Doing the dirty work

While cathcing up with a friend who had recently submitted his PhD thesis, I got insights into what aws working and what wasnt'.  I shared my observations.

I start my day at 5:35am.  If I am up before 6am, my pack is to do one our meditation and even if it is a minute or so later after 6am, do the 25 minute meditation.  Yup, I didnt' get out of the hostel without meditation, chai and a bag of food that I stack as seven stones (lagori) and send the picture on my WhatsApp.

So most days since end of July, more than 90 percent, I have been meditating for 1 hour a day and then I start my day with a cup of chai, make breakfast and lunch and few stretches of yoga (Surya namaskar) sun salutations and then shower and ready.  I do fnd a difference when I meditate for 25 minutes versus the Vipasana one hour and five minutes.  Vipassana sustains my energy for the whole day and I am able to have better regulations on my emotions and internal being.  The 25 minutes helps me survive, it gets me through the day and if I dont' meditate it is like going unprepared on a battlefield nto knowing how I would handle my internal state and regulate my emotions.  So Vipassana tops it all.

While having my chai I tend to listen to a book (audiobook) and reflect a bit.  Yesterday, I started "Hidden potential" by Adam Grant ... I got hooked on to it straight away, he talks about chess, strategies, talent and more so it is abotu character building.  We may have all the talents, etc, we can build on them but above all what matters most for success is "character".  interesting.

Later in the afternoon I caught up with Dr IT yup that's his nick name as his PhD is in Information Technology.  I reflected and I realised the thigns I do in the morning is my non-negotiables - meditation, chai, cooking, and then I am at NaLSH to do the work.  

Dr IT told me about doing the 'Dirty work'.  Sometimes, we want everything to be perfect.  in y case, I want all the articles laid out well, set and ready.  Fridays are my writing days and now I am panicking as I have my experiemnts to do, and write an academic article, plus the literature review writing, plus the data analysis, etc.  He said doign the dirty work, it reminded me of Marie Forleo's words 'starting before you are ready' or something like that or getting ready to be ready ... just start it all and things will start rolling.  

Changing the environment might help he said.  I love writing under a tree, green area, etc.  and now that the weather is warming up, I could just sit under a tree, bring the printed work.  And as I was talking I chunked it down to these steps:

1. Re-Searching - searching the articles with key words and downloading the articles

2. Re-Fining - sorting the articles to yes, no, and look into it later - basically sifting ad sorting the articles based on the title and title alone.  Reading the abstrct I found was time consuming and easier to just read the article

3. After step 2, repeat the process with the abstract and conclusion

4. Key artilces filed - understand, analyse, synthesise for later to criticise

5. What is the conclusion or my contribution

Repeat the process.

Doing the dirty wrk meant, starting where ever I was.  Rather than starting my experiments on day one, realistically, I need to start my experiments on day zero with preparations, etc.  Rinse bottles, label, prepping milk, plan this is the dirty work for day zero.  The actual work begins the day prior to the work also known as the dirty work.

I need to change location for my reading.  under the tree!

For writing, I can do this at home.  

For lab work, I have to do this in the lab :-)

So the three key wisdom point with Dr IT ... 

1. What are the top three goals for the day?

2. Do the dirty work ... 

3. Change of location for writing