Spend the first half hour of each day thinking and writing in a notebook about the important science questions I am interested in and want to try and answer. And, specifically coming up with multiple alternative hypotheses and devising ways to distinguish them.I tried hard but found this very difficult, more than I thought. The tyranny of the urgent often takes over and makes even carving out half an hour at the beginning of each day difficult. Maybe I have done this on 2-3 days per week (on average) over the past two years. However, the multiple alternative hypothesis bit is extremely hard, much harder than just carving out the time. I am hard pressed to think of a single example where I have successfully done this, to the level of actually being able to rule out one alternative hypothesis. On the other hand, I do feel the struggling process is sharpening my scientific thinking.
I welcome others to take up this challenge and let me know how they do! After all, surely this is really what good science is about.
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