[UPBEAT MUSIC] So I think the best times for coming up with ideas for papers have been the most natural times when you're not expecting it. So you could be cooking, you could be cleaning, you could be even in the shower. And an idea comes to you, you think, actually, I think I read something-- there's something interesting about this. And I wonder if anyone's done this. Those are the kind of things that I've-- those are my best papers. They've come from that work. But you can get them from conferences. You can get them from-- you can get them from reading papers. You can get them from talking to colleagues. Just try to use the energy. You try to use the excitement that you get from that to try and follow that up. [UPBEAT MUSIC] I think it depends on the person and it depends on the paper, it depends on the research. So if you're doing a registered report, you've got an idea of what you're writing already. You've written the introduction, you're then going on with what you have to go on writing. I think for me, I tend to follow-- I tend to go with the methods first and then I go for the results, then the introduction, and then it's the discussion. I do it that way, because I think by that point I'm really engrossed and really entertained with the paper. And the discussion is the chance for you to be really creative. It's a chance for you to say, well, what's been previously done, how has this work following on from that, and then where can I be creative. What am I actually adding to this body of evidence. And I think that's a really exciting part. [UPBEAT MUSIC] As someone who has been consistently stuck in these writing block periods, not the best person to give advice, but I've had plenty of advice given to me. And I think what's worked for me in the past is just trying to find a time when you're actually able to write. There's no point sitting down first thing in the morning and going, I'm going to write 2000 words today. It's just not going to happen. If you put that pressure on yourself, you're just going to be staring at a blank screen. So what you have to do is just find a time that actually works for you. For me, my time for kicking on is in the afternoon-- three o'clock, four o'clock. So what I'll try to do, just at the end of the day when I have to start doing other stuff around my home life, I just start getting into it. And I start, hopefully, carving out some time for writing in that period of time. But that doesn't work for everyone. So if you can try to find a time that works for you, try to aim that time. Block it out as much as possible. Try to minimise the distractions. It's so easy just to go into your phone. It's so easy to go, just quickly check Twitter and just see if there's anything there and then I'll come straight back to it. That doesn't always-- that's a bad idea. The other thing that I think has been really great recently is trying to picture what you want to write. What I sometimes do is make a presentation even if I'm not presenting it. So just saying this is the key points, the messages I want to take home. It's this point, it's this point, it's this point, next slide. And I find that some of the best papers I've ever written have come from presentations that I've given, just because I have a really simple structure. I'm not over waffling it, I'm not over-complicating it. It's just a simple structure of what I'm trying to say. [UPBEAT MUSIC] Yeah. And that balance just doesn't seem to get better as you get older or more experienced in your career, so terrible, terrible advice. But yeah, I think what you've got to do is just have to have the expectation that things are not always going to go to plan. You could say, on Monday, I'm going to do my writing. Tuesday, I'm going to do my analysis. Wednesday, I'm going to read papers. Thursday, I'm going to do for supervision. And Friday, I'll be able to catch up on all the things I've missed out. That's not going to happen. Something is going to come up. Something always comes up. So just having that expectation that yes, you can have all these plans to do writing on a Monday or a Tuesday, but something is going to come up. And just being aware and trying to be flexible with that, but also trying to carve in time. So if something is more important, say for instance, you've got a paper that's been on your desk, you've got the analysis, you've got the analysis done, you've got the methods done, you just need to write the intro and discussion. Pushing that forward to the beginning of the week, where there's less things that can interrupt that, that could actually be quite beneficial. That's something I found to be quite good in the recent times. [UPBEAT MUSIC] Yeah. So we were all early career researchers at one point, all nervous and excited about our papers. Are they going to be accepted, are they going to go into the journals. I think what you just have to understand is the balance of expectation. Journals are getting hundreds and hundreds of papers. They're getting more papers than they've ever had now. Science is exploding at a very fast rate. So if your paper doesn't get accepted, if it gets rejected at first, if it doesn't go for review, it's not personal. No one's ever going, I don't like that person, I don't like how they've written it, this is not a good paper. That's just not the case. It could be the journal or the people that you're working with who are being slow to give you drafts or responses. There's just other things going on. It's not personal. But try to stay motivated, try to be engaged, try to do your best to try and produce the best work you can do, and eventually you will be successful. [UPBEAT MUSIC] Yeah. So to my younger self, I would probably just say just try to be resilient. There's going to be good times and there's going to be a lot of bad times. The bad times are probably sometimes going to outweigh the good times. And when the good times come, you have to ride the wave. You have to embrace it. You have to celebrate the little wins. Try to manage your expectations. Try to manage your workload. Really good advice I got was, you'll always overestimate how much you can achieve in a day, but you'll always underestimate how much you can achieve in a month. Try to balance that and try to take that with you so that you're not disappointed at the end of the day. [UPBEAT MUSIC]