How long ?

How long does it take you to start conversation over the email using the recipients first name ?Is it after a single email, after two ?

I have observed that when starting a conversation with some one that I don't know and the first interaction is over the email; I start out in a formal way saying Dr. family name. But after a few email exchanges I find it difficult to keep conversing in a formal tone and I get to the point and start using first names.

I don't know if that is a good thing and how do people perceive it.

Meeting schedule

There is a certain situation in the lab that prompted me to think: How many meetings between a PI and a postdoc/student /staff is sufficient: daily, once a week, once a month or on a need basis.

I always had this need-to-meet schedule in the grad school and I liked it because: 1) It gave me more time to think and contemplate about the question that I may want to ask my advisor; and generally I came up with a solution of my own during this time. 2) It didn't waste my time with unnecessary meetings 3) I felt more of an academic with my own free will to get my work done.

I do not know what the optimal meeting frequency would be in my group would be (if I do land a tenure-track position some day, fingers crossed). But I find it distasteful to have to meet every day/week/month. The reason is that rigid schedule of meetings would not accomplish anything if the student does not have anything to talk about. Hence, waste of time for the student and more importantly, a waste of chunk of my time. Therefore, theoretically the student would see the advisor on a need-to basis and should suffice in my group.

However, I am not sure how this scheme would work for non-focused students. I am beginning to think what if having a rigid meeting schedule keep student on track? more focused?

I would love to hear any experiences regarding more/less/non-existant meeting schedule some of you may have in your grad school etc.