I am facing "researcher's block" these days, a phrase borrowed from the more popular "writer's block". But, the definition seems to fit.
"Writer's block is a condition, associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task in hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked" writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers..."
source: Wikipedia
Ok, the last line seems a little bit too much, I am surely (hopefully) not there yet ... But, the temporary difficulty part is surely true. I think most of my fellow researchers will agree that we face this condition from time to time. Some symptoms are: feeling sleepy when trying to work, taking frequent coffee breaks, suddenly becoming active on otherwise inactive facebook page, orkut, blogger (!!) etc. As opposed to the contagious diseases, this condition could actually be aggravated by not having many people around with similar conditions.
So, I was wondering if my fellow researchers have figured out any ways to deal with this disease. Here are some of the measures I try to take, they are successful sometimes, on other occassions they might just provide a temporary pain relief while the disease takes its due course of time to completely leave you.
a) Try to read some new stuff. May be even on a different topic than what you are currently working on. Some times it can give you a new research idea. Or, atleast this way when you are back into the business, you can look back at the bed ridden times and feel satisfied to have made some use of it. It also makes it easy to pass those days.
b) Try to find other researchers and discuss problems with them. Join some reading group. DO NOT MISS YOUR RESEARCH GROUP MEETINGS.
c) Try to shoot some emails to your adviser (if you are a student) about initial ideas even if you think they are not of any use. This is especially necessary if you are in a pull based system like me where your adviser meets you individually only when you have something to discuss.
d) The hardest part in the day during the researcher's block is getting up, or starting the days work. Since nothing is going on, there is no motivation. I sometimes find myself laying in the bed in the morning with eyes open and thinking what can I work on today. So, a good strategy I figured is to end the days work by printing out something interesting that you can read next day to start the days work.
These are some of my medicines for researcher's block. I cannot say that they are very good ones, but they do help me a little. If you have any better ones, I will be very interested in knowing them.
Hoping to hear from my readers.
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3 comments:
I guess this depends on whether you are blocked trying to prove something, or blocked trying to find a nice new problem. If the problem is the former, what sometimes works for me is to take a few days completely off and not think about it, and then come back to it with a fresh perspective. If, however, you are blocked in finding a fruitful new direction, I heard its often useful to find new people to work with on "their" problems for a while. By the time you come back to your problems, the block is gone.
My solution was simple! Take the universal medicine - Alcohol! Lots of it!!
During the hangover, your brain resets properly and you can start off again.
Added benefit: when you are high, sometimes you get a new clarity about your work.
This solution can be applied in most colleges as there is no scarcity of friends wanting to join you in the binge.
I don't know if you can try this though ;-)
I had this very problem. Two things helped me a lot!
1) Everytime I had a new idea, I used to write it on my blog/email it to some of my interested friends and collegues. I used to make my write-up less technical so that everyone would undrestand. I used to get a lot of replies and that used to drive me to think more.
2) I used to present my ideas to some of the undergrad students and you as you know.. these undergrad students are very enthu about quick ideas... they used to give me counter ideas(most of the times stupid, but it used to be stupid-ly interesting). This used to give me an idea of "What not to think".
:-)
When I typed researcher's block i got your blog as one of the first few hits :-) you seem to have coined a very new term... if you write a book on this... it would probably be more famous than your thesis (pun not at all intended) :-))
By the way, co-incidentally am doing my phd from the same dept where you did your master's (checked your profile).
keep in touch.
Bye,
'Sudarshan
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