2017 - Here we come!

Welcome back! I hope you had a great break and a good transition into the New Year! As it turns out, we have several different New Years to celebrate in the lab thanks to the fact that I have the privilege to work with scientists from all over the world (and for whom the New Year starts on different days).

I spent some time during the holidays thinking about the Frohlich Lab and neuroscience in general. Clearly, this is now the time to tackle difficult, creative, and perhaps craze neuroscience research - given the collaborative nature of the field and the amount of funding for neuroscience with the BRAIN initiative. In fact, I feel it is our responsibility to break away from well trodden paths and be bold to try new things!

Before we get into that, I just wanted to share with you some of ways how I prepared for 2017. Hopefully some of this is of help to you!

• I prepared a strategic plan for 2017 which organizes projects, people, and resources. I got great help from lab members to finalize the document, which is really a table that fills one page. Overall, we are very happy with our organization into teams (something I wrote about earlier). We have added a fourth team which focuses on the development of neurotechnology to better organize the hardware and software engineering that is ongoing in the lab.
• I cleaned out all my drawers and book shelves in my office (no more paper etc!). I have even managed to sell back some books I bought in graduate school. Liberating!
• I spent some time thinking about what is truly important to me at work. Clearly, educating and mentoring the next generation of scientists/engineers/etc is my greatest passion. I am very privileged to have earned the trust of my lab members to work with them to maximize their potential to enable their own professional success. And yes, this sometimes also involves uncomfortable but important conversations about progress etc (which I enjoy much less).
• I am working on becoming more mindful and on eliminating distractions and unproductive multitasking. It is very scary how days have gone by in 2016 with "being VERY busy" but still being discontent about what I achieved at the end of the day. My wife has opened the world of mindfulness to me and I am convinced about its importance.

I will keep you posted as the year progresses to see if these things are making a difference. For now, I wish you all the best for your New Year and I am looking forward to building and expanding the network of people with whom I interact. Please reach out to me if you have anything you would like to discuss or where you feel I would be able to help you with.

Yours,

Flavio