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Daylight savings gave us an extra hour recently, and I’m already short on time. We scientists never have enough minutes in the day to get everything done. If only we could clone ourselves, we’d be golden.

As previously mentioned, before taking up the Outreach Director position at F1000Prime, I was a scientist at Stonybrook University working with Berhane Ghebrehiwet, my mentor. The moment I sat down to write my latest paper, I reached for the towering pile of “to be read” journal articles on my desk. It used to be my ritual – before writing, I re-read all the relevant papers, and then read a bunch of new ones. It was a time-consuming process that used to give me nightmares about being scooped at the last minute, but eventually, my efforts always paid off and I had drafted my manuscript.

On one occasion, my mentor was out of town at a conference, and I was “next in the chain of command” to oversee our lab, managing the students and lab affairs. It’s something I normally enjoyed doing but, on top of finishing last minute experiments and trying to read 500 papers in one week, I felt overwhelmed.

So I decided to outsource.

I had always used F1000Prime to alert me to major papers in my field, but this time, I used it:

• to narrow down my reading list to the journal articles that were really relevant to my manuscript by using the expert post-publication ratings and reviews, and, hence,

• to decide which papers were worth reading in a time crunch

For this purpose, I used the SmartSearch and Advanced search features to select the results from my reading list that had F1000Prime recommendations. I found it especially helpful to focus on papers with the highest rating, because it indicated that these articles were especially important for the experts in my field.

F1000Prime was a real time saver – my boss returned to find me with my manuscript submitted, students all working hard at their benches and me sitting at the desk, sipping tea, cool as a cucumber. In hindsight, I don’t know why I hadn’t used F1000Prime for this purpose sooner! I found the service a great time-saving tool because its personalized homepage and Smartsearch features highlight only the most relevant top articles in one’s field. And since the articles are selected and rated by a peer-nominated global Faculty of the world’s leading scientists and clinicians, this resource can be relied on to pick out articles for timely guidance on what was significant to my manuscript.

F1000Prime saved me time so I could finish my experiments, help the students, and get my paper accepted. So next time you have a paper to write, I highly recommend F1000Prime to help you work smarter, not harder.

If you’re in the same position as me, sifting through mountains of paper, use your time wisely and dial into one of our online demonstrations to learn more about this time saving service. You can also find me on Twitter @KingaF1000

photo credit: FJTUrban (sommelier d mojitos) via photopin cc