Sometimes stepping back allows a longer view of working with geographic information systems.
My thoughts on Funding and Proposals
"Cash on the barrel or the check has cleared the bank" then the computer is turned on!
Everyone wants you to process their project for free not realizing the time and labor it takes to do it. They just know they cannot do it but would like to see the results.
Wear welding gloves when collaborative writing grant proposals with non-profit land management groups and federal labs. I was burnt every time. The projects got fully funded by foundations or agencies but I never saw a dime.
Proposals should be written in language that your grandmother understands what you are doing, but knows she cannot do it.
Proposed projects have great ideas even though they did not get funded. I had an idea get funded 20 years after I proposed it and 8 years after I retired. Still retired but good to know the idea was funded.
Keep fellow cartographers in a fog on how you collect and process data because they are all looking for the next great project and it is probably your project. I lost more than one that way but then again I stole a few ideas myself.
Proof of concept projects without funding never yields expanded full funding.
My thoughts on Software and Data
Software and data gets old fast and needs to be updated regularly.
Everybody uses a different coordinate grid system and spatial precision so read metadata/data on the data.
Not defining the footing layer large enough is a royal pain in the neck to expand later but defining it too large is a pain in the butt.
Data you collect is expensive and valuable so just do not give it away.
BACKUP your data because it is not a fish until it is on a disk in 2 locations.
Equipment and software developers love to make proprietary data without export modules to something you can use or read.
My thoughts on Data Processing
Large data sets of raster images take time to read by the computer so plan a fill time activity between commands when working with them that makes you look busy.
Take regular 10 minute breaks every 2 hours to exercise and get away from the computer. Schedule them on your daily calendar!
One thermos of coffee or caffeinated drink per day but all the water you want and stick to it.
It is easy for a computer to produce model results and it does not care if the prediction is correct. Validate using a separate data set. I randomly split ground polygon data into a 40/60 split for model training and validation.