Troubles in Thesis Town (transmissions)
Finishing my thesis has been quite the exercise in frustration in some parts and I’m not sure what lesson to take from it.
I’ve been told by several people (who seem to have a decent or at least base level of being organized and on top of their things) smth along the lines of “oh wow, you are so organized!”1, which always felt weird to hear. On the one hand, I’m used to my level and it feels normal to me, yet, I feel like I’m not doing it right, bad things happen and they push me more towards getting more organized, taking more ownership, tracking more stuff.
Each time I see that smth has fallen through some crack or doesn’t go as planned I’m quite aware of it and feel bad, want to do better next time. Which means, that my level feels like the bare minimum, not “so organized”. I don’t like that there are near-misses bc that means those things burned through all the safety and slack that was there. Maybe barely caught by the last layer or through a stroke of luck.
But ofc one can take it too far, one shouldn’t catch every flight booked, as the saying goes. Slack is important but having a too-large safety net comes at a cost of its own. I realize that.
Yet, I feel like I ought to have avoided another issue around my thesis:
For the most part that I’ve worked w my supervisor, things went fine and like he’s on top of things etc. This year, we’ve had two scheduled meetings where we didn’t really have anything to discuss bc he lost track of a task (reviewing content I had sent him so that he could give me feedback during our meeting and that I know how to continue onwards). Which wasn’t just frustrating bc I waited for and attended meetings that were essentially pointless, kept those parts of the day free, but also bc I had waited for them to happen and had not much to do, only to have to wait more still.
From this I took that I will have to follow up on what I had sent and remind him. This seems bad: now I have to keep track of someone else’s task and if this were to generalize then everyone this person works w has to spam his inbox w reminders, which just creates more clutter.
This time, I’ve not gotten the promised feedback before Easter (and his current holidays following that), despite having sent the reminder email. Which means I have to either submit without incorporating the feedback I had waited for, or go beyond the vague deadline we had agreed upon. But also, I don’t want to take the lesson from this that I have to send multiple reminders.
But whilst filling out the forms I need I was looking for the title I had sent the examination office via email. Which I couldn’t find. I knew we had agreed on a title and that it was on a form. How is it not here?! Did I really mess this up?! Did I never register my own thesis?!?!
Noup, turns out I had submitted it to my supervisor who needed to stamp and sign it. Reasonably, he’d have sent it straight to the examination office and put me in CC or BCC; maybe he forgot to add me and I just never received that email? Or… maybe he never did this. Maybe my thesis, which I wanted to submit now, isn’t. even. registered.
Where do reasonable precautions end?
Now, a philosophy I like to follow is that of seeking responsibility in everything. There’s not always smth that would have made sense to differently (the optimal degree isn’t the end of an infinite, straight line, but the peak of a curve), but generally, if smth didn’t go as one wishes, there are usually ways one could have done better. Finding those things and improving is important to me. It requires accepting responsibility for things, rather than thinking in fault. I’ve probably at least partially taken this from HPJEV’s heroic responsibility (although I think he’s taking it too far2).
“You could call it heroic responsibility, maybe,” Harry Potter said. “Not like the usual sort. It means that whatever happens, no matter what, it’s always your fault. Even if you tell Professor McGonagall, she’s not responsible for what happens, you are. Following the school rules isn’t an excuse, someone else being in charge isn’t an excuse, even trying your best isn’t an excuse. There just aren’t any excuses, you’ve got to get the job done no matter what.” Harry’s face tightened. “That’s why I say you’re not thinking responsibly, Hermione. Thinking that your job is done when you tell Professor McGonagall - that isn’t heroine thinking. Like Hannah being beat up is okay then, because it isn’t your fault anymore. Being a heroine means your job isn’t finished until you’ve done whatever it takes to protect the other girls, permanently.” In Harry’s voice was a touch of the steel he had acquired since the day Fawkes had been on his shoulder. “You can’t think as if just following the rules means you’ve done your duty.” – HPMOR Chapter 75
Here, I could have kept track of this better, could have started w the assumption that this important thing will go wrong and see how and create tasks, reminders, etc. that make me make sure it didn’t go wrong. I didn’t. I assumed that he’ll either send it off to the examination office or send the things back to me once signed and stamped, and then I’ll have a task called ”- [ ] send signed thesis registration form to examination office”. I should have already had that task and only checked it off once I received final confirmation that they have received it from someone.
This seems like a good update, but also… there’s some bad feeling (resentment?) towards tracking tasks of others. Tracking my own tasks is a clear line, but once I track others’ tasks… where does it end?
Like, this update itself seems good to do, but I really don’t want to update too much.
Neither sacrifice opportunities by having too large a safety net, nor constantly bug everyone about whether they’ve already done this or that3.
So… where do reasonable precautions end?
Where is the peak of that curve, with its costs being in different currencies on the two sides:
Things falling through or failing, deadlines being missed, etc. on the one side VS excessive cognitive load and opportunities lost to that, as well as social friction and taking away growth from close-ones on one the other side.
Ofc, a simple, general policy here doesn’t work, as much as I’d like it to: I can’t just derive the shape in the land of perfectly spherical cows and apply it everywhere.
I can only be more mindful, catch changes like “supervisor went from not having missed anything to having missed one thing (and later on: to having missed two things)”, bring them to my conscious attention and make small adjustments. As well as adjusting based on how important it is to get this right.
Footnotes
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granted, for a while I did have a notion database (which got discontinued) w ~all the items I owned to better keep track of things and be able to query where X is (e.g. lent out to Y, in wardrobe, etc.) ↩
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in particular, “you’ve got to get the job done no matter what.” (emph mine) is bad thinking. Unless you’re a paperclip maximizer, you wouldn’t want to do smth no matter what. You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t throw away literally all other value just for a marginal increase in this one thing (or marginal % increase of the thing succeeding). Pick your battles, Harry. Sure, save Hannah, but at reasonable costs and efforts. Maybe large costs and efforts, but not infinite. There’s more than one good to be done, more than one cause to support. ↩
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on the one hand, not wanting to be annoying and taking on the social cost of that, on the other hand: I’d rather not have my close-ones get into the habit of relying on my check-ins and tracking and don’t develop capacity themselves. ↩