Getting things done (GTD) for scientists

A colleague and I are teaching a first year grad student course called “7 habits of highly effective grad students”, which of course is an homage to Stephen Covey’s great book “7 habits of highly effective people”.  For the next 14 weeks I will be posting a series of blogs to accompany the 2 hour class.  This is a series that I’ve been wanting to do for over a year and so I’m very excited about it.  Several lifehacks will be discussed having to do with time management, science writing, quickly researching topics, scientific presentations, etc... As a preamble, enjoy this video on time management from the late great Randy Pausch (it's about an hour): 

Disclaimer: Most of this is adapted for scientists from the work of productivity gurus that I admire like Tim Ferris,Cal NewportMerlin MannDavid Allen and many others.  I do my best to reference their articles when appropriate but you should definitely check out their blogs and books first hand.