Productive Scholar

Photo: taedc

Like many grad students, it seems like I never have enough time to do everything on my todo list. More often than I’d like, my exercising suffers for this lack of time. Here are a few simple tips to help you achieve your fitness goals:

1. Take the stairs as often as you can. While taking the stairs is not always an option, like with a group or when you’re in a hurry to go to the tenth floor, it
   is a good habit that helps you stays healthy, one step at a time.
2. Exercise at your desk at least once a day. WebMD has a good article on exercises you can do at or around your desk.
3. Run. Running is cheap (all you need are good shoes and a pair of shorts), effective and easy to fit in your schedule, plus you can listen to audiobooks or recorded lectures if you insist on multitasking.
4. Do push-ups. Push-ups require no equipment at all, which fits perfectly the student budget. Want a program to follow? Check out one hundred pushups
5. Use exercise bands. They’re cheap, small (especially important if you live in a dorm) and can be used for a total body workout. I use them while watching TV.

Want to read more about fitness? Check out my favorite fitness blog, Get Fit Slowly.

Photo: thefirebottle

Since I entered grad school, one thing I have been struggling with is trying to keep up with all the current research being published. In finance, there are three top journals (Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics and Review of Financial Studies), so in order to stay current my routine was to go on each of their website monthly (or more often bi-monthly) to look at the new papers. However, that meant looking at about 40-50 papers, so I usually picked only a few papers based on the title and authors and only looked at the abstracts for those papers. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in the other papers, it’s just that it seemed too time consuming to look at all of those papers in one session.

I’ve been a big user of RSS for a while now, subscribing to dozens of blogs (to subscribe to PS, use the big subscribe link in the top-right corner), news service and craigslist search results. Lately, I realized that the publishers of the top finance journals – Elsevier, Wiley InterScience and Oxford Journals – all offer RSS feeds to subscribe to the journals.
Obviously, you still need a paid subscription (usually through your institution) to access the full papers, but the convenience of RSS subscriptions is a big time saver for me. Not all journals are created equal however. For JF and RFS, I get the list of papers only when a new issue comes out. For JFE (published by Elsevier), I get frequent updates whenever a paper gets accepted for publication.

No matter what your field is, I’m confident that the most important journals should have RSS feeds too. If they don’t, it’s probably just a matter of time (but you can speed things up by emailing the publisher).

If your don’t already have a RSS feed reader, the most popular one (according to the stats of PS) are Google Reader and NewsGator Online.
On my Mac I use NetNewsWire, a free feed reader that syncs with its companion app on iPhone and iPod Touch. The windows software from the same company, FeedDemon, also syncs with the iPhone app. You can also subscribe directly in Firefox or Safari.

Alisa Miller at MatchACollege.com posted a list of 100 Blogs that Will Save You Time & Make You More Productive.

In this list, you’ll find many student-oriented and academia-oriented blogs.

Thanks to Alisa for including Productive Scholar in her list!

Photo: Ronnie Garcia

As a grad student, I have a lot of important files on my computer. For that reason, I do regular backups (and you should too!) of all my files to an external hard drive using Time Machine. While such a backup solution is fine for mp3s, some files require more than that. I cannot imagine losing files from my research projects or my working papers (I’m shivering just by writing about it). Countless hours of work would be lost, which would surely result in a large financial loss if it delays my studies.

To protect me against that catastrophic scenario, I use an online backup solution from Mozy [if you signup following that link, I get 0.25GB more for free and so do you!]. All I had to do is install the MozyClient software (available Windows and Mac) on my computer and now my files get backed up regularly, automatically. Best of all, since my most important files are rather small (text and code), the free service of 2GB is quite enough for my needs (for now at least). If the worst ever happens, I can restore my files using the MoxyClient software, via a web interface or have them ship me my files on DVD (that last option isn’t free, obviously). If the 2 GB isn’t enough for you, the unlimited plan is $4.95/month, one of the cheapest on the market.

Here is a quick list of online backup solutions with free plans:

• Mozy: My favorite, this is the one I use. Mac and Windows, 2GB for free.
• Dropbox: Mac, Windows and Linux, 2GB for free.
• Box.net: Web-based, 1GB for free. Offers collaboration features.
• humyo.com: Windows only, 10GB for free.

Photo: Moriza

I chose to live in downtown Vancouver instead of on campus for many reasons and I’m really happy with my decision. However, there is one big drawback to living off campus: the time spent commuting. I take the bus every day and my commute takes me about 1h30 (45 min each way). I use the bus for three main reasons:

1. At UBC, a bus pass is included with your tuition (you pay for it, but you can’t opt out). Therefore, commuting by bus is virtually free (no extra cost).
2. I don’t own a car. I just find it cheaper to rent one every time I need it. Car sharing services like Zipcar are very convenient for those in my situation.
3. My daily bus ride is a great time to be productive and get things done.

Indeed, there are many things you can get done while on the bus (or in the subway):

• Read: The most obvious and the one I do the most often. I try to bring on the bus reading material that isn’t to bulky, like magazines, academic papers, lecture notes or small books. My favorite bookmark is the post it note. With a sticky note, you can mark not only a page but also a line on the page. Since it is cheap and disposable, you can also use it to take notes or to keep a list of sections to read in a book.
• Listen to audiobooks: Some people don’t like to read on the bus, and that’s fine. Listening to audiobooks is one alternative to reading. There are a lot of books available for purchase from Audible and iTMS or you can make your own using text to speech software (some have a text to mp3 function). One of my favorite magazine, The Economist, offers an audio version for free to its subscribers.
• Clear your inbox: If you’re lucky enough to have a Blackberry or an iPhone (not yet available in Canda… one day maybe), your commute can be a good time to clear your inbox and respond to all your emails/facebook mails/other forms of electronic communications.
• Brainstorm: Let’s be realistic, you won’t get any real work done like writing a paper on the bus. However, with a pen and a small piece of paper, it can be a good place to start brainstorming or organizing your ideas.

One thing I consider a must-have if you want to do anything productive in public transportation are headphones (preferrably attached to something like an iPod). I personnaly use some cheap “noise cancelling” earbuds from Skullcandy, but with a bigger budget I would definitely go for the Bose ones.