3 - Why is it so hard to find strategies that work for you?

If ever taken the advice of your advisor, that productivity book that everyone raves about, or even from a coach like me and it straight up didn't work - this is the episode for you. I'm talking all about why it can be so hard to figure out how other scholars are working, and why what works for them might not work for you. Plus three experiments to help you find some strategies that do work for you!

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• transcript

  Welcome to Grad School is Hard, But... A Thrive PhD podcast. I'm Dr. Katy Peplin and this is a show for everyone who's doing the hard work of being a human and a scholar. We'll talk about why some of these things are so hard, and how that difficulty is showing up for you. Each episode has practical strategies to experiment with -- just because it's hard now doesn't mean it always has to be.

  And stay tuned for more details about some free writing resources coming your way in November. But for now let's get into it!

  And this week, we're going to talk about the mother of all. "Why is grad school hard?" Questions, which is: why is it so hard to find a strategy or a schedule or a tool or a routine that actually it works for me?

  In order to answer this question I think we actually have to talk about where we get the idea to try some of these strategies in the first place. Or put another way, where does most academic advice come from?

  And here comes my personal pet theory!

  Most academic advice follows this format: this is how I did it, therefore, this is how it's done.

  So this might be advice that you get from your advisor, where they say to you, "I always write before I start in the morning. So that's what you should do." It could be about how to use a citation manager or sort of any advice area, but the general formula is "this is what worked for me therefore this is how you do it."

  But what happens if it doesn't work for you? Does that mean that it just will never work for you? If you can't write in the morning, you'll never be able to have a productive writing practice? It is so easy to make the jump from "this strategy didn't work for me" to, "I will never be able to do this thing.

  And when you add in the fact that most academics are pretty private about their workflows, the tools that they're using and how long it takes for them to write an article. Then we're often left in a situation where everyone's developing their own workflow. Nobody's really sharing or talking about what's actually working and even less about what's not working.

  When you add in the source of a lot of this advice, things get even harder. Because unfortunately, quite a lot of the advice for grad students is handed from the top-down. Your advisor shares what works for them. And if you're a PhD student in a university, the people who are sharing the advice that's working for them are probably tenure track faculty.

  And then let me be clear. I do think that advisors should share strategies and be open about their workflow with their advisees. I think that's a really helpful way to professionally develop the people that you're supervising. And it makes sense as a PhD student, that that's your first place that you go when you're stuck. That's your first point of contact with the university! It's the person who's overseeing your research. It makes a lot of sense that you ask them!

  But if they're sharing with you the advice that's working for them currently at this moment, then it's worth taking a pause because their conditions are a lot different than yours. Tenured faculty member versus PhD student.

  And if the strategies that they're sharing are what did work for them when they were a student? Well, that was probably at least pre pandemic. Maybe it was pre adjunctification crisis. Maybe it was pre inflation cost of living increases or the push for so many of us to go to grad school for job security...

  All of those changing conditions mean that what worked for them in say the early nineties - no shade - might not be as practical for you a graduate student living and working in the year 2022, or whenever you're listening to this.

  So, yeah, it's hard to find strategies that work for you when the advice network is pretty hidden or specific to your advisor. When the source of that advice is perhaps not as good of a match for your particular living situation and when there's a culture of not problem-solving in public. Of course it's really hard to figure out what things are going to work for you

  But if you undertook any of the experiments from last week's collecting your own data episode. Or just in general, you have a sense of what works for you and what doesn't. Then you're in a pretty good spot for figuring out what strategies will and won't work for you.

  So. Take a minute. Take a deep breath. Maybe grab your notebook. Here come your reflection questions to help figure out why the selecting, and experimenting, and even trying something new with your PhD grad student workflow might feel so sticky for you in particular.

  Question one: where do you find your experiments? And by that, I mean, the strategies, the tools, the resources, the apps, the things that you try to help improve your PhD workflow, where do you find out about them? What do you try? And what sources do they normally originate from?

  Question Two: what kinds of people are giving you advice, suggestions of things to try, or being open about their own process with you? Does your life share elements in common with theirs? As far as, you know.

  We of course can never truly know the conditions of someone else's life. But if you're taking advice from people whose lives look radically different from yours - at least in the data that you can access - then that's something to think about.

  And lastly question three: what stories do you tell yourself about the strategies that don't work for you? What does it mean to you when you try to do something and it doesn't work?

  So maybe you've sat with those questions. You've evaluated your advice, strategy, experiment, pipeline. You've thought about what kind of stories you tell yourself when those experiments don't work out. Now let's try - ha ha ha - a couple of experiments of our own this week to get a little bit more clarity about why it's just so hard for us to find strategies that work for us.

  Experiment number one. Try not to argue with your data. Um, this is one that I'm laughing to myself because this is one that is perpetually difficult for me. And almost everyone I know. But it's really hard to take one fact about And accept it as a premise rather than a problem. So for instance, maybe this week, you experiment with not arguing with the data that you have that writing before you check your email, look at your planner, have some breakfast, maybe have a cup of coffee or two. Maybe you just accept the fact that your morning routine lasts about 35 minutes. And then you start after

  What happens when you just accept that is the way that you like to work in the morning, as opposed to trying to push yourself into getting to your desk at 6:00 AM. And writing in that perfect idealized. Every writing book, we'll recommend it kind of way. What happens when you accept some of those things as premises and not problems

  Experiment number one. Try not to argue with your data. Yeah, this one is so hard for me and almost everyone I know. Because it's really hard to take a fact about ourselves - probably one that we don't like - and accept it as a premise, rather than a problem. For instance, maybe this week you experiment with not arguing with the data that you have, that you are not a morning writing person.

  You instead accept the fact that your morning routine lasts, however long it lasts, and then you start your writing afterwards. What happens when you just accept that this is the way that it is, the way that you like to work in the morning, as opposed to pushing yourself into getting to your desk at 6:00 AM just because that's what works for someone else or that's how somebody told you to do it.

  What happens when you accept some of the things that you don't like about the way that you work as a premise and not a problem to solve?

  Experiment number two: look at some of the strategies that haven't worked. . This is a really good place to look back at your data that you may be collected over the last couple of weeks after our collecting your own data episode. Look at it. Are there any patterns? Is there a seasonality? What information does that give you to help you find other strategies? So this might look for you like identifying the fact that it's really only possible for you to write, or to write in a satisfying, deep, focused, juicy kind on the days where you have more than half an hour to get into it.

  Okay. That's a good pattern. Is that always true? Is it true only on the days in which you don't have childcare. You know figure out the variables as much as you can. What does your data tell you? What does it suggest?

  And then lastly, experiment number three. Seek out a new source, whether that's a book, a podcast, a Twitter theme thread, maybe it's a conversation. Seek out a new source of strategies or advice or tools to try. Bonus points if you pick a source that is more applicable to the way that your life is currently at this particular moment.

  Maybe you check out some of the sources of advice that are for PhDs with kids. If you are a person who has a PhD that they're working on and also kids that they need to get up. Maybe you find and seek out a podcast, all for ADHD and academics to see what strategies they suggest in case they're different than ones maybe your neuro-typical advisor has pushed on you.

  The idea here is to look for a new source, potentially a new strategy because running a new experiment is going to give you new data. And new data either will help you confirm a hypothesis. Yay! Great! Or help you refine the next hypothesis that you'll use to run for that next experiment.

  It is so easy to think that if a strategy doesn't work for you, then you're sunk. Then whatever's hard for you right now will never get any easier because the way to make it easier, didn't work. My hope is that through some of the strategies this week, these experiments to try, you can examine where you're getting your advice.

  And what kinds of new data do you want to incorporate as you start to look for strategies that will help. Just because the first one didn't work doesn't mean that none of them will. Until next time.

  📍 Thank you for listening to Grad School is Hard, but... You can find more information and resources in the show notes and at thrive-phd.com, where you can also sign up for AcWriMo 2022, a free month of writing support and resources. And if you're liking what you're hearing, please subscribe, rate, and review to help other people find the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!