Shut up and write session in the CoDE lab

Today my graduate students held our first “Shut up and Write” session. Five students from my lab, two students from other labs and I participated. We met at 2 PM in the main room of the lab. Dwayne was in charge. At 2:05 he told us all to shut up and write. It worked! Everyone was silent. I cheated, because I had a bunch of reading to do, so I read, instead of writing, but I think that’s OK 😉

At 2:25, Dwayne announced that it was time for a break. We all chatted a bit. I made a coffee for myself, a few people went to the bathroom. After 10 minutes, Dwayne told us to get back to writing and we did another 20 minutes of silent work. It was wonderful! Eighth people in the lab in complete (non-awkward) silence!

When we were done, I asked what everyone thought of the “Shut up and Write” session and it seemed that everyone agreed that it was surprisingly efficient. More work can fit into two times 20 minutes than we had thought. I was even thinking that for me it would be good to do this every day!