Staying Sharp
decavolt: It most definitely isn't just something you have to accept and deal with. Staying sharp takes effort, but it's worth it. And you don't need to upset your work/life balance or carve out massive portions of your week to do this. You do, however, need to make some time for yourself and your brain even if it's just an hour in the morning while you have your coffee.The most important thing I could tell you is to read your ass off. Get a good list of RSS feeds for blogs and magazines in your field and read through them all regularly.  Routinely look for newly published books in your field of interest and read them. Get involved in discussion boards for the same so that you can have conversations, and even debates, on the issues you want to stay on top of so that you're not in a mental vacuum - and so that you are challenged by others in your field. Keep talking about it, thinking about it, writing about it (I forget who said "you don't know what you know until you write" but it's true)...