 Working in research often means a plethora of meetings, lectures, teaching duties, students to supervise, papers to write an edit and peer review. It's really difficult to be on top of things every day. So here are seven habits of productive researchers that you might want to take up for yourself. Number one, good time management skills and productivity methods. Often academic researchers will simply go with the flow when it comes to their work. Most productive researchers stick to a time management schedule. For example, when writing papers and struggling to get those words on the paper, they use pomodoros, which are timed segments of 25 minutes where you ignore all distractions and just focus at the task at hand. No editing, no overthinking, simply write for 25 minutes and then see what you come up with. Number two is always do the most mentally tasking tasks when you're at your most productive. For most people, this is the early morning, especially if you're an early bird in a research environment where the offices of your colleagues tend to be empty in the morning. Come early, have a nice quiet time and focus on the things that you need to focus on the most. Number three is dealing with interruptions. A lot of people in the research environments often struggle with uninvited knocks on their door or phone calls or students seeking advice, colleagues wanting a discussion or maybe social calls for some coffee. It's really difficult to not have your office be constantly buzzing with guests, be it them wanted or unwanted, but when you need to focus on something, maybe you can use a simple, non-invasive method that many researchers do use. Close your door, put a little paper sign on it, I have time to talk, yes or no, and a little arrow to it. Really simple but solves your problem. Number four, productive researchers don't check their email every five minutes. I know, I know, you're expected to always be in touch with colleagues from around the world, different time zones and the different stages of your project. But when you really need to focus on something, such as preparing your lecture plan or perhaps editing that paper after the first round of peer review, the best thing to do is shut off your email client, maybe block the notifications for incoming emails on your phone, take an hour, shut off social media and focus. Number five is have working hours. Again, academia is really inundated with long working hours. You work weekends, you work evening, but studies have shown that if you work for more than approximately 40 hours a week on a mentally tasking job, your productivity tends to fall. The accuracy of your calculations drops. It might not be the best idea. So take time to rest, sleep eight hours a night. Have restful weekends and a social life outside of your work. It helps you to get a load off and once you're back to work, you can focus. Sixth, use a calendar and use it thoroughly. There's so many lectures, seminars, workshops and talks that happen at every research institution on a daily basis and it's so hard to keep track of where you have to go, when, who to talk to, who's visiting and when you are traveling. So pick a calendar app, be it Google, Outlook or any other and keep your schedule in your calendar. Set reminders to go off right before you have to leave your office so that you can focus on more important work than keeping track of where you need to be and when. Let technology help you. And the final one is set priorities. Set priorities but also be willing to change them. Most productive researchers always know what the most important task of the day is. Set out with a priority rating. That way you won't forget what the most important things are and it will never happen that you have to write an abstract for a talks submission on the night before the deadline. Best of luck.