Hope you’re having a GREAT start to February already!
Mine is pretty great this morning: A great dose of black coffee from my new favourite cup (a corruption gift from a buddy at UNSW Sydney, yay Ben), a well-slept night after being able to convince the youngest one to sleep with the other ones (instead of kicking me in the face all night long), and having gotten back on track with so many good things in life again in January (remember the word “rebound”!)
My word of the month for February is “focus”.
You tend to get what you focus on.
I bet you’ve noticed how if you focus on your todo-list, the todo-list just grows, ha. But if you focus on actually doing your work, taking care of your health and wealth (NB, there are many types of wealth out there) instead of the madness around you, and you tend to do well.
Focus on what matters.
“But Simo puh-lee-zeeee what matters, like really?”
Glad you asked! Last week, I stumbled upon a couple of great articles about how to do well in academia… As in, what matters!
Just Publish
Publications matter.
Or, just to be ultra-clear: Publishing your research (and lots of it, ideally) matters.
This time my rant… And by rant, I mean actionable live advice, is motivated by our good old perpetual cringe-fest that is LinkedIn.
But let’s start with what should be obvious: also facts matter. In academia, publications matter. Not your social media engagement, not how good your words make your peers feel (although being kind is always a thing you know), or the colour of your favourite pair of socks.
No.
Somewhere inside you, you know this already [FIRST NAME GOES HERE].
Publications really do matter.
Have a look at this: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2402053122. Fresh work. The opening sentence itself is a thing of beauty you seldom see in boring academic text:
Postdoctoral training is a career stage often described as a demanding and anxiety-laden time when many promising PhDs see their academic dreams slip away due to circumstances beyond their control.
But the key takeaway is even more important here now: publications move the needle. Especially “hit publications”, but in general the more the merrier. Now, what is a hit publication? They define it as “a publication that finds itself in the top five percent of its field’s year-end citation top list”… although we all know that is pretty difficult to plan for.
But also the h-index matters, and you cannot bump that index with one hit paper alone! And, let’s be honest here, you cannot forecast what’s a hit paper. Unless you have a super strong team of supervisors, and you really really are really really deep in a core subject expertise of something really really meaningful right now.
How many of us are?
So, the blunt truth of the matter once again becomes: Just keep publishing.
(There’s a bunch of other super interesting advice in the article, too, e.g. about how it’s wise to move away even from a prestigious institution during your postdoc and to change your topic, but not too much. Give it a read!)
So, back to LinkedIn. There are people advocating the opposite out there. And I think I know why. It’s almost as if… could it be? That they care more about likes and follower count than your future career?
“Think slowly, take your time, stop publishing” they keep saying!
Away with you, Evil Ostrich!
Look, I am not against taking your time to think about your work or to contribute your best possible science to the world. It’s a beautiful thing we should all strive for!
What I’m worried about is using the psychological loopholes we all have to farm social media engagement with horrendous advice.
The truth is, publishing matters. But isn’t it just so much more fun to think it doesn’t!

Because it’s convenient to think that publishing doesn’t matter, while reality is ticking away in an entirely different universe. Intuitively, it just makes sense. And upon a little bit of digging online to what psychologists have already found out about us all, I can now think of quite a few perfectly human reasons why:
- Ostrich Effect (I love this one): We humans simply want to avoid the unpleasant truth. (Ahem, climate change, anyone?) We ignore what’s going on because it contradicts what we WANT to believe. I mean, isn’t it a great thing to believe that publishing doesn’t really matter all that much? Then we can just…you know, work less! And a little bit of reassurance online is just perfect here, as it allows us to stay in that nice little comfy zone.
- Confirmation Bias: Oh, and since we already want it to be true that numbers and impact of publications don’t matter, we’ll just gravitate naturally to people who confirm our opinions. It doesn’t matter. Nope. Even if data suggests otherwise. We should just all take our time. Ponder more. Maybe even throw a few rocks in the direction of those who publish more than we do!
- Effort Justification: OK, guilty as charged. When I was reading about this, I felt a sting. Just like I did when I was 4 and a bunch of wasps got under my t-shirt (true story). Still remember that one! So, with the publishing game we then to rationalise our LACK of effort with stories and narratives that are just so easy to “like” on LinkedIn and that help justify why the publication numbers don’t go up. Because “bro, I was just focusing on thinking and my mental health”
Ok, a note here is needed. Just in case. Because we live in a world where intent does not matter, unless it’s explicitly stated. So. I am not saying you should just publish like a maniac at the expense of quality or your mental health. I hope that’s clear now.
I am, however, saying that you should publish as much as you can, as good work as you can. And I am definitely saying that many narratives especially on LinkedIn are harmful for your future career. So keep an eye on your own behaviour. If you “stop to think” and put a pause on your publishing activity, then really stop to think. Don’t stop to watch YouTube shorts or something completely unrelated. Because it’s easy to slip like that.
That’s just how we are. You can justify your bad decisions with bad social media posts based on no data but the author’s engagement-farming strategies that are all based on pulling the right psychological levers of our weak minds.
I make all the same mistakes myself. I have shelved publications (even some under revision) that I have not found the energy/bandwidth to push through. I am a flawed human individual. But at least I try to acknowledge it!
Don’t Play the Blame Game
OK, I’ll admit it. For some reason, LinkedIn posts have been getting on my nerves this week. Like, exceptionally so.
Maybe it’s just the algorithm, maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s the lack of iced coffee. It’s winter, so I’m back to drinking hot coffee. Either way, I came across yet another discussion about hiring decisions in academia. Someone was complaining that universities appreciate too much people who publish a lot instead of those who focus on “quality.”
And I get it. I really do. But if I was the one making the hiring decision, for me, in my team, would I choose a postdoc who publishes 10 papers a year or the one who publishes 2? A super easy choice. Unless there was a massive quality gap, like the two papers being in Nature and Science, while the 10 were scattered across Hindawi and MDPI.
I’d hire the one publishing 10. Because that person makes my life easier. Brings in more funding (yes our funding model rewards numbers), they generate more research momentum, they inspire others to work hard, they increase the visibility of MY work too, and yes I am vane in that way too just like all humans are.
The system needs change. I don’t like this kind of number worshipping, but the incentives are laid out that way right now. And while the rules of the game are what they are, how are we to play it?
I leave that decision to you, in your life. Not my call to make.
Adopt the Barbell Strategy in Publishing
Just a super quick note… I remember Matt Lease talking about this in HCOMP 2024 in Pittsburgh. Always keep publishing a lot of so-called safe work and then decide something really grand and take bigger risks on the side as well.
This will help maximise chances of scoring those “hit” publications but also it keeps your publication engine well-oiled and churning out at least something.
Makes a lot of sense to me.
And Now for Something Completely Different
Here’s Chris Sacca on a recent Tim Ferriss podcast:
“Obviously, Bill Gates is amazing in so many regards, but he’s also a f***ing disaster in so many regards. And so, if I were to say he’s an idol and a mentor, it implies I’ve taken all of it. And I think if there’s anything that’s a scourge in today’s society, it’s these purity tests. It’s like this, you have to be perfect in all regards, or we toss you out.”
Don’t be the guy who puts labels like “evil” and “good” on everyone. Be the guy who sees sides to things and people. This month, I’ll focus on my own growth. Not taking any sides. I’ll focus on being less reactive on LinkedIn and more productive (in terms of useful content on social media but also in my academic life).
Focus, focus, focus. And health.
I always say the best academic habit is exercise.
So let’s do that!