![]() ![]() Greene also stresses the importance of acting on the plans you make while being flexible to changing situations. This is strategic depth of thinking, as opposed to formulaic thinking.” Instead of grasping at Option A as the single right answer, true strategy is positioning yourself to be able to do A, B, or C depending on the circumstances. “The essence of strategy is not to carry out a brilliant plan that proceeds in steps: it is to put yourself in situations where you have more options than the enemy does. “To have the power that only strategy can bring, you must be able to elevate yourself above the battlefield, to focus on your long-term objectives, to craft an entire campaign, to get out of the reactive mode that so many battles in life lock you into.” In the case of research, you should thoroughly understand the problems that your field is working to solve and the possible solutions: One of the most important facets of good strategy is to have a wide perspective of your situation. ![]() It instead focuses more on the psychology of conflict and how to approach these situations with a rational and strategic mind. Greene’s book is not a practical ‘How to make war’ type of book. Highlights from “The 33 Strategies of War” If you’re not a military history aficionado, there are also a number of stories about politicians, business leaders, and even artists who fought in their own sort of ‘wars’ as they worked to bring their goals and ideas to life. The book is interwoven with stories from history highlighting the 33 concepts described in great detail in his book. Greene’s book offers insights on how you can make your own career, or even your entire life, more strategic. One of my recent such reads was Robert Greene’s “The 33 Strategies of War”. It’s incredible how often the lives of the great men and women of history were defined by how they made pivotal strategic decisions or how a single idea changed the entire course of history. My reading hobby typically leads me towards history books, in part as a break from reading about science but also as a source of awe-inspiring stories. And while I’ve had wonderful mentors, coaches, and bosses who have taught me how to prioritize my current work while visualizing the future, I also like to find inspiration from other sources. I’ve been interested in answering this question both in a broad sense as well as for my own work-life balance. But how exactly can we learn to become more strategic in our work? It’s one thing to design a flawless plan of experiments and analyses in great detail…but what about when an unexpected results offers new insights or inspires different experiments? With an endless array of tasks, distractions, and the all-enveloping feeling like we have to be doing something at any given point in time, how can we clearly see and decide on the most valuable course of action at any given moment? Working smart means being strategic with time: set goals, plan ahead, and adapt as needed. ![]() Hard work is a crucial aspect of success in graduate school, but what’s sometimes not as clear, especially in the early periods of our research careers, is how to work smart. We’re expected to work hard and put in long hours on experiments and data analysis, under the idea that more output (or, in our case, more data) will inevitably lead to more papers and more opportunities. An early career researcher faces a lot of pressures within the academic research environment.
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