Are You in it to Win it? Tips for a Successful Challenge

Are you in it to win it?
The winning labs from last year know what it takes to be successful in the Freezer Challenge.   We asked them what advice they'd give to labs competing for the first time - check out their tips below.

• Start early.   Don't wait til the last minute.  While the actions on the score sheet are relatively straightforward, many of them require coordination of all lab members.   Starting early will ensure that you'll have time to complete everything before the May 1st deadline.

• Familiarize yourself with the score sheet and develop a plan.  Make a plan for how you will complete the score sheet, knowing that you can't get everything done in two days.   For example, it might make sense for your lab to combine defrosting a freezer with discarding samples and/or creating a sample inventory.   Set a schedule for completing the actions.  Most labs recommended doing one thing for the Freezer Challenge every week or every other week.

• Appoint one person to lead the Freezer Challenge in the lab.  With everyone focused on their research it's easy to lose track of time and forget the Freezer Challenge schedule.  Appoint a Freezer Challenge coordinator to be responsible for reminding people of the schedule and encouraging lab participation.

• Don't worry if you can't complete every action on the score sheet, or if you don't have a lot of cold storage units.  Believe it or not, in spite of all the energy we saved last year, and all of the outstanding competitors, not a single lab completed the entire score sheet.  And that's perfectly ok!  Some of the actions may not apply to your lab, or they may not be feasible at the moment.  Just do the best you can to improve your cold storage management practices for whatever cold storage units you have.  We will normalize the points based on the number of freezers and refrigerators you have, so even if you have just one undercounter refrigerator you should still participate.

Special thanks to our 2017 winners for providing this information!  As you complete the Challenge, if you have any friendly advice to share with your competitors (or with the labs in 2019) please email us at [email protected].