In February of fourth year, with less than six weeks left until I presented my graduating thesis, I discovered I had made a fundamental error. Five months of effort and research, straight down the crapper.
I didn’t have time to correct the error and redo the research, but I needed to have something prepared to present to my professor and my class. I had to regroup and formulate a new path forward, using the lessons learned, and create a research project worthy to earn my degree.
Which is exactly what I did. I refocused from generating a body of data to be used by the next researcher, to generating a set of procedures, along with a small, reproduceable sample of data, for the next researcher to use as a launch point. It was not the thesis my Prof and I planned, but it was what I had to do as an alternative plan.
Spoiler, it worked and I earned my degree.
Lately, I’ve found I’ve been slipping. While I have implemented new procedures, and created new habits, I’m not getting up as early, exercising as hard, marketing myself, and a bunch of other things, as I was a few months ago.
So I need to relearn the lesson of fourth year. It’s time to step back, assess, and plot a new path forward.
I need to:
- get up earlier
- exercise harder
- create more content
- waste less time
- focus more on the business end of business
The good news is that I’m doing these things, I just need to do more, so the problem is one of degree, not of kind.
Which means the solution is not to do something new, but to reset, and lean into what’s already been started.
