Every lab throughout every country in the world contains thousands of tubes storing mystery liquids and solids, which are useless and potentially dangerous.
Computers are cluttered with folders and files that might as well read, “never_open_this_again.file” because the unlabelled content is meaningless to anyone but its long departed creator.
Label everything as precisely as you can. Make sure it contains the project name/acronym, the date, replicate number, and any other info required to identify it.
Get Practical Tips- Think about your labels for more than the minimum number of seconds. If you have just written a few words, then you will probably have missed something.
- Date everything. If all else fails, the date may still save you.
- When you date your files on computer, write them backwards, starting with the year then the month and then the day, so the computer will automatically put your files in chronological order.
- Computers have lots of memory, so write accordingly long file names. You can never have too much information immediately visible.
- Even if you are only using something for a few minutes, it is still worth labelling. You could drop things or mix them up, and the briefest loss of concentration could otherwise leave you unable to continue.
- Keep all the datasheets of the products you order in a draw, separate from everything else.
- For papers, copy and paste the whole title into the Save As.
Get Wet Lab Tips
- If the tube is too small to label properly, put it in a bag and label that.
- If the material is difficult to write on, write on a piece of paper and then stick that on.
- Be careful you don’t label liquid containing tubes with pens that will dissolve in the solvent.
Read Personal Perspective
I once did a proteomics study where I labelled each tube in a red pen only to find that the alcohol in the tubes had spilled through the holes in the tops and leached the pen back in with it. The result was a series of tubes with varying degrees of pink in them, and the uncertainty as to whether the degree of pinkness had affected the results.
