Defined as scientific innovation—alas, I only write about science—, it is hard to find. Some argue that innovation is the organic byproduct of networks, while others attribute it to deep, focused work only and devaluate network effects. Add Lady Luck into the pot, stir it three times (clockwise!), then try to discern the true reasons. Augurs had a higher accuracy, making prophecies from birds' flights in Ancient Rome.
However, despite forgoing the urge to write the umpteenth manifesto to achieve success, we can dive into what others have found useful.
Network effects
The rise of network science among popular books—such as Barabási-Albert László's work, particularly, The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success—champions the idea that top performance, under particular circumstances, depends only on network effects. There is a big if, though, so if you want to go berserk with networking, I advised against that: this is only the case when performance cannot be measured (e.g., while swimmers' times are comparable objectively, musicians' performance is not). Whether academia is beyond the reach of our objective instruments is a different question.
Fortunately, Barabási and his team analyzed academic performance and concluded that success could come when you are persistent enough to realize your ideas. Thus, this tends to suggest that in academia, we are in the realm of the measurable—whether citation numbers are a good measure that's a different topic, though.
On the other hand, Steven Johson showcases in Where Good Ideas Come From The Natural History of Innovation that
we are often better served by connecting ideas than we are by protecting them.
He further elaborates that
The trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts. The trick is to get more parts on the table.
Compared to the overwhelmingly solo projects students are supposed to do before starting a Ph.D., research collaborations do not come naturally. Our ideas might seem worth the top secret stamp, as they will surely bring glory. Sarcasm put aside, opening up our ideas beyond supervisors, the collective wisdom of academia can help separate the wheat from the chaff. As a bonus, it might ignite the proverbial lightbulb in our fellow academics' minds.
As Cal Newport showcases in Deep Work, serendipity and systematic inquiry into how innovation works both confirm the same: MIT's Building 20, with its intermingled departments, and the famous Bell Labs's new building constructed under the guidance of Mervin Kelly emphasizes that you need to get out of your rabbit hole, engage with people outside your field of expertise.
A case study of n=1 will show how I felt the same. Starting a Ph.D. amidst lockdowns robbed me of most of the interactions. Except for my colleagues who started around the same time, no one frequented the office when the first waves of covid laid siege on the normalcy of 2021. I shared an office with two people, though I have not seen them there for at least a year. This setting did not feel inferior at the time since, during my studies, I worked mostly alone on my projects. Without a baseline to compare to, it was hard to imagine that the network effects I was using other's words to preach about above are something I would miss.
Nonetheless, I can say that I have not accomplished much in my first year. To be harsh, it felt like it was in vain. I learned useful basic skills, but in terms of scientific progress, I was unproductive—though this should not necessarily be the goal of the beginning of a Ph.D. The point I am trying to make is that nature gifted me a randomized controlled trial to determine whether network effects matter. They do.
Last year, I visited one of the biggest conferences in my field. Among the one thousand [sic!] posters in a session, my idea receptors burned like eternal fire. And though a conference is not an everyday business, talking to your colleagues should be. I could not find a more inspiring and fulfilling pastime than paying attention to what other researchers are working on and what is shaping their worldviews.
Although this will not make our paper into the next conference per se, this genuine interest is what can plant the seed for collaborations. To the introverts out there: you do not need to be opportunistic, just show genuine interest. As an introvert, I found the advice from Jordan Harbinger in his free 6 Minute Networking course invaluable. You should not watch it to get advantages out of people. But you should watch it to have the tools to hone the professional relationships you find inspiring.
Deep work
Dreams die between idea and execution—Jocko Willink
That is, how much or little you enjoy diving into the social fabric of academia that will not do the work. You might get myriad ideas, but they will stay on paper. There is a matching amount of advice on how to get things done.
The focus is on focus, not time.
For someone, it is three hours a day, and that was enough for the Fields Medal. Remember, Don't work hard, work smart. It should be undisturbed concentration, at most one and a half hours per session, two or three bouts per day. Science says that our circadian rhythm (i.e., our bodies' inner clocks that regulate the clockwork every day) is primed to work that way.
The best-case scenario I am sketching is four and a half hours daily. But this is for concentrated efforts only. Responding to emails or instant messages, filing forms, partaking in meetings and calls, fumbling with LaTeX error messages, and failed commits come on top.
Consistency
Consistency is the corollary that should nail down my argument about limited, focused work.
A lot of people struggle with keeping New Year's resolutions; even that much-focused bout can be a struggle. Despite how humans cannot comprehend compound interest, I urge you to stick to this regime. Reading a scientific paper a day is not much, but doing that consistently for three/four/seven years is more than a thousand papers.
This goes into the realm of habits, with bestsellers such as James Clear's Atomic Habits. Seconding the Jocko Willink quote from above, James Clear also emphasizes that we need to establish our modus operandi since the boundaries we set for ourselves will propel us forward:
You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
To achieve consistency, imposing constraints on ourselves is a counterintuitive remedy. The reason why in this sense
Discipline equals freedom (Jocko Willink)
is that providing the boundary conditions for an activity (such as organizing the papers you want to read, running unit tests before merging a pull request or preparing sports clothes the day before) makes that activity easy to start.
I admire people who scan through conference websites for accepted papers. I do not want to do that. Instead, I use tools like ResearchRabbit, Google Scholar alerts, and Scholar Inbox to deliver recommended papers.
Reduce the fix cost once and thank yourself each time for it.
Opportunities (luck)
Then, it is up to luck, the fortunate or unfortunate amalgam of circumstances, encounters, and opportunities, whether success smiles upon us.
However, luck is beyond our control, so the best we can do is to do our best.
An important takeaway I learned the hard way is that when you leave the controlled environment of example sheets, you might need to swim against the stream. Your idea might get scooped; the benchmark everyone uses is beyond a paywall; you cannot reproduce other methods.
What should we do?
If luck is so much at play, how can we responsibly chase forward without putting our hands up and ceasing to put any effort in? First, we should avoid ascribing failure only to bad luck. As a recent post on The Growth Equation about success showcases, there is scientific evidence—in the natural experiments when writers such as J.K. Rowling or Stephen King published under a pen name—that (I am paraphrasing) reaching mastery through concentrated efforts will determine our achievements' mean, but luck controls the variance.
That is, with consistent deep work, we can improve our chances for success. Curating an inspiring group of fellow researchers will give the cherry on top. Even then, luck might go the other way, which will be devastating. But it should prompt us to recall the advice imported from Ancient Greece; i.e., just keep in mind:
The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have—Epictetus
Then, regardless of whether we succeed, we can still look in the mirror since we know we gave our best.
Resources
Barabási-Albert László: The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success
Steven Johson: Where Good Ideas Come From The Natural History of Innovation
Cal Newport: Deep Work
James Clear: Atomic Habits
Jocko Willink: Discipline equals freedom
The Growth Equation: Untangling Success: Does The Cream Rise To The Top?
Quanta Magazine: To the Fields Medal with three hours a day
Jordan Harbinger: 6 Minute Networking
Finding relevant papers: