• Question: What are the main distractions that a young scientist can face while trying to solve a problem, and how do you think they should overcome them?

    Asked by pratyushjain to Lyn, Katy, Paul, PB, Ruth on 20 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Peter Balfe

      Peter Balfe answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Having to stop and do something else. Not that relaxing away from a problem isn’t a good idea. I like to just chew on a problem over weeks or months. Chatting to colleagues and discussing the problem is invaluable, then trying things out to see what I can come up with.

    • Photo: Paul Waines

      Paul Waines answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      As Peter said, having to do something else that interrupts what you are doing. This happens to me a lot (although I’m not that young!). Sometimes these problems/ questions can take a while to solve, and if you have lots of things to do, then it can be hard to keep focussed on one particular issue.

    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Life gets in the way! 🙂 There will always be other stuff that has to be done right this second, anything from a report that has to be submitted, to laundry or grocery shopping. I think it’s probably equally annoying no matter how young or old you are, but someone who’s just started out would quite often have just moved away from home, and is still getting used to living alone. Keeping your life in a decent state takes a surprising amount of effort! I would like to stay a bit longer in the lab to analyse data, but I have to go put my laundry in the washer right now or I won’t have any clean underwear tomorrow…

      As for overcoming these distractions, I think it’s a matter of prioritisation – over time, you get a better feel for what’s important and what’s not. You learn to manage your schedule so that you’ll have enough time to do those necessary things, but still have a good stretch of time to just work on the problem. I think (I haven’t gotten there yet, but my boss does this!) you might also learn to multitask, so you can be thinking about the problem all day in your head no matter what else you are doing!

    • Photo: Katy Brown

      Katy Brown answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      Facebook, coffee breaks, phone calls, chatting…we get distracted in the same ways as everybody else! I don’t think this is any more of a problem for scientists than people in any other job though.

      It can also be difficult to concentrate on one thing when there is always so much else to do – we often have to teach students, go to meetings, make presentations or posters, write articles and abstracts, apply for money to do more research, go to see talks from other scientists… These things are all useful in themselves but they can make it hard to get on with your research.

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