I read Hamming's "You and Your Research" some years back, and recall that it was quite appropriate. See http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~dahlin/bookshelf/hamming.html for the text. It's the penultimate lecture in the video series.
It's a pretty good course on how to be not merely technically skilled, but effective. For example, how technological progress usually works and the importance of back of the envelope calculations. He teaches with a lot of personal narratives which are easier to relate to and remember.
The book is easier to read than watching the videos, though you could rip the audio and it would be an okay audio book.
The book on the topic is at http://worrydream.com/refs/Hamming-TheArtOfDoingScienceAndEn... .
I read Hamming's "You and Your Research" some years back, and recall that it was quite appropriate. See http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~dahlin/bookshelf/hamming.html for the text. It's the penultimate lecture in the video series.