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[carebearstare]

I am dedicating this thread to my beloved backburner project, the one I started with such enthusiasm last year yet whose lack of a deadline means that it is never at the top of the to-do list.

I love this project and crave getting it out the door. But something always gets in the way. It's thankfully perennial, but there are a few other people out there who have gotten wind of it, and I'd like to finish it sooner rather than later. But how?

Any advice, commiserations, or paeans to your own backburner projects welcome. 

[boston]

I can commiserate with Carebearstare. I have three different backburner projects, all in various stages of progress. Unfortunately, my backburner projects are somewhat outside of my normal area of research and so they continually get pushed to the side when more immediate concerns arise. If I can't finish one in the next year, I might as well give up because the data is aging and the results are slowly losing their resonance.

[msparticularity]

I moved mine to the front burner by making it the subject of an NSF grant proposal. Doing that had two effects: 1) I got a lot more done to articulate it, since this was needed to write a coherent application, and 2) there's the possibility someone will actually fund me to really focus on it. The second is still up in the air, of course, but the first part does mean I've made progress already.

Of course, now some of my more predictable nuts-and-bolts stuff has ended up on the back burner, and I need to figure out what to do about it.

[johnr]

I have a couple of those myself. The only way they ever seem to get done for me is to take on a grad student to do it.  Then it's his or her ONLY burner and you can put as much or as little time into it a you'd like.  Depending upon the project, and your funds, you can hire a student worker, senior-project student (free!), M.S. student, Ph.D. student, R.A., or Post-Doc.

[carebearstare]

I have a couple of those myself. The only way they ever seem to get done for me is to take on a grad student to do it.  Then it's his or her ONLY burner and you can put as much or as little time into it a you'd like.  Depending upon the project, and your funds, you can hire a student worker, senior-project student (free!), M.S. student, Ph.D. student, R.A., or Post-Doc.

I've thought about going this route, but I always worry that putting a student on the project might be more trouble than its worth. So far (in my admittedly limited experience), working with students can be inefficient.

I love the idea of writing a grant for my backburner project. Since I'm not in a disciplines where grants are the norm, it hadn't occurred to me.

Does anybody have a backburner project that they like more than a current research project? I'm beginning to wish that I hadn't agreed to writing a book chapter that's due soon so I could turn more attention to mine.

[johnr]

I've thought about going this route, but I always worry that putting a student on the project might be more trouble than its worth. So far (in my admittedly limited experience), working with students can be inefficient.

Yes, a very real concern.  I was going to mention it, but I didn't want to rain on my own parade.

[msparticularity]

I've thought about going this route, but I always worry that putting a student on the project might be more trouble than its worth. So far (in my admittedly limited experience), working with students can be inefficient.

Yes, a very real concern.  I was going to mention it, but I didn't want to rain on my own parade.

My experiences indicate that it's either really wonderful, or truly horrible. I have had one of each now, and have just begun several(!) more. Ideally, I think, the project works best if it becomes more of a collaboration than an imposition by the faculty member; if the student has some genuine interest/stake in the whole thing, it really does change the character of the interactions. Also, though, I'm a really, really collaborative person, so I really enjoy it when the research process becomes transformed through the new insights, ideas and questions a student collaborator can bring. For someone who has a very clear and set idea what they want, though, getting another person involved can just be frustrating since they'll really never do things quite the way you would.

[socsci]

I've thought about going this route, but I always worry that putting a student on the project might be more trouble than its worth. So far (in my admittedly limited experience), working with students can be inefficient.

Yes, a very real concern.  I was going to mention it, but I didn't want to rain on my own parade.

My experiences indicate that it's either really wonderful, or truly horrible. I have had one of each now, and have just begun several(!) more. Ideally, I think, the project works best if it becomes more of a collaboration than an imposition by the faculty member; if the student has some genuine interest/stake in the whole thing, it really does change the character of the interactions. Also, though, I'm a really, really collaborative person, so I really enjoy it when the research process becomes transformed through the new insights, ideas and questions a student collaborator can bring. For someone who has a very clear and set idea what they want, though, getting another person involved can just be frustrating since they'll really never do things quite the way you would.

My experience with RA's has been mixed. I assigned one to work on a backburner project for me last semester and collect some data, and hu only finished today. But it should be good work.

I like the idea of doing real collaborations with grad students. I'm certainly at a point where I can afford to share credit, and it sounds like it could be fun. I just finished a project with one of our Ph.D.s; oddly, I wasn't on hu's committee but I had had hu as a TA. It went really well, and we are planning a second project together starting maybe next month. I've also seen some very successful examples of collaboration between former professors and their grad students that went on for many years.

[normative_]

I concur that it's either very good or worse than not having an RA. My field is specialised and it's very difficult to find a suitable person. So...for example, the grant money I was going to spend hiring a grad student this year will get spent on...reducing the cost of my salary to the university. The uni likes that but I don't...I'm back to to the overtime or backburner issue in order to carry through on the project. I did have a couple of good prospects, but they all went off into international projects with career opportunities. Them's the breaks.

I felt bad about that until I talked to my colleagues recently and learned they had hired grad student RAs only to have to let them go before probation was up. One has been through several and finally gave up recently.

[galactic_hedgehog]

All my research is on the backburner.  Hell, the flame's not even on.  But, I'm at a CC, so it's not publish or perish for me.