My last couple of weeks have been full of sharing and swapping techniques and tips with new and visiting members of the Perry lab, Anth and Biology departments. It's ranged from advice for field work in Panama to how we in the Perry lab prefer certain brands of micropipette tips over others. It's got me thinking about ways I like sci comm-ing with other researchers, which will be the theme of this week's blog post.
When starting work at a new job and/or lab, your first tasks typically revolve around learning "how we do things here". I've been managing the Perry lab modern space for a little over a year, and it shows a bit (as you'll see on the right). I love labels and standard systems for organization. It makes training and acclimating researchers that much easier if they are confident they'll be able to find everything on their own - no one enjoys feeling like they're bugging you with silly questions. I also am a big fan of checklists (see below). Ticking boxes and crossing things out makes me feel like I'm accomplishing stuff, even if it's little steps in a protocol. |