“When do I need to be here?” said the graduate student. 

“Whenever you need to be to make sufficient progress.” replied the PI.

This response gives many well-meaning graduate students just enough rope to hang themselves. What if you can't make progress no matter how many hours you work? Does it matter if your PI sees you working? What exactly is meant by sufficient? Countless trainees get themselves into trouble by not understanding what their PI is telling them with this response. By observing your PI and how they interact with others in your research group, you can get a good sense of how to “make sufficient progress”, and how to show that you are working when gaps in your productivity inevitably occur.

Step 1: Gather Info

When you join a new group you can usually tell who the PI thinks is doing really well, and whose progress the PI is less than thrilled with. Study the person or people who are doing well. How much data do they generate? How polished is the data they show? How do they respond to questions about their data? What seminars and meetings does this person attend? What is their output in terms of talks, manuscripts, grant applications, etc.? Do they mentor or teach? Who do they mentor and how much time do they spend mentoring? Do they read? Do they comment on what they’ve read? What external activities are they involved in? Make yourself a literal list.

Step 2: Analyze and Reflect

The next step is to figure out what it would take for you to match their output. Be honest with your tendencies, and remember that most new things need extensive troubleshooting. As you work, check how well your predictions match reality, and learn to adjust your expectations and predictions accordingly. After a bit you should be able to tell how many hours a week you need to spend reading, designing experiments, collecting data, analyzing formatting data, and doing whatever other activities you listed to make your progress efficient as defined by your PI. This should give you confidence about your output during 1:1 meetings and lab meetings. If something isn’t working, reflect and make a change.

Step 3: Be Strategic

Despite your efforts, occasionally you’ll have a period where things just aren’t going your way. To buffer yourself for this, establish a pattern of presence and accountability. When productivity dips, this presence will help. Identify which seminars and events your PI always attends. Make sure you hit at least 75% of these events, and when you go, either ask a question or have a key takeaway so that you have something to discuss with your faculty member. Also, make sure your PI sees you daily at work. If they tend to walk through the lab, figure out when they usually do that and make sure you are there working or reading. If they tend to just sit in their office, walk by and grab something from the printer. Can you be just packing up your lunch when they get into the lunchroom? Do anything that ensures that they see you and feel that you are present.

Some people bristle at this advice but showing that you are putting in the time will give you much more leeway when things inevitably go sideways. This is also a way of making yourself available to your PI. That availability can lead to opportunity. They’ll find you if they need someone to do a quick experiment to push out a paper (and you could get an easy authorship). They'll invite you to lunch with the visiting speaker. You’ll be at the top of their mind when they think of an opportunity.