Australia, and NSW in particular, is reaching a 70% double vaccination rate. I got my second jab two weeks ago, so should have my immunity ready to go. The state government has announced its roadmap to reopening. The university has also decided to start allowing urgent research to recommence. I’ve been allowed to go into the lab, but in a purely maintenance capacity - replacing cylinders, checking for leaks or broken refrigerators. Next week I will be allowed to go on site for actual experimental work (nothing medium risk or above without additional approval).

I have a long list of experiments ready to perform. However, I have found that the last two months of working from home have actually been extremely productive. Through careful time-block planning, ambitious goals, and a general absence of interruptions, I have achieved far more during my time working from home than if I had been in the laboratory. Of course, this was aided by the ability to focus on writing manuscripts out of the experiments I had already performed (and consequently planning several from the holes I found). Once that writing was done, it became harder to find other work to do. A deep dive into the literature uncovered room for a review article - one whose proposal I just submitted. I’ve also begun to put together a DECRA application. This has been extremely rewarding so far, and also made me appreciate the complexities in planning larger scale projects - a PhD is big, but a DECRA is bigger.1 My proposed DECRA project includes work for me, a PhD, and two honours students. This is far larger than any project I have previously worked on and is tremendously gratifying as I see more and more possibilities.

Despite being allowed to return to experimental research (with unlimited access), I plan to limit my time in the laboratory and continue to work from home. My idea is to stack two days together, allowing for cleaning, preparation, and planning on one day, then executing and analysing the experiments the next day. The rest of my week will be spent working from home: writing, reading, planning - working as deeply as possible. By limiting my time in the laboratory up front, I will be forced to be very intentional with my time. My hope is that I will be highly effective when on site, and still leave three days out of the week free to continue doing focussed work.

Who knows, I might even find that I continue a similar routine after the pandemic settles and things go ‘back to normal’.

  1. The project scope of an independent academic presumably exponentially increases. The student becomes the expert in one puzzle piece, but the academic has to see how the image is coming along. ↩