--- title: Prioritizing Problems to Work on author: Colton Grainger status: notes --- What metaphors are available for prioritizing work on scientific problems? I collect and list "methods for choosing the problems to work on". Consider the shape of the solution space. > Jean Yang: Something I really like about your work is how there's a very > strong theoretical foundation, but it's also potentially very useful. I was > wondering how you choose the problems to work on. > > Azadeh Farzan: My method is rather personal. I have a first level test that > goes like this. If someone would come to me and say that this other person > just solved this and there's a talk, would I want to immediately drop > everything and go to the talk? The problem being an important and interesting > one is naturally an aspect of this. > > The second part has to do with the solution space. I would say that this part > is half indulgent. I should really enjoy working in that solution space. By > that, I mean the sort of subproblems that need to be solved on the path to > addressing the original problem. They should be fun to do. I should not be > able to go to bed at night because of I am working on one of them and I just > can’t give up. Naturally, things don’t always pan out like that, but by > aiming for that, at least about thirty percent of my work ends up being pure > joy for me. Also recognize frontier exploration, while fringe, could just be easier because standards don't yet exist. > ...publishing in a new problem space is often (but not always) easier because > standards are not yet established for what really counts as a contribution > there, and in contrast, things very easily get labeled as “incremental” in an > established problem area. I really love how broad POPL is. The same broadness > also hinders efforts, from the community, to come together and identify the > top problems in PL and define standards of (scientific ways of) measuring > progress towards these common goals. I wish we could put more of an effort in > this as a community, even if it is a challenge, considering how broad POPL > is. [Interview with Azadeh Farzan. Jean Yang. [“People of Programming Languages”](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~popl-interviews/farzan.html). Retrieved April 3, 2018.] ## structured procrastination ["I feel like my life is just one giant structured procrastination."](https://youtu.be/fIsYCSP6lUs?t=22m31s) From > Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize > their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they > will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the > basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of > motivation. The few tasks on his list will be by definition the most > important, and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This > is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being. > > At this point you may be asking, "How about the important tasks at the top of > the list, that one never does?" Admittedly, there is a potential problem > here. > > The trick is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list. The > ideal sorts of things have two characteristics, First, they seem to have > clear deadlines (but really don't). Second, they seem awfully important (but > really aren't). Luckily, life abounds with such tasks. In universities the > vast majority of tasks fall into this category, and I'm sure the same is true > for most other large institutions. Take for example the item right at the top > of my list right now. This is finishing an essay for a volume in the > philosophy of language. It was supposed to be done eleven months ago. I have > accomplished an enormous number of important things as a way of not working > on it. A couple of months ago, bothered by guilt, I wrote a letter to the > editor saying how sorry I was to be so late and expressing my good intentions > to get to work. Writing the letter was, of course, a way of not working on > the article. It turned out that I really wasn't much further behind schedule > than anyone else. And how important is this article anyway? Not so important > that at some point something that seems more important won't come along. Then > I'll get to work on it. > > ... > > The observant reader may feel at this point that structured procrastination > requires a certain amount of self-deception, since one is in effect > constantly perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself. Exactly. One needs to be > able to recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and > unreal deadlines, while making oneself feel that they are important and > urgent. ## see also - [“On Avoiding Stress Culture”](https://jxyzabc.blogspot.com/2016/09/on-avoiding-stress-culture.html). Retrieved April 23, 2018. - Gregory Mone. [“Radhika Nagpal built a thousand bots to find out how they would behave as a swarm”](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602100/robo-swarm/). MIT Technology Review. Retrieved April 23, 2018. - Radhika Nagpal. [“The Awesomest 7-Year Postdoc or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-Track Faculty Life”](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-awesomest-7-year-postdoc-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-tenure-track-faculty-life/). Scientific American Blog Network. Retrieved April 23, 2018.