This semester we started a new event series – The UPS writing event – thanks to Maria Sapounidou. During Spring 2023, we will meet every second Wednesday of the month, with the exact date updated on the event calendar on our website. These events are open to all postdocs and PhD students alike and are designed to provide a chance to focus on writing tasks for three hours offside the busy lab or office.
For the first edition, we met on the 11th of January and booked a seminar room at MIT. At the beginning of the event, everyone put up their workstation (computer, drink, notes …) and set their goal for the afternoon. This helped create some accountability and get into the right mindset. After that, we directly started! We used the Pomodoro technique which entails twenty-five minutes of focused working without distractions (no emails, no phone, no notifications, no talking etc.). After those twenty-five minutes we all got up for a five-minute break, away from our monitors. We chatted shortly on how it went for each of us before the next Pomodoro session started. We had five sessions in total and every participant was able to achieve their set goals. While a couple of them completed their poster for the UCMR day the following week, the rest got a lot of work done on papers. Some even managed to write/finish more than what they set as a goal!
The Pomodoro technique worked well for all of us, and all participants were eager to continue this in the next iteration of the event. One of the participants, Abraha, has set an impressive target as he wants to use the UPS writing events to complete his paper. He explained that some data had been laying around for years and the writing event provides an excellent opportunity to wrap it up and publish.
It doesn’t matter if you also want to write for a publication, a thesis, work on a poster, just need some focussed time to work on data analysis, applications, or submissions, this event is a great way to focus and concentrate on the job at hand with an undisturbed mind.
We are extremely delighted to see the immense potential of the Pomodoro technique, evident from the success of the inaugural UPS writing event. We are looking forward to the next event on February 8th.
