A very good article on time management in science

Don’t count the days, make the days count.
Mohammed Ali

I recently read an (mostly) excellent paper about time management strategies for research productivity. It’s from a rather “strange” source (Nursing Research), but still, it’s has a few gems in it. The paper is:

Chase, J. A. D., Topp, R., Smith, C. E., Cohen, M. Z., Fahrenwald, N., Zerwic, J. J., et al. (2013). Time Management Strategies for Research Productivity. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 35(2), 155–176. doi:10.1177/0193945912451163

Really, really helpful, especially the ways to say no to requests. A full two-page table giving possible answers. Cool.

That’s the second time I stumbled upon an excellent paper in a journal dealing with nursing research. The first was Froman, R. D. (2001). Elements to consider in planning the use of factor analysis. Southern Online Journal of Nursing Research, 5(2).

It once again shows that the source is mostly irrelevant. The content is what counts.

Highly recommended.

 

Update

Char (@ceronqu) on Twitter just asked “what makes nursing pubs a “strange” source”. That’s a good question, as it shows me how much I have been socialized as a psychologist. It’s a strange source as I was socialized as a psychologist and there are the classic journals that are held in high regard in psychology (i.e., they have large impact factors and psychologists publish in them). Somehow, it seemed strange to me that a journal from a completely different domain would be that good, that applicable to my own domain. In a way, it does show nicely that no matter how open I want to be, I am still prejudiced in some way. On the other hand, it probably applies to any scientist. While most disciplines serve their own needs, some papers stand out beyond the rest as they are applicable to many different disciplines. So far, really great papers (for me as a psychologist) have come from the domains of nursing research, physics, cell science, and much more.

Still, from my perspective it’s a strange source. Surprisingly useful and enlightening.

2 Comments

  1. Hi Daniel,

    since I am not studying Psychology like you did/are doing I am interested how it is possible to come across such great (unexpected) scientific papers about productivity, time managment etc. which one could easily implement into his her own life easily. Are you searching Research Databases with keywords or something like that? I would be very interested whether you have a workflow to come across interesting stuff in Databases with a keyword search. Thank you!

  2. Hoi Konti,
    it’s mostly serendipity — I stumble upon stuff on twitter, in RSS feeds, on Blogs, etc. And once I’ve seen it, it’s in my collection and available for future uses. But yeah, you can easily do a literature research. Just look at the existing papers’ keywords as a starting point.

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