Productivity in Grad School (at Caltech)

This is the mantra they fed us during orientation:
"It's a marathon, not a sprint."

I hate running, but I'm starting to understand.

No one tells me how many hours to spend in lab.
No one tells me how to balance research and class.
No one tells me how to run experiments, or what experiments to run.
There are no assignments, no due dates.

It is completely self-motivated and self-fueled. And this - designing a long-term project and pursuing the resources needed to complete it - involves creative problem solving.

And it is exhausting. The scariest thing is that you might get burned out and decide not to complete the program.

To put things into perspective, most of us can only do 4 hours of quality creative work on a good day. That is, a day where I am inspired, well-rested, and purposeful. What most of us don't realize until now is that your energy level is your most important resource, which in theory, is renewable. So the rest of my day is spent making sure that I stay well-rested, inspired, and purposeful, and generally renewing my creative energy.

Sleeping. Dancing. Talking and sharing ideas. Watching lunar eclipses. Resting. These may not be conventional ways of working, but they are some of the most productive hours of my day.