On Finishing Papers

It was a good day - I put in a good solid couple of hours and finally finished a paper that I'd been working on for over a year and a half. Now I can send it out to a couple of extremely picky friends for their comments, and then (if they can't find any major holes in it), I can submit it to a journal.

I'm more and more convinced that two keys to succeeding in academia are writing every day and getting projects done in sequence. I have a disturbing tendency to start new projects before I've finished my existing ones. So, I end up like the guy spinning plates on the old Ed Sullivan Show - running from project to project, but never getting any one thing done.

So now, I have to finish a few things before I start anything new. That way I won't have a mob of coauthors yelling for my head.

For some great advice on this topic, click here to see what vegrevlle had to say -- he makes a lot of sense.