A year ago I publicly made some New Year’s Resolutions, and it is interesting to look back and see what my good intentions were and to what extent I’ve managed to stick with them.
Resolution 1 I will ensure I return all referee reports on papers by the due date in 2011
I’ve not done too badly on this front, largely because I have developed a taste for declining to review almost anything. Gone are the days when I enjoyed the luxury of looking at a paper’s title or abstract and thinking that it looked rather interesting, albeit somewhat removed from my current field of activity, and therefore it might be satisfying to referee the paper in parallel with reading around the topic. Now if it isn’t relevant, or is relevant only to something I worked on in the past but no longer, it’s an automatic ‘no’. I can deal with that sort of refereeing request very speedily! More troubling are the ones I’d really like to read through and ponder over, but a glance at my diary tells me that I am already horribly over-committed during the time period allotted for the refereeing task. I am probably rather slower to turn these requests down, but hope I get around to it within a few days as it becomes ever clearer there isn’t a hope in hell I’ll get it done in time. Occasionally one slips through the net and I get a chase from the editor, but genuinely these are few and far between. I think I can tick this resolution off as successfully accomplished (and I plan on sticking with this for the coming year too).
Resolution 2 I will delete unread at least 50% of all emails that arrive overnight (when the worst of my spam seems to appear) and 25% of those that come during working hours.
I’ve developed a good system to delete that boring barrage of stuff that arrives in one’s inbox in the small hours. Before I ever get my computer on I do a quick scroll through my inbox on my iPhone over that first crucial cup of coffee of the day, and delete as many emails as I can. I think that probably does amount to ca 50% so I’ll tick the first half of this resolution off too. During the day how well do I do? Actually, I’ve very little idea what the percentage that gets deleted each day is, but I suspect it’s getting too high, that I’m getting ‘trigger happy’ with the delete button. Twice in the last month I’ve had to ask people to resend messages – one was a reference request which was particularly embarrassing – because the relevant emails had got so effectively obliterated they weren’t even in my trash or deleted folder. So, I’ll claim success with the second part too, but with the caveat I probably need to be more careful on this front rather than less.
Two down, what about the third resolution I laid claim to this time last year?
Resolution 3 I won’t accept any more invitations to write reviews;
Success, definitely not written (or agreed to write) any reviews this year!
b) I won’t print out a paper without having a clear slot of time immediately thereafter to read it.
Ah well, it was too much to hope I’d get through all my resolutions triumphantly. No, failed on this one. I am still prone to print out papers, leave them lying them around on desk or floor, and find them weeks later still unread. So, this is one to work on in 2012.
All my resolutions last year revolved around the vexed questions of refereeing, papers and emails. There is of course rather more to (academic) life than that, so I should consider what my good intentions for the coming year are in addition to keeping up the good work on these 3 items. The one that comes to mind is developing a little bit of tolerance regarding my fellow cyclists. OK, this isn’t particularly academic but increasingly they are irritating me by their bad manners and willingness to ignore the Highway Code, as if it wasn’t designed for cyclists as well as other road users. So my resolution for 2012 on this front is
2012 Resolution No 1 I will not swear at those cyclists who cycle straight at me the wrong way up narrow streets, typically without lights on if after dark. I will only permit myself to swear if they make actual physical contact or cause me to fall under the wheels of a passing taxi.
I have written previously about how peevish such cyclists make me. They seem to be getting ever more numerous, as if the one way system in the centre of town is pure fantasy and I am alone in trying to stick with it. They make life very dangerous for the rest of us, however, and I could wish the police put a little more effort into enforcing the rules on this front (and the use of lights ditto). This is not an academic grumble, but I am sure it is not good for my blood pressure to get so stressed about this particular peccadillo of other people.
2012 Resolution No 2 I will continue practicing to say ‘no’ more often to things it would be foolish – if interesting, fun or diverting – to say yes to.
I have begun to do better on this front. I refused an invitation to go and speak to a distant university forum about my diversity work for no better reason than that I already had accepted more invitations in far-flung parts of the country than are good for my well-being. I felt very churlish doing this, but having just made a verbal commitment to my family I would not accept any more invitations to give what one might call ‘random’ talks (i.e. unassociated with any of my more formal responsibilities and roles) this year, I felt if I said yes to ‘just one more’, it would be too easy never to draw the line. I was delighted the response I got from the forum organisers was very understanding, though they may well be back earlier in the academic year next time.
2012 Resolution No 3 I will do my bit for the environment, by not printing out committee papers, but try always to work with them on the screen.
I am of the generation that still finds it easier to scribble comments on a paper – for a committee or a research paper written by a group member – than to edit or comment on it electronically. This means that I generate an awful lot of paper that soon gets recycled. My university still persists in sending out many of its committee papers in hard copy, so that frequently I have no choice but to work with paper copies, and this means I don’t practice as hard as I might with the electronic route. But this year an experiment is being carried out with the promotions panel I sit on. Instead of 3 large boxes of papers we are being offered one USB stick – plus an hour of ‘training’. I find this strange; I cannot think why I need an hour of being shown how to navigate through the files (unless they’ve done something very strange and counterintuitive). But there it is, an early New Year treat of USB stick training coupled with the carrot I need to stop printing out my papers and start being greener (and yes, I do know carrots aren’t green!)
So, a new and varied batch of resolutions with which to enter the New Year. Now I have six resolutions to live up to. I am in all honesty surprised to find how well I have done with those I set myself for 2011. I wonder if I can do a repeat performance for 2012. Happy New Year everyone!
Great resolutions Athene – ones I could do with adding to my list (apart from #1 – US drivers have long since culled all the crazy cyclists, although the resolution brings back memories of cyclist – and wheelchair – frustrations in Cambridge!)
Athene – I suspect that many of us in academia share similar resolutions, with similar degrees of success and failure in sticking with them. But in a spirit of trivial oneupmanship I think I can possibly go one better on deleting the overnight spam as I generally manage to get this done before I even get out of bed. My chief goal for 2012, aside from the perennial business of increasing lipid catabolism while allowing down-regulation of alcohol dehydrogenase, is the same as your 2012 resolution 3 – less printing. All the best for 2012.
Andrew –
Wheelchairs? I’m assuming you don’t mean yourself, but it isn’t much of a problem confronting cyclists in my view, though I had a colleague who was an ace at speed in one.
Stephenemoss – you definitely win on that one. I do NOT put my iPhone by my bed; don’t want to find I’m checking email in the small hours as an alternative to counting sheep.
I should have added that the iPhone by the bed is due to it also serving as my alarm clock. I have thus far managed to avoid checking emails during the small hours.
Re: wheelchairs – not a cyclist vs wheelchair issue admittedly, but one of my most memorable cold sweat moments in Cambridge back in the early 1990’s was driving down Grange Road late at night and almost colliding with an unlit motorized wheelchair (plus occupant) trundling down the middle of the road…
I’m not sure which generation it is that finds it easier to read on screen than on paper – it isn’t mine either!
I file e-mail rapidly rather than delete rapidly (this allows for an over-quick trigger finger).
Isn’t it “A Very Famous Physicist” in Cambridge who is a sometimes assertive user of a wheelchair?
Ditto what Ian said about paper vs on-screen – though I’m older than he is.
My University and Faculty are making efforts to force us to do more and more of our marking on-screen. I have mixed feelings about this, really, mainly as my preferred venue for marking is in a comfy armchair at home. Although the wonders of wireless broadband make it theoretically possible to do one’s on-screen marking from said armchair, the University IT system (and especially it’s unabashed dislike of the late Mr Jobs’ products) mean this remains distinctly tricky in practise.
I happen to be visually impaired and can’t read at all in the conventional way, so have to get all my information electronically and read by my computer through a screen reader. I’ve had the delight of listening to you on the radio on In Our Time, and listening to your words through an American ‘male synthetic’ voice .
Having a PhD in inorganic chemistry from the 1970s, I like to think of myself as being fairly green. My patience, however, with some cyclists has run out and I have had several altercations with them as they take over the pavements (sidewalks) in London NW6. I’m not sure which is worse: a four wheel drive coming straight at me which I can’t see or a silent cycle with a noisy rider illustrating the Doppler effect.
Happy New Year – and may we all stick to our resolutions.
Prof Whitestick
I am sorry you have to listen to me in a synthetic American accent, male at that. I hope you can now better imagine my words in my own voice, having had the opportunity to listen to it on Melvyn Bragg and I’m glad you enjoyed the programme.
Cycling issues in London are indeed very different from Cambridge. My mother (a resident of NW5) is as intolerant of cylists on pavements there as I am of those going the wrong way up one way streets in Cambridge. She isn’t nimble enough to dodge them and has threatened to stick her walking stick through their spokes. Have you considered doing this with your whitestick? At least in Cambridge, some pavements are formally designated as cycle routes, ideally (as in Holland) these parts of the pavement being separated by lines from the pedestrian part. Nevertheless, I find it encouraging that cycling is so much more done in London than 20 years ago. A bunch of Boris bikes approaching me on the pavement of Euston Road did irritate me greatly, but I can see why they would rather use the pavement than the road.
Thanks for your reply. I have stuck with my screen reader voice mainly because I’ve got used to it. The names of the voices, male and female, on both sides of the Atlantic sounded as if they were not from Essex. When I lost my sight I found the American male synthetic voice tolerable. I can do a smiley face, but it is read back to me as “colon right paren”. Though I type in right bracket on a British keyboard, it is read back to me in American!
This is cognitive dissonance, in much the same way as some cyclists think that being green absolves them from manners. A cyclist riding on the pavement with his young son insisted on driving through me and tried to goad me to attack his spokes with my long cane, which folds neatly into four parts. Though sorely tempted, I resisted – though I hate to think what this cyclist’s son thought of his father’s example. It may be that cyclists and pedestrians have a better concept of shared space in the Netherlands, Germany and possibly Cambridge, but I think that in the case of NW6 and NW5 The Pauli Exclusion Principle ought to apply!