking I'll try to write something that's less free-form and more form-like.  I can easily make a table of my current goals, and then each day put a check mark on the goals I've worked on.  And then add one sentence re: awesomeness and one sentence re: not the best.

Now I just need to figure out formatting ...

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