This post helped me relate to my own work better. I feel less confused about what’s going on with the differences between my own working pace and the pace of many around me. I am obviously more like a 10,000 day monk than a 10 day monk, and I should think and plan accordingly.
Partly because I read this post, I spend frewer resources frantically trying to show off a Marketable Product(TM) as quickly as possible (“How can I make a Unit out of this for the Workshop next month?”), and I spend more resources aiming for the progress I actually think would be valuable (“In the world where I have robustly solved X one year from now, what happened in the intervening twelve months?”).
Outside of academia (or perhaps even inside of it, at this point), our society does not really have a place for monks of the larger magnitudes, so it’s uncomfortable to try to be one. But if I’m going to try to be one, which I absolutely am, it’s awfully helpful to be able to recognize that as what I’m doing. It impacts how I structure my research and writing projects. It impacts how I ask for funding. It impacts how I communicate about priorities and boundaries (“I’m not scheduling meetings this quarter.”)
I plot my largest project on a multi-decade timescale, and although there are reasons I’m concerned about this, “lots of other people don’t seem to commit to such things” is no longer among them.
This post helped me relate to my own work better. I feel less confused about what’s going on with the differences between my own working pace and the pace of many around me. I am obviously more like a 10,000 day monk than a 10 day monk, and I should think and plan accordingly.
Partly because I read this post, I spend frewer resources frantically trying to show off a Marketable Product(TM) as quickly as possible (“How can I make a Unit out of this for the Workshop next month?”), and I spend more resources aiming for the progress I actually think would be valuable (“In the world where I have robustly solved X one year from now, what happened in the intervening twelve months?”).
Outside of academia (or perhaps even inside of it, at this point), our society does not really have a place for monks of the larger magnitudes, so it’s uncomfortable to try to be one. But if I’m going to try to be one, which I absolutely am, it’s awfully helpful to be able to recognize that as what I’m doing. It impacts how I structure my research and writing projects. It impacts how I ask for funding. It impacts how I communicate about priorities and boundaries (“I’m not scheduling meetings this quarter.”)
I plot my largest project on a multi-decade timescale, and although there are reasons I’m concerned about this, “lots of other people don’t seem to commit to such things” is no longer among them.