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Checklist for starting a new project in the lab

So you're starting a new project in the lab. Great! Here are some tips for organizing your project so that things go smoothly through the full project lifecycle.

Activities

Many of the activities involved in a research project can be grouped into the following categories:

  • Reading: Your goals here are to: (1) deeply understand the most relevant prior work that is motivating your project; and (2) familiarize yourself to some extent with other work that is related to your project, but not as directly.
  • Coding: Your goal here is to develop a well organized codebase and data that can be eventually shared with the public, so keep this in mind when weighing speed/convenience vs. reusability/readability of the code you write. Obviously this requires striking a balance between the two.
  • Meetings: Your goal here is to make full use of the intellectual resources around you, embodied in your faculty mentor(s), labmates, and other colleagues/collaborators. Discuss with your co-authors how frequently you would like to meet, and remember to prepare a written agenda that you annotate during these conversations to ensure that we do not have to rely on our own faulty memories to recall why we chose to do something a certain way 6 months ago, 3 years ago, etc.
  • Writing: Your goal here is to set yourself writing goals on multiple timescales so that you are not faced with a blank document when it comes time to write the full journal article reporting the findings from this entire project. Proactively raise the question of how to set these intermediate writing goals in meetings with your co-authors. Convenient options include conference-submission and departmental deadlines

Actions

  1. Create a project repo within the cogtoolslab GitHub organization right away, following the lab's project template.
  2. Create a new Slack channel in our lab workspace. Enable Slack notifications for commits to the project repo.
  3. Create a new Google Doc (or Overleaf) where you can post meeting agendas, take notes, and embed graphics. You are encouraged to use this project log template in Google Docs.
  4. Make sure that in one of the early meetings with your co-authors that set clear and concrete immediate goals (1-2 weeks), as well as identify a medium-term goal (3-12 months) to orient your efforts towards. Having a plan in hand at both timescales will help you stay motivated and ensure that we stay on track with respect to your longer term goals.