Science Hacks

GTD-Become an email ninja to reduce stress

Chris Deppmann — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:03:35 +0000

Bumptop for mac has arrived

Chris Deppmann — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:29:34 +0000

This might be worth checking out: http://bumptop.com/

Available for mac and pc.

Getting things done (GTD) for scientists-Intro

Chris Deppmann — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 23:47:21 +0000

This is an introduction to a new series that I'm writing for the folks in my lab (and anyone else interested) on productivity in academic science. Nowadays the average grad student has to manage course work, thesis meetings, qualifying exams, writing papers/grants, and crushing it with experiments. In order to maintain sanity and not get completely overwhelmed all of these things must be approached in a sensible, balanced, and low stress way. The last series was about scientific productivity apps which will serve as the tools for a lot of what I'll discuss in the coming weeks. In this series I'll give examples of how I set goals and manage my time to accomplish these goals. I also think a lot about this and so I'm constantly trying to improve the things that are working for me (like batching tasks) and get rid of the things that aren't (like checking email 1000 times per day). I should also mention that this approach works for me but may not work for everyone so folks should take from it what they like and create their own system for getting things done (GTD). The most important thing is to have a GTD strategy..... having no strategy is a complete disaster. Tentatively, these are some of the upcoming post titles:

The big picture: What are you about? What do you want? How are you going to get there?
The plan: 3 months, 1 month, and 1 week
The Day: Using reverse scheduling, Parkinson's law, and laser focus to get 14 hours of work done in 8 hours.
The Sunday review
Inbox zero to manage incoming information
Multitasking is for chumps

google voice--one phone number to rule them all

Chris Deppmann — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:47:14 +0000

I'm happy to say that all the phones in my life now use google voice. The gist of GV is that google gives you a number which can route to your cell, home, or office. Depending on who calls, you can have google ring any or all of your phones. Alternatively, if you don't really want to talk to the person, you can have it go straight to voice mail. Think spam filter for the telephone. There are lots of other little bonuses including:

Free domestic calling
Cheap international calling
Machine voicemail transcription that is sent to your email (not super accurate but usually good enough)
Do not disturb mode
Free text messages
GV widgets for website like the one at the bottom of this page (I have it set to go to voicemail)

The list goes on and it seems like they keep adding features. As a science hack we are setting it up to receive calls in the lab so that the person responsible for checking messages can do so very quickly on their computer and we can block unwanted calls. Right now the service is invitation only and I have a couple of invites to give out, so anyone who's interested can shoot me an email and I'll hook you up. If you want more info, check out this link and video:

Chris Pepper at Macworld.com also wrote a good article on this. Click here to check it out.

igoogle gadgets

Chris Deppmann — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:06:02 +0000

I wanted to suggest afew useful gadgets for igoogle as folks get their feet wet. To find or browse gadgets, all you have to do is go to the add stuff link toward the top of the igoogle page. It's so nice to have all of your important information on one screen. I also like arranging all these little gadgets to get a little Feng shui action going for information flow. I'm sure you'll find lots of other cool gadgets and I would love to hear about any that you can't live with out.

Here are the gadgets that are loaded every time my browser opens:

Journal RSS Feeds for Google Reader

Chris Deppmann — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:00:41 +0000

Here are some feed links that I use to get daily updates on what's new from these journals. Just pop each address into your google reader (under add subscription) and you are off to the races. If you click these links in firefox it should take you directly to google reader.

PLOS Biology
MCB
Nature Genetics
nature medicine
nature neuroscience

My favorite science productivity apps--igoogle

Chris Deppmann — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:56:54 +0000

This is a fairly simple and really useful idea from the good folks at google. Create a home page where you can see all of your favorite stuff (including several of the things described above) on one web page. I have this set as my home page and it is the first thing I look at in the morning and the last thing I look at before going to bed. I can see what's going on with my calendar, task list (remember the milk), gmail, weather, and rss feeds (google reader) all on one screen.
Key features:
1. Tons of different gadgets that you can add and arrange on your page.
2. Select a theme to reflect your personality
3. Keep one eye on the news of the day while keeping track of everything else going on in your life.
Science use case:
All of the use cases described above rolled into one easy to use platform

Video Tutorial:

My favorite science productivity apps--google docs

Chris Deppmann — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:14:02 +0000

This is my favorite word processing app right now and is in fact what I'm writing this post on. You can generate word processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations in this suite of products. The best part is that you can collaborate with people by giving permission to others to view and edit your document.
Key features:
1. Work on the same document simultaneously with colleagues
2. Access your documents from any computer
3. Edit your documents offline using google gears
Science use case:
I have found collaborating on manuscripts in this way much more satisfying and efficient than passing 30-40 drafts back and forth between folks. Getting real time feedback from collaborators is not only a faster way to work, but I think it also results in a better end product.

My favorite science productivity apps--Remember the Milk

Chris Deppmann — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:36:42 +0000

This is a great free online tool for making to do lists. It allows you to set up due dates, priorities, repeating tasks, and a bunch of other cool stuff. You can also maintain multiple lists in this program. Some examples of lists that I maintain include project ideas, gift ideas, things I want to read, watch, or listen to, etc... It also has a nice mobile application for several different phones (I use the iphone version) and it has a gadget for my igoogle homepage. Most people use calendars to plan out the nitty gritty details of their day, but I think a good todo list is far more effective.
Key features:
1. Create multiple ongoing lists
2. Set up priorities and due dates for tasks
3. Lot's of ways to input data like igoogle, phone apps, and their website.
Science use case:
This is the best way that I have found to plan out my experiments for the week. It also allows me to set up repetitive tasks like changing cell culture media. If you don't get to an experiment during the day, no problem, a click of a button allows you to postpone until tomorrow....much more efficient at moving tasks around than calenders.
Video tutorial:

My favorite science productivity apps--Dropbox

Chris Deppmann — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:26:56 +0000

This is super cool. Although there have been several programs that have tried to do this, Dropbox is the best that I have found to transfer and sync large files across several computers. You can access your files from any computer that the program is installed on or from a web browser. Best of all, it gives you 2 GB of storage for free (if you want 50GB there is a fee).
Key features:
1. Easily share files with collaborators
2. Super fast uploads and downloads
3. Looks like an ordinary folder on your PC or Mac
Science use case:
I think this is great for huge image files that I want to access on several computers or for sharing large illustrator files for figures with collaborators.
Video tutorial: