5 Computer based tools no Chinese medicine student should be without
While I’ve been working on my January Year of Sagely Living goal, I’ve really had to increase my efficiency in a number of respects. I’m doing a fairly good job keeping to my basic commitment, but I’ve had to spend an unusual amount of time finding the holes in my various systems. It’s an interesting by-product of the whole thing, that while the focus of this month is scholarship, it has changed me in ways that will ultimately be beneficial for more than just my study of Chinese medicine. I think, in a way, that’s the point of the whole Year of Sagely Living. To show that the principles of Chinese medicine, when instantiated in daily life, have benefits far beyond what would initially seem likely.
I thought I’d just mention some of the tools that have come out on top as I’ve refined my system. I’ve mentioned a couple of these before, but it might be nice to have them all in one place. All of these tools are worth the time it takes to learn them.
1. Rootdown.us and TCM Assistant : When it comes to quickly accessing basic Chinese medicine information, no sites are easier to use and easier to trust than these. Rootdown includes the “community editing” features that make sites like Wikipedia so popular. TCM Assistant has the edge of something a bit neglected, but has a wider database of formulas, so I turn to it when I can’t find something on Rootdown. There are other Chinese medicine websites, but they are mostly badly designed and/or too infrequently updated to be of any real use.
2. Google Book search and Google Blog search : With these two tools, you can find pretty obscure information that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to find. The book search does full text searching of a number of books, with some having many pages available online. Even if you can’t read all of the information you desire, you have at least a better idea of where to look for the info you’re after. Blog search is an easy way to look across the blogosphere quickly and efficiently to see what “real people” are saying about a given topic.
3. PubMed, Blue Poppy’s article search, your school library’s databases : I like to cover all my bases. In finding information on Chinese medicine, you have a lot of resources at your disposal. Your books, lecture notes, professors and peers, nature herself, patients, the websites I listed above… it’s incredible, really. Here are three more tools to help round out your personal Chinese medicine info warehouse.
PubMed is a huge clearinghouse for information in nearly all of the major journals of all kinds of medicine, including Chinese medicine. Some of the journals even have full text available for free. If you’re looking for any published research studies on Chinese medicine topics, this is probably the first place to start. Blue Poppy recently opened their article database for free use - an event I enthusiastically blogged about a while ago. It’s a great resource of first-rate information on a variety of Chinese medicine topics. Finally, don’t neglect the databases your library provides as well as - of course - the library itself! I’m always shocked to find how few folks actually use their libraries as they are intended to be used - freely!
4. Omnifocus or kGTD w/Omnioutliner : To use these tools effectively, you need to have read David Allen’s Getting Things Done
These electronic tools are elegant and powerful ways to implement the core processes of GTD, but they would probably also be useful for anyone trying to get a better handle on the projects they are working on. Total, it has probably taken me about 48 hours to fully understand and implement GTD and Omnifocus. 48 hours well spent. I’ve probably saved that much time and frustration since getting to full implementation. Now that it’s set up, it only requires about two hours a week to keep in perfect working condition. I rarely forget an appointment or deadline, I’m often prepared well in advance of exams and I find myself with plenty of time and energy to work on “side projects” like this website.
5. Bookburro, a Firefox extension : Now, obviously, this requires that you’re using Firefox. I can’t imagine a single reason NOT to use Firefox. Please, just go get it. You can import all of your bookmarks from IE or whatever other web browser you’re using. It won’t hurt, really. Then go look at all the awesome add-ons you can hook on to expand Firefox’s functionality. I only use a few, but my beloved is Book Burro. In short, this extension helps you to find the book you want at the cheapest price possible. With just a few clicks, you can configure it to search all of the book selling websites, PLUS all the public and big college libraries in your area. It will give you a list of all the book websites and their best price for the book, as well any relatively nearby libraries that carry the book and their distance from your location. I’ve saved around $500 over my Chinese medicine school career because of this little program. It’s incredible, seriously.
Taken together, these five tools probably compose only 40% of my on-computer time, but probably account for 75% of the eventual results! I hope you will find similar successes using them.
Eric
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Tags: Blogging, books, getting things done, habits, internet, productivity, students, study, Technology, websites, Year of Sagely LivingRelated posts
Five simple ways I get more than 24 hours in a day
My Year of Sagely Living began in earnest with the start of classes yesterday at 8:30am. This week is going to be a little different than future weeks because I haven’t yet started ALL of my classes, thus have less to study. This is balanced by the fact that I have a lot of little things to do (cashing refund checks, buying books, etc) - so my time commitment is pretty average. Because of the fact that the real test of my YSL commitment for January will only last two weeks (first week of January I wasn’t in class, and now this odd week) I plan to continue it through February along with my February commitments. Additionally, I resolved this year to reinvigorate my “Getting Things Done” (GTD) system and keep on top of my organizational efforts.
You might be thinking, “Are you insane?” You might also be thinking I’m a bit of a braggart. Neither are true. Why am I attempting to do all of this? Because I see my four years in medical school as a golden opportunity to grow as much as I can. I will never have this kind of access to these professors again. I may continue mentoring relationships with some of them outside of the class context - but I will be a practicing physician by that time and will not have the same kind of sheltered opportunity to study. So, I’m going to make the best of it. Regarding the braggart comment - I simply hope that by chronicling my efforts I can help other people to get through intellectually rigorous times in their lives. By serving as an example of both what to do and what not to do, maybe other people can succeed in their striving for excellence. I think a society of people doing that sounds like a pretty cool thing to be a part of - don’t you?
But, really, how do I find the time to do all of this? A few things are key:
1. I don’t watch television or spend significant time playing video games, randomly surfing the Internet or generally interacting with pop culture. If you’re in school for something you really care about, and yet you spend significant amounts of times on these activities, I feel that you need to re-evaluate what you’re doing. I don’t mean to sound harsh, and it’s perfectly possible that I’m dead wrong on this one. But when I hear that a fellow student has spent the entire evening watching television, and does so regularly, I find myself somewhat less compassionate when they fail exams. If you’re in school to learn something, dedicate yourself to learning it. It’s only four (or however many) years. You’ll live. Personally, I watch movies or television shows on DVD on Saturday nights with my family. This allows me to experience that kind of recreation without allowing it to infringe on my true desire - to learn this medicine. It also serves as a “double duty” activity - explained below.
2. I compartmentalize my time in such a way that I spend time with the people I love, and doing the things that I love to do, but only at times that will not interfere with studying, going to class, or blogging. I think that scheduling and making very “hard edges” around your scheduled times is vital to accomplishing goals. This is certainly the case when your life is very busy - if you are going to school AND working AND having a family, for instance. All this means is that you create “boxes” of time for the places, people and things that you love. Sundays are for family in my house. I don’t work, I play. I also spend time with my family around the dinner table each evening. We also watch movies together, as discussed before, on Saturdays. There are a few other short bursts of scheduled family time. Nothing changes this. Yet it is also understood that non-family time is for work, and that’s that. If this sounds restrictive to you, try it. For me, it enables a kind of giddy freedom. I never have to worry, when I’m working, that I’m not making time for my family. Because I have! When I’m hanging out with family, I never have to worry that I’m not getting my work done. It’s simple, really.
3. I’m constantly striving for higher and higher levels of organization and productivity, without fetishizing the tools and systems that allow me to achieve this. The most ironic thing in the personal productivity world is how much time people waste working, re-working, researching, discussing and generally fetishizing the systems that are supposed to make them more productive. This seems particularly the case when high technology becomes involved. Some systems are worth some work - GTD often takes a couple of days of pretty concentrated work to get figured out, for instance. But once I have my system set up, I stick to the system and leave it at that. As improvements become available, I hear about them soon enough. If something seems attractive, I’ll try it at some point. But, I don’t spend all of my time reading blogs and books about productivity, messing around with my system to make it pretty or more efficient or talking in forums to other folks about my system. It is these systems that enable me to do what I do - I don’t lose track of things (often), I always know where I’m supposed to be and when, and I do things before they’re supposed to be done. All of this saves me a lot of mental energy that I would otherwise waste running myself in mental circles. I’m not perfect in my adherence to my systems, but I’m consistently getting better.
4. I try to make as many things do double duty as possible. As I mentioned above, I like to make different activities multi-purpose. For instance, I love to play games. I’m especially fond of strategy games, but love classics, card games… pretty much anything. Fortunately, my family likes to play games, too. So we spend time together doing this once a week and as much as we can on vacations. It’s wonderful bonding time and satisfies my need to play around. Blogging is another example. By writing on this blog I’m doing a number of important and fun things. I’m sharing what I’m learning with others, I’m meeting new friends and building community, I’m creating a web presence for myself upon which I will build my eventual clinic website, I’m making a small amount of money with the potential for more and I’m often also studying (by writing articles on school related topics). It’s a high return activity!
5. I have an awesome family and tremendously understanding friends. I couldn’t do this without my family. We really help one another in a variety of concrete and intangible ways. My friends, also, are great for putting up with my frequent lapses of attention. In return, I try to be a supportive and caring person myself. I also try to practice giving 100% attention to them when they are in front of me. Funnily enough, this probably also does double duty in teaching me the skills necessary to be a good doctor, but I don’t focus on that.
Hopefully, all of this will help me to learn a lot from the Year of Sagely Living. In the next couple of days, I’ll report on what it was like to study 1/2 an hour in every subject every day. So far, so good.
Eric
Tags: balance, Blogging, getting things done, habits, Learning, productivity, study, studying, Year of Sagely LivingRelated posts
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