ACCOUJVTS OF CHEXICAL RESEARCH” Registered in U.S.Patent and Trademark Office;Copyright 1985 by the American Chemical Society
VOLUME 18
NUMBER 7
JULY, 1985
EDITOR JOSEPH F. BUNNETT
Do You Whistle While You Work?
ASSOCIATE EDITORS Joel E. Keizer John E. McMurry
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Robert Abeles Richard Bernstein R. Stephen Berry Michel Boudart Maurice M. Bursey Charles R. Cantor Marshall Fixman Jenny P. Glusker Kendall N. Houk Keith U. Ingold Maurice M. Kreevoy Theodore Kuwana Josef Michl George W. Parshall Kenneth N. Raymond Jacob F. Schaefer Richard C. Schoonmaker Anthony M. Trozzolo
BOOKS AND JOURNALS DIVISION D. H. Michael Bowen, Director
Journals Department: Charles R. Bertsch, Head; Marianne C. Brogan, Associate Head; Mary E. Scanlan, Assistant Manager; Anne C. O’Melia, Assistant Editor Production Department: Elmer M. Pusey, Jr., Head Research and Development Department: Lorrin R. Garson, Head
The American Chemical Society and its editors assume no responsibility for the statements and opinions advanced by contributors. Views expressed in the editorials are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the official position of the American Chemical Society. Registered names and trademarks, etc., used in this publication, even without specific indication thereof, are not to be considered unprotected by law.
They say nothing is more valuable to a scientist than time. This truism is seldom questioned, but within the community of scientists little is done to help the individual develop work styles that enable time to be used more effectively. One perhaps finds some guidance in popular culture. A popular song’ of a generation ago advised “When there’s too much to do/ Don’t let it bother you./ Forget your trouble; Try to be/ Just like the cheerful chick-a-dee/ And whistle while you work.” Try that next time you are working on a difficult mathematical derivation. And then there is Arnold Bennett’s provocative little book,2”How To Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day”, which offers some good thoughts but little advice specific to the problems of scientists. Closer to home is E. Bright Wilson’s “An Introduction to Scientific Re~earch”;~ its emphasis, however, is more on what to do than on how to organize one’s energies to do it. A few weeks ago we found in the mail a flyer for a seminar on Effective Time Management, being offered at several North American cities for a fee of $195. It offered 200 minutes’ attention to topics such as “The cordial way to stop chit chat”, “4 things to do while telephoning”, “The correct way to change priorities”, and the like. Among the topics treated, we saw few special to the work of scientists and engineers. Now there may be articles, books, or short courses pertinent to our present interest of which we are unaware. If so, we trust that readers will write to tell us about them. Active scientists do somehow define, consciously or by default, ways of carrying out activities inherent in our work. For example: how to keep up with current developments, how to make and keep notes on the literature, how to manage one’s time in the laboratory, how to write manuscripts, if and when to take naps during the day, how to prepare and store lantern slides, and the like. We have happened to observe the ways that certain productive research chemists handle such matters: Some Europeans go home about 1 p.m. for a substantial meal, then have an hour-long nap, and return to the laboratory about 3:30 for work until 800. Some chemists write manuscripts while traveling, in airport waiting rooms, on the airplane, in hotel rooms, and so forth. (An it has been known for such a chemist, on leaving a plane, inadvertently to leave the draft of a manuscript in the magazine pocket.) As to literature notes, some now have them all computerized while others find various kinds of notatiqn on paper to constitute satisfactory systems, convenient for current use and effective for purposes of recall. We believe it would be useful to collect information about how scientists do their work and to make it available in published form. Data collection would require the use of social science research techniques and would not be easy, for some scientists would feel the questions asked to be a little too personal, almost like asking how often they change their underwear. We hope that someone will take on the challenge. Joseph F. Bunnett (1)Morey, L.; Churchill, F. “Whistle While You Work”, 1937, Copyright Bourne Co. (2) Bennett, A. “How To Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day”; George H. Dorm Co.: New
York, 1910.
(3)Wilson, E. B., Jr. “An Introduction to Scientific Research”; McGraw-Hill: New York, 1952.
