Caffeine, The Wonder Drug

Caffeine is at excellent tool for the self management of academics (or at least of this aspiring academic), as my last work process post suggested. What you've got is a challenge to sit still for hours at a time while remaining very focused on very detailed information, often not delivered in a clear way. It is also common to be looking to read the information in a way that the author wouldn't exactly like (a nicer way to say that is to read critically). That's tough. I don't know that human beings were really created to do that. I suspect rather more running around after wild game and such was the original plan. But caffeine does an excellent job of putting you in exactly the mindset that you need to get your work done. Unfortunately, when it wears off it make me feel like crap, especially when I've had a lot of it. Which is where I am right now. Crappy feeling, caffeine hangover, but with a lot more work to do to get this paper done by Friday. So . . . . more caffeine? I dunno. We'll see.

Ah, the perils of academic self management. Still, as I said before, better to work for yourself than someone else. And, in fact, better to be your own boss than someone elses (although I accept that others would disagree with that, pointing out that shit rolls downhill and if its just you there's no-where for it to roll).