Publications are what matters in academic (but not industry).
Publications and grants both matter, but publications are also the bulk of how you are evaluated for grants, so publications are more foundational.
If you really want to pursue an academic career, make publications your priority.
Second to publications is networking because networking is how you secure collaborators and a post-doctoral position.
Quality, Quantity, and Collaboration
Quality matters, but so does quantity.
You need at least a few high-quality publications, by which I mean publications in highly respected journals in your field or publications that end up getting cited by many other academics. You also need several publications to fill out the numbers. They should all be high-quality science because we should all have integrity, but having one or two great papers isn't enough: you need numbers as well.
First-author papers are your gold.
Even when you work with others, there is usually a single person that takes the lead. I refer to this leader as the project's "champion". This person generally becomes the first-author on the paper and they generally do the heavy lifting when it comes to time and effort. You should aim to have a number of papers where you are the champion become your highest quality papers in higher-tier journals.
Find collaborators! And I don't just mean your supervisor.
By working with collaborators, you can get your name on many more papers without having to champion every single project. You can become a second or middle author on many more papers by collaborating with others. You don't have to do the bulk of the work on every project, but you can still contribute and earn authorship. These papers contribute to your numbers.
Collaborating naturally builds your professional network.
You can collaborate with peers in your lab and graduate department, but make a point of expanding your horizons by finding more established researchers outside your local area. Collaborations can become connections and collaborations on papers during grad school can be a great way to set up post-doctoral positions or to open up other possibilities, such as "visiting researcher" positions, invitations to conferences and summer-schools, or even industry partnerships outside of academic. Collaborative publishing also demonstrates your ability to work with other people well enough that you are able to complete projects. If your collaborators don't hate your guts by the end of the project, you'll also have future collaborators and potential references for grants and other applications!
With a collaborative research approach, you can build a CV of quality and quantity.
You will write the high-quality first-author papers that help you make your name for yourself while also contributing to many papers, which helps you build up the bigger numbers that hiring committees and grant reviewers want to see.
Designing to Publish
Thinking in terms of papers can help you design more efficient studies.
Considering how you will publish your research will help you consider potential issues before they manifest. Maybe, at first, it seems like a good idea to cut a corner or employ a strange method, but then you ask yourself, "What does this research look like as a paper?" This reflection can prompt you to consider and preempt reviewer criticisms. Reflecting on how to communicate research can help you prevent yourself from unintentionally introducing unjustified or confusing ideas or methods that are likely to cause reviewer questions that slow down the publication process. You don't want to find yourself in a position where a reviewer asks you why you did something unconventional, only to realize that you don't have an explanation because the honest answer is, "I didn't consider that" or "It seemed like a good idea at the time". Instead, by asking yourself how you will communicate your research as a paper, you can design clearer studies.
When designing a study, ask yourself, "What does this research look like as a paper?"
You should also think about what will happen if you get unexpected results.
For example, you will sometimes fail to find a significant result. Will you still be able to publish the paper? Would your research still belong in a respectable journal? If not, can you design your study such that you will get an interesting finding regardless of the results? This isn't about designing a study that forces a certain outcome: this is about designing a study to conclusively address a research question such that, whatever happens, the answer is something experts want to know.
Publications are the currency. Research is not the currency.
If you "do research", but then the data sits on your computer or the analysis remains half-completed, that doesn't garner points with anyone. If a manuscript is waiting with a collaborator or gets rejected and you don't resubmit, that isn't a publication yet: it doesn't count.
Grants
Grants gain importance at higher levels of academia.
Faculty need to bring in grants to fund their labs. Post-docs that win grants have considerably more flexibility in where they ply their trade. The graduate level is a great time to gain experience applying for grants. Plus, bigger grants pay for more expensive research, which often results in publications in higher-tier journals, which in turn results in even bigger grants and even higher-tier publications.
Once you've got a few publications, start looking for grants.
Find collaborators for grants, too!
Grants tend toward a "rich get richer" model.
While this can be demotivating when you don't have any grants, there is something you can do to massively increase your chances of getting grants: get publications. You don't need permission to start writing papers! Writing papers is something you can just do. Most people don't start, but most people don't become faculty! Most people probably finish their PhD with 0–1 publications, but you'll want to aim much higher than that if you want to pursue an academic position.
Distractions
There are plenty of distractions.
Courses are distractions. TAships are distractions. Even your Master's thesis and PhD dissertation are, fundamentally, administrative distractions. Despite being distractions, you still need to spend time on all sorts of tasks that are requirements for your degree. These tasks are relevant to your local context, but the only currency that matters to the wider academic community is publications (and grants).
Optional activities are also distractions.
Teaching is a distraction. "Service" activities are a huge distraction (e.g. chairing a committee or board, volunteering in your student union). Don't believe anyone who pitches the idea that you should join their distraction because "it looks good on your CV". Ten times out of ten, publications look better than service on academic CVs. Your ROI will be higher if you spend time working on publications.
I'm not saying not to do some or all of these other things.
Research and "the game" of academia are not the only reasons to act in life. It is wise to have outlets beyond one's research and beyond one's career. If you feel called to teach, teach! If volunteering or contributing to your union feeds a passion, do it! If you want to go rock-climbing, go climbing! The point of my framing these other activities as "distractions" is not to denigrate them. The point is to cultivate wisdom: understand which activities contribute to your career and which activities don't. When you want to further your career, allocate your time intelligently. Don't fall into the trap of doing certain activities because of peer pressure or because you thought they supported your goals when they don't. Do them if they serve another purpose for you, but understand which purposes they serve and which they do not.
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