A dilemma of priorities

(Source: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd012609s.gif)

Ah, Jorge Cham continues to write the story of my life. This strip shall be me in our next research meeting, scheduled for February.

I need to come up with my plan for a last paper to publish. One agreement I have with boss M is to publish one more, and I haven't quite decided which idea I'm going to pursue for it.

At the moment I have three options:

(1) An extension of a previous paper, entailing that I design and perform synthetic experiments. This will enable me to perform tests on a methodology I had presented before, and report an evaluation on its performance. Difficulty: relatively easy. Publication probability: not likely for a really good journal, likely for a journal of lesser impact factor.

(2) The simulations in option (1) can be used for a different report altogether. This means using the same code I can write for (1), but keep track of different quantities for analysis. The analysis would require me to learn some more theories. Difficulty: moderately hard. Publication probability: less likely to get published soon coz of the fewer options for theoretical journals.

(3) A different methodology that I have yet to finish developing. This would be the most interesting of all options, as I expect most of our peers in the field to find it useful. Difficulty: Very hard. Publication probability: Very likely in a nice journal.

With only months to go, I am left with a prioritisation problem. I want to do all three plans (and some other side projects that merit attention) but I also have to think which will help me best for the thesis.

Less than two weeks to think long and hard about this.