Work is Play: Stop focusing on your job's relevance

Recently, I've been reading the autobiography of Richard Feynman, the Nobel prize winning physicist. He reveals that after working at Los Alamos developing the atomic bomb, he fell into depression and a creative rut. One day he decided he was going to stop focusing on solving problems for societal benefit, significance, or any other purpose. He would simply play with science. He would work on the quirkiest problems, without any regard as to their relevance. One day he saw a colleague throw a dinner plate into the air and noticed that the ratio of the wobble to the spinning appeared to be 2:1. So he spent a huge chunk of his time trying to work out equations for it. Guess what? It got him out of his rut- he stopped caring that others might be judging him for spending his tenured faculty time on silly things. He could just dive in and think about the physics. And the equations he worked out happened to describe an analogous phenomenon in quantum mechanics, forming the basis for his Nobel Prize.

I entered my PhD fascinated by the basic biology behind aging and its implications for society. I  preferred thinking about science in the abstract rather than the labwork which I saw as hard work, a necessary evil. A lot of protocols are mindless because they are so well established- you just have to do them as manual labor. Early on I made a lot of mistakes in lab. It was very slow and I found myself procrastinating on my project, even ignoring reading papers because it would just stress me out by reminding me of labwork. Feedback loop initiated: I felt overwhelmed by how much stuff I needed to do, and I felt bad that I seemed so behind, especially compared to other people. Whenever I did make progress, the solution was so simple that I found myself regretting and blaming myself for not doing it earlier. So I started procrastinating even more.

But certain forms of procrastination are ultimately beneficial.

One purpose of this blog is to carefully consider and publicize my efforts to make deliberate changes in my life: One common question I get is, "how do you have time for blogging? Or any of this??" You could also ask how I have the mental energy for any of this.

Yes, that is the PhD. I get to choose how I spend all of my own time. Some scientists think as a PhD student you should be focused so much on your scientific work that you don't have time for anything else. I disagree. I think you should be dedicating all of your time to training yourself to be the most effective intellectual possible. You have to figure out for yourself how to do that- there are many avenues that don't involve working. 

• Stopping myself from wasting time on the Internet?  A no-brainer.
• Managing negative thoughts? Your self-talk can be a massive hindrance to your productivity. 
• Fitness? Exercise grows new neurons in your hippocampus, prevents depression, and improves cognitive function. 
• Learning other subjects? I solved a major problem in lab by analogy after reading the blog of someone describing an entirely different problem. 
• Practice writing? Last year I was really really slow at writing analysis papers for classes. When it comes to publishing, I can't let being out of practice get in my way.
• Trying new things? If you can get yourself in the habit of jumping into things you know nothing about, you will have no problem getting started on that new method which will yield the best data.
• Idea generation? Good ideas in science are a needle in a haystack. But if you don't have a haystack in the first place, you won't find the needle.

Hence, everything I am doing outside of lab IS contributing to my PhD work, by investing in my most precious resource: myself. Doing these things takes time and focus. By focusing on side projects OUTSIDE of work, I was able to get started without any of the negative feelings about my work. Like Feynman, I stopped caring about what I was "supposed" to do- and that enabled me to just get started.

Changing myself has changed the way I look at my work. 

Sure, I still don't gain any enjoyment from the physical act of conducting wetlab experiments. But one habit I've formed is to ask myself: What do I actually enjoy? What could I actually enjoy about my work?

•      Figuring stuff out
•      Talking to others and coming to a revelation together
•      Control over my own time
•      Trying new things

By mentally focusing on these things in lab, I enjoy my work way more even if there are aspects that I'm still impatient with. Nowadays, I tend to push the mindless protocols to the end of the day and just listen to the Daily Show or podcasts in the background. I'm relaxed. No longer are they a problem.

I really started only addressing this in earnest this month. When I started focusing all my efforts into lab and nothing else, I almost gave up. Negative thoughts returned, I felt overwhelmed and regretful that I "wasted" time on all these side projects. But my focus kept up and survived, because I had trained my own brain this past summer on those very side projects. 

Now I'm working way more hours in lab than ever before and every moment of it makes me happier- all because I changed the way I look at my work. When I need a break, I take a break. But I've discovered it's possible to make working extremely long hours sustainable- but it requires effort to restructure your mind so that it is sustainable.

When Richard Feynman was a child, he spent most of his time playing with science, building quirky ideas in his makeshift lab. While studying college physics, he conducted elaborate experiments on ant behavior, even though they had no relevance to physics. But by making work into play, his crazy-busy career became sustainable for him. It reminded me of one comment on my 1st grade report card: "He loves playing with math. He loves playing with science." 1st grade me was pretty wise- I have much to learn from him.