Waiting for the answer November 15, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in papers, research.Tags: deadlines, papers, waiting
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I hate waiting on paper submissions. Makes me insane. You spend all this time hustling to get the paper out and then *bang!*, things settle down a bit and you wait.
Unless there’s another deadline right behind the first, I can’t necessarily make myself go into hyperfocus on a project. That means I’m waiting while my mind has the ability to wander…and wonder. I ponder what I did right and wrong, what things will the reviewers pick up on that I missed, etc.
I know some people feel better about getting the paper off. Once it’s out of sight, it’s roughly out of mind. I think it’s a much better approach to focus on that which you can control…but I can’t say I’m terribly good at it.
And in the meantime, I still have a week and a half to go.
How about you?
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I am like that too — I constantly go and check manuscript status. At present I have 5 in review, and I check on each one of them fairly often. That’s lots of wasted time. But I do allow myself a couple of days to feel like a deflated balloon after I hit “submit” and just waste some time.
What helps me is focusing on the next important thing — a proposal, another paper. Now that my workload is borderline insane, there is always the next big thing waiting around the corner, so I am better at letting go (temporarily) of a manuscript under review than when I was a grad student.
Also, I have accepted that this is part of my slightly (or not so slightly) obsessive nature that brings many other benefits.
Glad to know I’m not the only one with this particular neurosis. :-) Definitely have other things to work on…but I keep peeking, even though I’m guessing it won’t be ready early.
I don’t check the status since I find it too stressful. Once it’s been sent, it’s been sent and I don’t want to think about it anymore. I try to hit that niggling feeling in the back of my head by concentrating on the next piece of work sitting in front of me.