Building at the Crossover of Research and Entrepreneurship - Optimizing my Work Ethic
Framework to produce valuable work. Relevant for anyone who doesn't get well-defined or externally imposed goals.
Before you start working for an organisation, you are basically working in solitude. And the challenge with working solo is that there are no defined and externally imposed goals. You don’t have a laid-out path.
This is a scenario I find myself in every other week or every other month. It is like working at the crossover of research and entrepreneurship.
Research to lay out the goals for your project and leverage entrepreneurship to create or build something that is valuable for someone out there. Aim for it to be truly remarkable. Even if it fails, it should prove your potential to build or solve things.
But this is easier said than done. It is a dynamic system with many moving parts and one can establish and perfect it by putting in consistent efforts over time.
Here’s what I have learned so far in the process of developing a framework that keeps me in the loop for the long run:
1. Read across diverse interests
With no clear ideas or interests to delve deep into, this is going to give you a lot of perspective on how you can leverage different topics and link them to build something valuable.
It is a habit that you’ll have to build and over time it will become a mindset that will thrive on solving complex problems across domains.
It fertilizes your mind with a rich collection of ideas that you can draw inspiration from. Apart from ideas, it allows you to build a network of diversely talented people that you can reach out to.
I recommend reading research papers(something I struggle at but find fascinating at the same time), you can log on to ArXiv for a good source of research papers.
Check out the art of reading scientific research papers, it has everything you need on reading research papers, sources, tools, how-to, and symptoms.
2. Work on two projects
This might sound conflicting to many of you but working on two projects has its upsides. Working without any externally imposed goal can take a toll on your sanity and make you complacent as one project starts to fail.
On any given day, work on a single project to minimize context switching. It also makes sense to have both projects under the same domain so that learnings from one project can be applied to another.
Working on two projects will also allow you to work on a high-risk(in terms of uncertainty) and an ambitious project as you can always go back to a low-risk project without wasting any more time. Having a simpler project in your work portfolio is a hedge against time wasted in case of failure of the more ambitious project.
Not to mention, you always stay motivated and excited to work on slightly different things without being bogged down by one.
3. Tap into your deep interests
Finding a good project to work on can be challenging especially when you are witnessing such remarkable projects being done in ML, NLP, or computer vision on a daily basis.
A good strategy is to explore the intersection of what you are deeply interested in, what is impactful, and what can utilize your unique self.
There is no single path to finding your next/first big breakthrough project. You’ll have to play to your strengths, learn to maximize the impact by leveraging your unique skills.
Often your unique skills will bud from your knowledge of specific topics, your history of achievements, or your way of learning something.
If you are a strong programmer, implement technically complex algorithms. If you are a creative individual, produce graphs and charts that help enhance the interpretability of models. If you are good at math, showcase your proofs by solving equations. If you are a good communicator, reach out to folks who complement your skills and abilities. Build together.
4. Write every day
Be it your daily journal, documentation, report, or your blog(highly recommended), practice writing as much as you can. It helps you cut through the noise coming from your own mind.
Put your train of thought onto a piece of paper or a google doc. Be honest with yourself and don’t try to glorify or justify what you think. Be as objective as possible. You’ll soon realize the potential in your ideas.
Besides clarity, writing helps you communicate your findings clearly which in itself is a highly regarded job. Skills to articulate your work and ideas differentiate the best from the mediocre work.
A good way to start writing is to start blogging. Write about what you have learned and explain it as well as you can even if it requires you to go back and learn that topic again. Help folks who are just one step behind you.
Many of my initial blogs started like this. I analyzed a dataset, I wrote about it. To my surprise, it helped me with my first freelancing gig as an instructor with O’Reilly Media.
Don’t pay heed to unconstructive feedback, focus on creating valuable content.
The framework is still a work in progress. I struggle at some parts every week but it always keeps me in the loop which is what I wanted. All I need from here on is to perfect it to a degree where I can keep generating value without running out of ideas, possibilities, and motivation.
Recommended reads
For more on developing your own framework and how to work hard, I recommend these two articles by Paul Graham:
Another very interesting piece that I read was by Andrej Karpathy, in his blog, A survival guide to a PhD, he has shared many valuable tips that I feel are applicable to anyone who likes to teach themselves(autodidact) or independent researchers.
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