GradLife

Photo by @kipunsam.daily / @gradlifemcgill

One of my favourite (but often failed) New Year’s resolutions is to be more organized and better schedule my time. Now this is obviously not a SMART resolution, and to be honest I’m not the most un-organized person, but every year I wish I was a little more on top of things and procrastinated a little less. This is especially true this year as I’m hoping to submit my thesis and there are mountains of work to be done!

So how I am going to be more organized? Well Aleks wrote a while ago her top tips for productivity and I like a lot of them, but I thought I would add a couple of my own. (more…)

Photo by @GradLifeMcGill instagrammer @steezsister

Ah, grad school. Aka the years of your life where you’re learning how much you don’t know, pushing your personal and professional boundaries, and managing an outrageously busy schedule. Grad school schedules come with deadlines. Deadlines for abstract submissions, funding applications, and course work, on top of lab meetings, data collection, and social endeavours. Here are my top 5 tips to increase productivity, to maneuver these deadlines and actually get work done:

1. Make a list

This tip is probably the most cliché of all, but couldn’t be left off of this list. The fact is: it works. I find it much easier to prioritize my tasks when they’re all laid out in front of me. I can see what needs to be done, estimate how much time each item will take, and start working from there.

Make your list before you start doing any work. Include even the smallest tasks, because it’s a great feeling to check items off, and any progress is good progress!

2. Set a timeline and stick to it

When I’m working in the lab, I tend to pick a task to work on until lunch time, and then take my lunch break. Then, I pick another task (potentially the same one, if it’s larger), and work until the end of the day. I always have a time when I know I’ll be leaving the lab, and I stick to that timeline. This helps me set aside blocks of time for each task I need to complete in a day, and knowing how long I’m going to be working on something helps me stay focused and be more productive.

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There have been a number of discussions in this blog about writing theses, papers, essays, proposals, and other documents within academia. To switch gears a little, I will be writing about NOT writing. (In the same moment of writing that last sentence, I just realized how haphazardly it reads and decide to use it as title for this (written) blog entry.)

You will probably agree if I say that most of us are writing all the time. Apart from the classical documents I mentioned, there are other occasions for writing: emails, texts, Facebook posts, tweets, and many more.

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After the holidays – those crazy, lazy, sugar-hazy vacation days that we will all miss terribly – it could be hard to get back into the swing of things. Getting up with an alarm, for one, could be the day’s first and greatest challenge. It might be tempting, now more than ever, to hit snooze, to be slow and sluggish, to want to eat and nap at random points during the day, and to procrastinate.

Procrastination is a word I actually became familiar with during my grad studies. It seemed to be a common problem for many, and that is why the term made it to my ears so frequently. But it’s not only an issue that a certain unlucky few are faced with, nor is it just a problem reserved just for grad students; we all do it, at least to some extent, even if we don’t all admit to it!

When you think about it, it’s completely natural for us clever human beings to try to avoid what causes us stress, what puts us in a state of disequilibrium or anxiety, or what feels mentally difficult for us.

Putting things off to another day is not always a bad thing, if you think about it in terms of prioritizing or being realistic about what you can accomplish in one day, or even in terms of needing to call it a day and just relax. But it is when we start putting off things which are in fact a priority and when we start wasting time with things that are absolutely not urgent that procrastination officially becomes a nasty habit that we must try to chase away. ASAP.

After reading fellow blogger Valerie’s recent post about procrastination (or much needed relaxation?!) during the holiday season, I tried to think of some personal tips that have worked for me or for colleagues and friends to help overcome those strong urges of putting things off. Please feel free to share your own advice and strategies, as sharing this kind of information always helps others more than you might think!

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Is your thesis deadline fast approaching? Do you have tons of work to do, yet you can’t seem to get enough done in one day? Do you find it difficult to motivate yourself during these springy-summery days, when classes are out, departments are quieter, and your bike and the neighborhood park are calling your name louder than your research project is? If you have answered YES to at least one of these questions, then read on!

The best part about Graduate Studies – but also the most challenging aspect of it – is that, most of the time, you set the goals, the tasks and the pace for your work. How much you tackle in one day is largely up to you. Deciding how you structure your time to meet your objectives and deadlines is what makes you work independently – a skill that is highly valued by supervisors and funding committees, and one that will be crucial when conducting research beyond graduate school. There is a great deal of flexibility in being a PhD student, but the challenge remains that we have to learn how to motivate ourselves, fight procrastination and stay PRODUCTIVE!

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