About this Blog...Again

I started this a little bit late, since I am at the IDS since already 5 Months. But as I am convinced of the interest of managing such a blog, I will maintain this blog throughout my PhD. The documentation and communication potential of keeping such a virtual notebook are immense and wasn't it the high amount of tasks and challenges one has to face when starting his professional career, I'd have been doing this since a long time ago (I already hear the Blog-wolves laughing and thinking "Well, you'll have even less time when you get olderbuddy" :D).

One of the things that always kept me reminded that I'd eventually have to start my own PhD blog, is that it seems that today, everybody has his own PhD blog, starting with Sebastian, my colleague here at IDS and fellow PhD student. If you look at how often people in the IT branch have blogs, and the quality of content some of them produce on these blogs, one is astonished. It is certainly a high cost to produce such quality, and PhD students are not well placed in terms of time availability :D

I am one of those guys who somehow alwayws have 1000 projects and find it very hard to bring each one them to the end...well almost ;-) So I thought this should not also happen with my PhD Blog project and decided to get started just today. But I have learned through years to optimize my energy...I still need to work on my prioritization of tasks, which sometimes gives the impression that I am not well organized, but when people have a look at the amount of things I have to deal with in my mind, they understand that one sometimes has organization problems. As far as the PhD is concerned, Organization of time, of tasks and an intelligent prioritization are an absolute necessity. And on the contrary to what many people think, there are lots of software tools which can really help, if one knows which ones to use and how to use them. I will often deal with organization and work methods here in this blog, since this I have always been trying to optimize.

So, this blog is not a premature infant, it is destined to deal with business and scientific topics, most of them research related. But I will also try to present what a postgraduate dissertation in an industrial context really looks like, and why one should or should not opt for it. Organization and work methods are also a great topic of interest to me, so don't hesitate to let me know if you have interesting things to tell about it. For now, the slot I reserved for writing this post is over, I'll get on with the next task for today :D

Marwane