AcWriMo Ask Us Anything with Dr. Kate Henry!
i am so excited to be back! and what better to kick off season five with than an Ask Us Anything Q and A with my colleague and frequent collaborator, Dr. Kate Henry! we answer questions about being bored with a long project, working on your scholarship in very limited time, writing for "the general public", and more! get into it!
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📍 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.
In this season,
I'll be sharing the anchor phrases, tools, and strategies that underpin all of the work that I do with clients as part of Thrive PhD, and of course, the things that work for me as I attempt to be a human and a scholar.
And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
As part of this year's Akraimo celebrations, as part of this year's Akraimo celebrations, I worked with my colleague and frequent collaborator, Dr. Kate Hendry. You might know her at the tending year on Instagram or at her website. The Kate Henry dot com or maybe her amazing book, but it's been my joy and pleasure to work with her.
As part of this year's AcWriMo celebrations, I worked with my colleague and frequent collaborator Dr. Kate Henry. You might know her from The Tending Year and at Instagram or her website, katehenry. com, or maybe even her book. Scholars from all over the world submitted questions to us about productivity, workflows, academic writing, and being a human while you do all that stuff.
It was a joy to answer these questions and I hope you learn as much from Dr. Henry as I did.
All right, I am so excited. So let's hop right into it with our first question. Hi, Kate and Katie. I've been working on my dissertation for a couple of years, and I recently haven't been feeling as much motivation to show up and write. I frequently get distracted and procrastinate, maybe just because I'm feeling a little bit bored.
Do you have suggestions for ways I can jumpstart my excitement about my research again? Oh, this is such a good question. I'm curious, Kate, what, like, jumps to mind for you, first of all? What jumps to mind for me, first of all, is to go and read other dissertations for inspiration. Like, to read dissertations by folks who are in your department, or folks who are doing similar work to you, and to allow that to both inspire you, and also to remind you that You can do it like to remind you like, Oh, I can fill in an outline with similar things to this.
And I imagine that that might get you excited about the project again. So that's the first thing that comes to my mind is to seek out inspiration around the project. And I think that's so important for like, expectation setting too. I know that for me, when I would work on my dissertation, like, I frequently had to like, bring it back down to what I would call like, a dissertation size project.
Because like, the more research I would do, the more I'd be like, okay, well, this is now six manuscripts worth of stuff. And so I need to bring it back down. And reading other dissertations was like, oh, I don't need to write six different books. I can do what this person did. So I love that advice. I will do, I will say that for me the middle is when I always get a little bit bored.
I have like a lot of like shiny new thing energy and I also will be like, oh yeah, I can push through to the finish line, like if that's in sight, but in the middle I need. rewards and like gamification, not unlike, you know, like dog training or like potty training, like I need to be able to see it. So for me, the middle is when I start to do like, okay, I'm going to color in my hundred Pomodoro chart.
And it, once I get to a hundred, I get like, you know, a nice new hand cream or whatever the reward is, or I, you know, make sticker charts, or I do word counts, or I try to keep a streak, all of those like Duolingo style gamifications can be really helpful for me. So like, if the motivation's not in the project, I try and put it in the habit, or the practice, or the, the measurement, because sometimes that can like, bring a little sparkle back for me too.
Yeah, I totally hear that and like the reward setting for it that also makes me think for this particularly like if you need like a change of scenery, even if it's like a different space and you're like, are you going to a coffee shop or to a library or like some place that you could feel inspired or like treat yourself by and like that might jumpstart your focus, even if it's just for like, I'm doing this for a half hour, like something that might Might spark it.
Yeah, I used to go and use my kitchen counter as a standing desk for that. Like, I would just be like, okay, let's just type for an hour over here and maybe that'll feel a little bit different. So sometimes body first can really help. Okay. Well, I think that's a couple of suggestions for that. So, how about this second question, which I'm also really excited to hear what you have to think about it.
So because of my work schedule, this person asks, I can really only work on my scholarship one day a week. Do you have tips on how I can get the most out of my limited work time? Yes, I bring a fresh new perspective to this having a nine month old chaos agent in my house. So I'm definitely, but I would love to hear what works for you first.
Yeah, I'm definitely, yeah, I'm definitely curious to hear from you around your experience with parenting. I just have a two year old chihuahua who is, has a lot of, probably, An equal amount. Needed care, you know but not quite the same. But I think about this question, I think for the folks that I work with, and I'm sure also the folks that you work with, it's very common due to health or caretaking or work to have little limited amounts of time to work on scholarship.
And two things come to my mind. The first is if you only have a limited amount of time. To get incredibly clear on what you are working on. So to right size your tasks for the amount of time that you have. So you're not just like I'm writing my dissertation. It becomes, I'm doing my topic sentences for my introduction, like much more accessible and doable.
And the second thing that comes to my mind is setting up accountability during those work sessions. So this might be coworking with a colleague or a friend or Either like, live on zoom or in person, or having a shared checklist in a Google doc or something where you can report back or even just if you're on your own, like, having a Pomodoro timer, like, something that will set up maybe gamify the approach and have some sort of external accountability.
So you can. be more efficient during shorter time blocks. So that's what comes to my mind when I think about how to maximize a small amount of time. But what do you think, Katie? Yeah, so I definitely agree with all of those suggestions. And the other thing that I would add is that I think that time spent planning, either in the beginning of that session or like throughout the week when like maybe, you know, you don't quite have the energy to like work on your scholarship, say after work or like after caretaking, but you do have the energy to kind of make a checklist, like make some plans.
I know that. For me personally, I've been finding it really, really helpful to set up everything so that when the like stars align, and that's truly what it feels like sometimes, like the, the brain and the body and the work and the environment all come together and you only have an hour that you have a sense, like you said, of like, this is the specific two or three things that I can do.
And for me, having a choice has also been really helpful. Like, okay, I can either do this or I can do this. And having that outsourced into a task manager, or a to do list, or a journal, or somewhere where I can like, park my brain. Because I find that, for me personally, my brain is working at like, a low level in waves throughout the week.
And I work with so many people who carry so much shame around not working every day. And then I'm like, you are working on it, though. You're thinking about it, you're, you're imagining, you may be reading, you might be checking emails, you might be teaching on something similar. Like, you're engaged in it.
Give yourself credit for that work, and then, if you need to, Give yourself permission to spend a little bit extra energy in the capturing of those thoughts, like yell into a voice note, send your friend a text about those things, scribble maniacal notes to yourself in a planner, and you know, maybe only 40 of them, 40 percent of them will make sense later, but capturing those thoughts when they happen so that you don't have to rely on your brain to To remember all of those things and immediately jump into it.
That would be my, my advice because the you're working on it all the time. Even if it's only like a 1 or 2 or 10 percent level. So give yourself credit for it. Capture it when you can. And. Do your best to
capture it when you can. Yeah. I that's so brilliant. The idea to record that, like to record it when you have these ideas, even if it's not during a work session, I'll often do this with like, I have to remember to do X and I'll just throw it in my Google calendar for later this week. So it pops up and it's a reminder to me like, Oh, don't forget to do X.
And it just was like, Arbitrarily thrown in there, like not on a to do list, but like, I know I'll see the notification later, right? So I like this idea of record it when it's in your mind, even if it's not totally fleshed out yet. Yeah, and I think that offloading some of that to some other system, whether it's your Google calendar or a piece of paper or a planner or something, I think that a lot of us expect that like real academics or good academics can just like hold it all up there and And I haven't met anyone who hasn't found it helpful to be able to look at a physical reflection of at least part of those ideas, whatever form that takes.
So yeah. Okay. Excellent question. Thank you to our reader for sending that in. Okay. Thank you for this Q and A, Dr. Peplin and Dr. Henry. You're welcome. You have both written for academia, like your dissertations and journal articles, but you. Also, both have transitioned to writing newsletters and blog posts.
I'm curious to hear how you made that transition. And if you think your academic training helps you with writing for more general audiences, as a book author, Dr. Henry, I am at your, like your knees to, you know, as a, as a student to hear this, because I really look to you as somebody who's made this transition really brilliantly.
Thank you. That's so kind. That feels great to hear. What came to my mind when I read this question was thinking how academic writing really follows a template that's already laid out before us. Of course, we can get creative and, you know, do lots of interesting stuff, but like, I was always able to read sample dissertations, like read other things in reverse outline, which I know you have lots of wonderful like lessons on that.
And that set me up to like, you know, create my own templates that I would utilize for blog posts. For newsletters now, like I, it's often like I outline things ahead of time and outlining was a skill. I developed in graduate school and I'm doing that. And similar for my book, like it was similar in terms of like the outlining.
It was not the same thing as a dissertation. The book was a little bit more like, Oh, what do I want this to look like? It can look like all it doesn't have to have a method section. Right. So there was more freedom there, but I still definitely. You know, benefit from the reverse outlining the templates that outlines that I utilized in school.
But I also think for writing online, this is not directly an answer to the question, but I really love how there's like so little gatekeeping. Like I'm like, Oh, I can write whatever I want and I can share this. It doesn't have to go through like peer review. It doesn't have to take like a year to get published and maybe it doesn't.
So that's something that, you know, academia. You know, was much slower and I find it wonderful that it's much more accessible to be publishing online. I imagine you concur with that, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts. I do. So, this is like kind of a tender question for me because I still have a lot of baggage, I think, around my identity as a writer.
I, when I was in grad school and even afterward, never identified myself as a writer. I almost always was like, oh, I'm a teacher. And I sometimes write that down. And that was really useful for me when I was writing because I was like, okay, I would imagine when I would get stuck on things, if I had to teach this to a very smart undergrad, what would I teach it to?
You know, how would I teach this to them? And I would basically like write down a lecture and then sort of make it more dissertation like, and so I, And I think what really made that transition to writing for more general audiences is being like, Oh, this is also just like teaching. So if I wanted to outline how to use this tool, for example, in a blog post, how would I have explained it to, you know, my colleagues?
How would I have explained it to my clients? And that teacherly voice always felt much more comfortable to me. But as I sort of get further and further away from the dissertation, the more I'm finding that I still do have some kind of knots around the, like, I'm a good teacher, but I'm maybe not a good writer.
And so I am really working to kind of untangle those things. And remember that, like you said, there is so little judgment around what makes a blog post a blog post, or like, what makes it worthy to be a newsletter. And I found that it's actually been really healing for me in certain ways to have people react to my writing and be like, this is really useful for me, and this is really positive, or I really liked it when you said this, or like, reply to a newsletter and say like, oh, this was great.
Because I felt like So much of my scholarship was just me either writing to absolute crickets, no one reading it, no one giving me any feedback, or feedback that was to put it mildly, less than constructive. So a lot of the scholarship process really left me feeling insecure, and so a lot of my business journey has been reclaiming that skill.
Hopefully that's not too vulnerable to share, but I think it's sometimes helpful for people to realize that, like, yes, I do write newsletters and blog posts, but, like, I'm not at all. You know, firing them off and being like, Ooh, good job, self, like, there's still some of that insecurity and double thinking and going back and forth that lots of us, I imagine, struggle with.
Mm. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That is vulnerable and also validating to hear. Like, I imagine lots of folks listening feel that way too. As well around like, no, I have this great skill and sharing my knowledge in this way and then publishing for. You know, I don't know, sort of like performing our knowledge, which I think is really what we did in graduate school.
That was also something like while I really enjoy, and I think I grad school did prepare me to outline my writing very well. It also prepared me to like. Sort of perform my knowledge with jargon and that's something I've really worked hard to unlearn and undo and because it's really important for me to make scholarship accessible.
Right. Right. And, you know, so that is also something as well where I'm certainly. Yeah, that's been a learning curve for me as well, like unlearning using all the jargony theory terms. Absolutely. Yeah, there are so few opportunities for me to talk about it like epistemology in this particular line of work.
And that's both a blessing and a curse. They're like, I have to sort of take down some of that jargon, but it also challenges me in the same way that teaching did to be like, okay, like, if you can't use that word, you can't use that sort of phrasing. Do you know this well enough to translate it in a different.
Different language, almost. Yes. Awesome. I am excited for your wisdom in that particular genre. So we have one more question, which I'm really excited to talk about because it's something that I am feeling too. Hi, Katie and Kate. I am feeling really behind with all that I have to do between now and the end of the year.
And it's really discouraging. How do you deal with this wrap everything up rush? And so do you feel this rush, Kate? I actually, when I read this question, I was like, should I plan out the end of my year? Y'all know, not in a bad way, not in a bad way. But I, I actually like what came to my mind when I read this is like, okay, it's time to do a brain dump.
It's time to just get everything that could be done out of your head and onto the page to, you know, then. Like that can be its own step. So then you can be like, I don't have to remember everything. And I know that can feel really overwhelming for some folks to see everything you have to do. For me, I really love seeing a brain dump because then I can start to sort of say like, okay, what needs to be done good enough?
Like, what can I really do good enough? And like, also like within the realm of academia at the end of the year, I'm like, When are folks signing off for the end of the year? Like when are folks checking out? Everyone's really busy, you know? So those sort of things came to my mind, like what really needs to be done super well and what can just be delayed or, you know, just done well enough.
And also what came to my mind is thinking around like, Oh, making sure to like plan time off. Like particularly if this person is feeling rushed, like, is there a way that they can ensure that they are. Setting aside time to really rest and take a break, like, are there ways if they have you know, vacation or breaks scheduled around holidays, like, is there a way to actually make sure that they have that rest space?
That came to my mind as well. But what do you think? Absolutely. So this is something that I actually really struggle with because I love fresh starts so much. I am on the record in several places as being. Like. You know, really drawn to the magic of, like, new years and new moons and new weeks and new days and, like, that kind of, like, starting over energy and through the years I've kind of really dug into what itch that scratches for me and part of it is this idea that, like, I can only rest when everything's done.
And I think that so many of us feel that, and as a scholar, and so many of the people that I'm working with are like, well, I'll rest when I hit this milestone, I'll rest when the prospectus is done, I'll rest when this class is finished, I'll rest when my exams are passed, when I get this chapter done, and the problem with achievement based rest.
Like, that like rest you have to unlock is what I call like the moving goal line problem. That like, it just keeps going. And that as soon as you pass your exams, you have to start working on that prospectus. And then it's the chapter, and then it's the journal article, and the next class, like the pace really is relentless.
And so if you are always saying like, I will rest when I've worked enough for it to be worth it, I'm, I'm here to tell you from personal experience that you will experience some level of exhaustion, if not straight up clinical burnout, but also you're reinforcing the idea that your rest is predicated on you achieving enough to be worth it.
And like you said, like so many of us look forward to the end of the year as the a time where we can be with family or be with loved ones or take a break or enjoy the twinkle lights or sort of whatever it looks like for you, but that if you don't protect that space, if you don't actually genuinely plan for it, it is so easy to wake up on January 15th.
when your new semester starts and be like, wow, not only did I not get what I wanted to done, I also didn't rest. So for, I love the idea of a brain dump. I think that's really helpful. And I often go through my brain dump just like you do and be like, These are the things that must absolutely get done.
Here are the things that would be great to do if I have a little bit of extra energy or time in the tank. And here are things that I am explicitly giving myself permission not to do until the new year, the new semester starts. Whatever that sort of like reset period is and for me giving that like explicit permission like I give myself Explicit permission to not prep that next syllabus until after the holidays or like I give myself explicit permission To put off this journal article That's due in February until January really helps me because then it's not, I've closed that folder instead of leaving it on my desk, like maybe I'll get to it because I find that it's those open tasks that really make it difficult for me to unplug and actually rest.
Yes. Oh, thank you for all of that. That's excellent. That makes me think about, like, I also am like a new person, like I've already got my new bullet journal for the year that I've started to set up, you know, like, and it makes me think too, like for me, like, I'm like, Oh, I had all these 2024 goals. What if I didn't finish any?
And like you mentioned, like things I must get done, things I could do if I had some energy, you know, like things I may need to postpone. And I wonder if there's also like a fourth thing where it's like, do you want to Not do this anymore. Like, do you want to like give yourself permission to be like, I don't have to carry that with me into the new year.
Like I wanted to do this article or I wanted to apply for this job and actually like, I don't want to do that. I think especially if you're like a new year new me, that could be a nice thing to be like, yeah, I changed my mind about that one. That's okay. It's funny that you mentioned that because I was talking with my husband who's a software engineer about that exact issue.
And like in software engineering terms, they call that like, Backlog grooming, like you go through your backlog of like all of the things that have kind of accumulated and you make explicit decisions Like oh, that was a good idea But we're not going to do that or like and you close those things out because otherwise like I just imagine a person Like putting more and more things in their backpack and like I have this goal and I have this goal and sometimes it's really Helpful to be like, you know what that was a great goal for me nine months ago But it's not a great goal for me anymore.
And I'm giving myself permission to be like, you know what? I'm not the same person that set those goals. And there's no shame in letting them go and picking goals that actually feel good and useful and supportive for me. I love this. Yeah, maybe we should do a little workshop on like, I don't know, rinse and rinse and repeat, like clear your, clear your goals, close the backlog or something.
Absolutely. That's cool. I love it. Yeah, we will think about that. For maybe later, but I just want to say thank you so much for sharing your time and your wisdom with all of us. I'm so excited to get this out to all of our listeners. So wherever this finds you, when it finds you. We are wishing you, at least I am, but I'm pretty sure that Dr.
Henry is too a restful and restorative end of the year. Thanks so much. Bye bye.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
3.13 so your advisor sucks. now what?
so, you've realized that your advisor doesn't meet all your needs - now what?
this podcast has three steps to help you move through the sticky feelings when this important relationship doesn't feel aligned, and how to move through that.
make sure you check out the first episode of season three, building a team of mentors, for practical steps to keep this process going!
Sign up for AcWriMo 2023 here - a month of completely FREE resources to support your academic writing! And from now until December 11, take 15% off everything in the Thrive PhD store - no code needed! It's just my way of saying thank you for an awesome year!
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A juicy one this week. Let's talk about what happens when your advisor sucks.
📍 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.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
One of the truth is truths about grad student supervision is that very, very few people are explicitly trained in it. So faculty members get jobs, bring on students and then have no real sense of how to mentor a student other than how they themselves were mentored. So many students find themselves with a supervisor or a mentor or a PI who doesn't fit their needs. But once you realized that an advisor, isn't what you need, or at least all of what you need. Then what. I've got three steps today that you can take to work with this issue.
It's the most frequent one that I get when I am working with new clients. And I think it's important to talk about it because often there are not as many choices as we would like, but there are often more choices than you think. So. Here are three things that you can do. Step one. Except that it isn't fair.
And that this is a systemic issue. This is an important step because most graduate students, I know working with supervisors that are not good fits, internalize that fact on some level. They work harder to try and please an unpleasable critic. They hide their diverse career plans because they sense that they won't be supported.
They take advice that they know doesn't fit their values or their life or their brain, because it seems disrespectful or sneaky to ask for a second opinion. If your advisor only reads the work of the person in your lab who was on Dr. Graduate, that's not a fair system. You all deserve feedback. If you worry about your funding disappearing, if you reveal something about your personal life or your future. Plans that isn't fair.
It doesn't have any real bearing. The work that you're doing in the degree. These issues are pervasive and they often have everything to do with how the supervisor understands their role and little to do with the individual student. It isn't fair. It sucks. It actively hurts graduate students, and more than likely you didn't do or say anything to cause the situation. Now, of course, this isn't to put all the blame on individual advisors either. When you produce exponentially more PhDs than there are available tenure track jobs, it fundamentally changes the purpose of the degree and mentorship.
And a lot of ways has had to change along with that. And few supervisors are trained in how to support students through a degree that looks nothing like the one they received. This is an academia wide issue.
Step two. Identify what you need. So once you've accepted that your advisor isn't supporting you and all the ways that you need to be supported, it's tempting to generalize. They're just a terrible advisor. And there's nothing that I can do about it. But often digging through to a more nuanced understanding can be really helpful. Maybe they're extremely careful readers of your writing, but they don't really know how to support your career plans. Maybe they're incredibly supportive of your health and allowing you to build a flexible work structure, but there's also no apparatus in place to make sure you actually graduate when you want to.
And you're on target. Dig in and find out what areas really need support. You're a graduate student experience, this complex. It needs to be supported in a lot of different areas. The more you understand where you need the support, the easier it's going to be to find it.
Step three. Empower yourself to get the help that you need. It is so hard to say. This isn't working and I need more help. But if you can get to a point where you want to do while in grad school and beyond.
If you can get to a point where you want to do grad school. If you can get to a point where you want to do well in grad school, and you want that more than you ever want to never need help. It becomes easier to ask for the support that you need. Ultimately, unless your advisor's magical unicorn. You will not, you will need additional support that they can not give. This is especially true because only you can zoom out and see the entire picture of your life. Only, you know, where you want to be in five or 10 years and what things are incredibly hard for you to achieve or what your health and wellness is.
It's so hard to remember that everyone is trying to keep up a perfect image for the eventual job market, but actually the number one goal on grad school is to complete the degree. Not to complete the degree without needing any support from anyone ever. So if the goal is to complete the work. Why not ask for things that will help make it easier. Why not build up a team of mentors, support, and resources that you need to get, where you want to go in the way that makes the most sense for your life. Now, these team of mentors look really different for different people.
For me, my team was my advisor a little bit, my committee, a little bit more. And then I network of people around campus and off of it that helps support me. As a whole person. I had people who supported my career ambitions. I had people that I talk to about my health. I had colleagues that worked with me about my writing.
I had people in other departments that brainstormed and taught. Different classes with me. I had people all over and ultimately what I felt like was this huge downside to my experience. That my advisor wasn't great. And that I needed more support ended up being one of the most valuable things about my PhD experience, because I had these relationships with more people
I had such a richer network than some of my other colleagues did because I had gone beyond the two or three people that I was basically assigned. Those people in my network are the ones that help me get jobs. They're the ones that helped me through tough situations and they allowed me to have a lot more power in my PhD journey.
It would be great if academia were a system that was inclusive, where support was offered freely in a diversity of goals and experiences were anticipated in plan for. There are a lot of us who are making. A lot of effort. To make that happen. But until then the biggest danger is not actually bad advisors. The biggest danger to graduate students is your belief that your entire fate and future rests in one person or a few people's hands. It doesn't. Working to support yourself so that you can do your best work is a skill that's going to pay off forever.
And now it's a good time to start. I hope that this gave you at least a little bit of normalization around the idea that you can still have an advisor. Who's not a perfect fit. Or somebody who's really great. And still isn't what you need in a specific moment and do well in grad school. It's so hard. To feel stuck and to say, okay, I need something.
And this person isn't giving it to me. But knowing that there are benefits to creating a network and that we learned so much about ourselves identifying what we need, figuring out where to find it and applying it. Can really help make the difference between this is something that I have to do because this person is so terrible. Into, even in the best case scenario, I would want to do this because it has a lot of benefits. Just a quick note that the once a year thrive, PhD sale is still going on now through December 11th.
So make sure you click the link in the bio. 15% off everything in the store. No special code needed. I hope that this short and sweet episode gave you a little bit of space to think about your world. And your advisor. And I can't wait to see you next week. Bye.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
3.12 yeah but is it sustainable? - danger signs in your scheduling
i talk a lot about sustainability - but how do you know if you're working with a sustainable schedule? i give my top warning signs that your schedule will eventually bury you alive, and even better, ways to build in some flexibility and space in this week's episode! get into it!
I am giving away one FREE 45 minute session with me a month to anyone who reviews this podcast on Apple Podcasts! Leave a review and I'll announce the winners in the last episode of the month, and in my newsletter! Thank you so much for helping to spread the word about the podcast! And if you are user JLB332, you won this month's free session! Email to claim!
Sign up for AcWriMo 2023 here - a month of completely FREE resources to support your academic writing! And from now until December 11, take 15% off everything in the Thrive PhD store - no code needed! It's just my way of saying thank you for an awesome year!
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I talk a lot about sustainability, but if you've ever wondered what that means and how to know if your schedule is sustainable. This is the episode for. for. you. 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.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
It's basically thrive PhD legend at this point, but low, many moons ago as an anxious PhD student. I came into my therapist office with the schedule for the next two weeks. Uh, down to the 15 minute level of detailed. It was color-coded it was beautifully printed. I'm so happy about it. I wish I had a picture to show you, but then again, I'm also kind of clear that I don't. I was so proud because I had scheduled in at least six hours of sleep at night. One hour of working out a few days a week and was convinced that if I just stuck to the schedule, everything. Everything would be fine. At the time I was trying to get married in the same week that I was defending my comprehensive exams. And when I wasn't studying, I was planning and trying to mentally navigate all that comes along with being legally. And otherwise. Bound to another human. But I could just do it.
If I kept to the schedule, it would all work and I would feel no stress about any of these things. This was the plan anyway. My therapist at the time. Bless her. Looked at me and said, but what if they're sTraffic. And right there in her office, I burst into tears because my schedule was only workable.
If nothing unexpected happen. And even the suggestion of 10 minutes of traffic. I was enough to open up the flood gates of worry and fear and stress and anxiety. Full disclosure. I'm still working on a lot of the same lessons that I was on that day. And I still do make pretty detailed schedules for myself. But I have learned a lot. About sustainability in the meantime. And how to tell if you're working with a schedule that is, or isn't sustainable. Schedules are great. Their plans with a time associated and they can be such great tools and helping you see what you need to adjust to meet certain goals. But they can also crush you if they're built on premises, that just can't be maintained over time.
Here. Here are some of the telltale signs that you're working with, a schedule that isn't sustainable. Over the longterm. And please believe me, grad school is long-term and you need a schedule that addresses that. So here are. Those signs. Number one, it doesn't account for human functions. Your schedule like sleep. Or movement or eating or cleaning your space. Warning sign number two. It requires everyone else to adhere to it perfectly.
And the more people that includes the less sustainable, it probably is. If your entire schedule rests on your advisor being on time and prepared for your meetings. Are your students not having questions after the class, then it's probably not as sustainable as you think it is.
Warning sign number three. If you find yourself playing catch up on a frequent. Or even regular basis to stay somewhat close to the schedule. It's probably. Not as sustainable.
Warning sign number four. It doesn't have any flexibility without massive restructuring. That is how much would you really need, need to redo that schedule? If you got sick for two days? If you would have to trash the whole thing, it probably isn't. Is ironclad and sustainable as you want it to be.
Next morning sign.
It doesn't have rest days or even rest times.
Second to last. It only addresses the immediate concerns or projects on your plate. And doesn't have anything that helps support long-term projects or things that are important, but just not urgent or do right now. And last but not least. The warning sign that I find almost everybody's schedule is hitting.
It doesn't have any time or very, very limited time to connect with family, friends, loved ones, communities, other interests, or just time for fun. More generally. If any of those warning signs. Made you sit up. And think, wow. Maybe things aren't as sustainable as I thought. Well, I have some good news for you. But first a little caveat. There are, of course, certain times during your grad school journey, like the two weeks before you turn in your draft to your committee or the week of your exam, that sustainability is less of a concern. But if you can always find a reason why you need to push past your limits. Then it might be time to examine your schedule and those things that make you believe. That you're only truly working if you're going above and beyond the limits of your life.
And now because I'm not a monster. Here are my most potent ways to add in some space and flexibility to get a schedule that will keep you on track. Without necessarily endangering your health. Okay. Tip number one. Make sure that you have days off scheduled. I personally. Like a half day, weekday admin hard-stop at 8:00 PM. And at least one weekend day, fully off as my rhythm. Wednesday mornings.
I'm usually pretty tired. So it's a good time for me to clean run errands book, all my doctor's appointments or whatever else I need to do. That's outside of the house. And then I get a little bit of a break during the week. Maybe you do six days a week, but you're off at 2:00 PM. Or maybe you do two days on one day off in a cycle because weekends are just a construct. As long as there are off days or off periods already scheduled, it's really going to help your sustainability.
Tip number two. Consider adding in some buffer time before big deadlines. Is that chapter due to your adviser? January 1st. Right out all of your milestone days and your schedule so that you quote unquote finish. Say December 23rd, and then you have a little bit of time to play with, if things get off track. If your project has collaborators like co-authors or outside sources of data or specialized software. Or anything that makes it more complicated. Please, please definitely put in some of that flex time. Even if you don't need it, you'll be glad you had it.
Tip number three.
Think about buffer blocks during the week. I have a few hours on Tuesdays and Friday afternoons. That I don't schedule anything. And I use those hours to catch up on all of the things that invariably need to be caught up on having unscheduled time means that I don't have to take that time out of my regular schedule. It's a game changer.
If you've never tried it. I find it so helpful for dealing with those last minute email requests, because now I can say, Hey, this wasn't on my plate for this week, but I will have some time on Friday afternoon. And I'll try and look at it,
it helps so much. And last but not least. Ask for help. As a person from work who works from home. I assume that it was part of the deal that I would do most of the chores, all the grocery shopping errands and other household stuff. And of course, all of that adds up. It turns out that when I made that assumption, I was unwittingly depriving my husband of going to the grocery store, which weirdly he loves.
And I hate. So when I asked for some help, keeping up with things, he gladly took that on. Help comes in many places, but if we start, always start from the premise of, if I think about it, then I must be in charge of doing it. Well, a lot ends up on your list that maybe doesn't need to be there.
All of this is a way of saying I work hard.
You work hard. But there's a difference between showing up to put in the work and then taking the rest of the time to take care of yourself. And do all of the other human things. And working so hard that you crash and need to recover in a cycle that repeats. If not endlessly, pretty close to it. Work hard. Rest hard. Work hard. Work smart and do the rest too, but try not to fall into, or at least try not to stay in the trap of thinking that only an inhuman schedule. Of perfect productivity.
We'll get you to the finish line. Well, rested well cared for humans. Get a surprising amount of work done in a much smaller amount of time. Let yourself experiment with some of these sustainability practices and see for yourself.
And last but not least a tiny little announcement. There is the once a year thrive PhD sale going on now through December 11th. If you're listening to this episode of close to one, it releases. Check out the store. Everything is 15% off. No code needed. It's my way of saying thank you for everything you do for thrive PhD. See you next week.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
3.11 get some distance - make your writing strange so you can revise it
have you ever looked at a word so long that it ceased to have any meaning? has that ever happened to you on the scale of a paragraph, paper, or diss chapter? this week's episode has a variety of resources and strategies to help you make your writing "strange" - to get some distance from it so you can see it clearly. there isn't always someone else around to read our writing - or time for them to do so even if there was - so these tools can come in handy for all of us!
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What if you need a fresh set of eyes on your writing, but the only eyes around or your own. Let's talk about self editing this week on.
📍 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.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
Have you ever looked at a word so frequently that it ceased to lose any meaning? This sometimes happens to me when I'm writing a lot about the same topic and there's actually a name for it. It's called semantic satiation. It means you're literally so full of seeing that word, that it doesn't make sense anymore. And if you've never had that experience feel free to write the word spoon over and over again, or say it over and over again.
And I promise you that. Rapidly enough, you will reach the point of semantic satiation. This is a phenomenon that happens on small scales, but I also think that it's a larger metaphor for what can happen to a lot of us when we are working on the same project over the course of weeks. Days months, years. We become saturated by it. And what happens when you need to do something like revise or proofread or give something another pass and you don't have another person available to do that. It would be great if we all had easy access to supportive supervisors, amazing writing groups. Editors. Software to do this kind of workforce, but a lot of times it's you, that needs to be working on your writing.
So today let's talk about how to make your own writing, strange to you. So that you can overcome that sense of feeling full up with it and get a little bit of perspective to hopefully move it forward. I'm going to share a bunch of strategies. So might work for you. Some might not some require various pieces of software or equipment, but a lot of them can be done for free. Just with what you have hanging around. So the first tool that can be really helpful is dictation or having something read aloud back to you. I know that when I am particularly stuck with my writing and I just can't stand to look at that document anymore, I will often open up a dictation window. Whether that is through something like Otter or the word processing. Dictation tools that are coming. More and more evolved every day. And I just talk, I talk it out and it's not a perfect transcript.
It certainly requires some editing, but it absolutely helps to bring a little bit of freshness into what I'm working on. Move me out of a sticky spot more often than not. You can also have your writing be read back to you. There are all sorts of apps and extensions. More. Then it makes sense for me to list out here on this podcast, but it can be really helpful to have to hear your writing, being read back to you.
If that's something that's successful to you. So I know that when I listened to my own writing, being read back without looking at it, I catch all sorts of things. Like the phrases that I use at the top of every paragraph or my in. Or my predilection to use some of the same pieces of vocabulary and sentence structures to the point where they become repetitive and almost silly sounding. I catch. The repetition of ideas.
I catch places where at my logic jumps and bonus, it usually gives me a little bit of rest from the eyestrain that I can feel scrolling up and down a really large document.
Speaking of scrolling up and down or really large document. If you work visually on a computer, then it can be very, very helpful to change the way that your writing looks to you on a visual level. This is because our brains become accustomed to seeing certain words, certain places at the same time. So, if you've been working on a document for say, weeks or months, your brain kind of has storage shortcuts and it makes it really hard to catch things like typos or repetition, because you're so used to seeing it. There's a lot of different ways that you can change it visually. The classic is to print it out. We'll look at it on a different medium.
I love to actually go one step further change locations, even if it's just to another side of my desk to look at it in a completely different form. However, not all of us are members of the class where we have access or even the capability to print out huge long documents. So you can also go into your word processing program and change the font. I recommend that you pick something relatively obnoxious and definitely a big change from whatever font that you traditionally drafted, the reason is because if you change the size and you change the way that the actual letters look, it's going to give you more of that sense of newness and freshness.
And then bonus, you can actually start to change that font back to whatever the standard is. And it gives you a very quick visual reference as to what pieces of the writing. Have been looked over and what pieces haven't yet. I know that if I use a font that I do not find appealing, it actually encourages me to move through some of these revision stages.
Just that much faster to get rid of that ugly font on my screen.
Any of these tools though, rely on a somewhat dramatic change to give you some space between how you're used to working with your writing as it's in progress and how you want to encounter it in this new fresher writing session.
Like I mentioned changing location can be really helpful. I know that for me. It was really useful to go to the library every so often and work on a piece of writing there that big change. Even if it didn't involve any other interventions, brought a little bit of freshness to it, but the gold standard for all of these is to actually let your writing rest. Now. I'm was a grad student.
I work with grad students. I know that there are often situations where you do not have a lot of time in between when you've drafted something. And when it needs to go out to its next stage, say an advisor check or a supervisor meeting, or sometimes even to the editor or the college to submit it. So the amount of time and space that you can give yourself between writing sessions is going to vary greatly, but. Any amount of rest that you can give certain sections of your writing is going to help. So say you are in a big deadline crunch to submit a big chapter to your supervisor by the end of the week. I recommend. Chunking it up and picking parts of that chapter. To work on at various different points so that you're alternating and moving through the document, as opposed to going over and over again, the same. Piece that you've been looking at.
This does give you a little bit of distance. It might not be you know, two weeks to come back, completely bright eyed and bushy tailed, and ready to look at that piece of writing again, but even the space of a couple of hours. I can give you a little bit more of a different perspective. That can help you catch some of the things that the revision process is meant to catch.
Writing, especially academic writing.
The further that you get into your career. Needs more and more work after the initial drafting stage. I know how frustrating it was for me as an undergrad student, because I would write my papers and I'm not proud of this, but I am honest about it. I would write my papers the night before, if not the morning of depending on how much I cared about the class and how well prepared I was. And it was a big shock for me when I reached the next levels of my writing, where I simply could not write a pretty solid draft the night before and turn it in. At least not without doing some serious harm to my body. Or, you know, just not meeting the bar that was expected of me in this new stage.
So learning how to revise was not at all a straightforward process, but some of these steps really helped me be able to come back to my writing with a little bit of freshness, a little bit of perspective, and that made all the difference. If you are looking for more support with your academic writing, november is ACC. Rye Mo which despite being a very difficult word to say is actually one of my favorite times a year. I share all sorts of free resources through my newsletter and you can sign up absolutely for free at any point during this month. Using the link in my show notes. Thank you so much, and I will see you next week.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
3.10 gentle accountability - body doubling
have you ever noticed that when you work in a library or a coffeeshop, or do chores with your housemates, that you get more done? that magic (if it isn't caffeine) is called body doubling. this week's episode is all about this gentler accountability tool, where you can practice it virtually and in person, and when it might not work for you!
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my community (join for just $5/month!)
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If you've ever wondered why you get so much more work done in a coffee shop, a library, or when you're working with friends. This is the episode for Are you.
📍 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.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
This week's episode is all about body doubling, which is a technique that you've probably tried. Even if you weren't aware that that's what it's called. Body doubling just means that you're doing some sort of work in the presence of another person. This can be like when you and a housemate or partners say, okay, I'll split up and you take the kitchen and I will clean up the bedroom. Or when you're working in a coffee shop and you're surrounded by people that are working. It doesn't necessarily mean that you are working together in a formal way. It's that your body is literally doubled or tripled or quadrupled, whatever the case may be by other bodies that are doing a similar sort of task. The reason that this is so effective is because it's a constant continual reminder that you're meant to be doing something. Meant to be staying on task without those reminders necessarily being verbal or some sort of other. External alarm or feature. This. Means that body doubling is a little bit more gentle. You look up, you remember you're in a coffee shop, you see other people working and almost on a subconscious level, you get back to work.
It's a little bit easier to focus. It's the difference between. I'm trying to keep yourself on task alone in a room and trying to keep yourself on task when other people are on task too. It's probably why a lot of people find exams to be really helpful because they're sitting in a room with a bunch of other people, also focused.
They'll feel different if they are staring out the window or surfing on their phone or getting up and walking around, it's a gentle nonverbal reminder that you're meant to be on task. This can be helpful for lots of people. I might even go as far as to say that it's helpful for most people. But it's especially helpful for people with ADHD or who are otherwise working with some executive function difficulties.
If you've never heard the term executive function before, it's basically the conductor in your brain. That gets all of the parts of you, your body, your nervous system, your thoughts, your conscious mind, all of it on track. It's kind of like a conductor of an orchestra getting everything there. And if that conductor is taking a break or is somehow interested in another. Task then it can feel really difficult to get all of the pieces of assistant moving that's executive function.
And if it's not working the way that it's supposed to. Then you're going to notice a big difference.
Now that you're on board with what body doubling actually is. Let's talk about some different ways that you might incorporate it into your day. During the pandemic or at least the first acute wave of the pandemic, lots and lots of people found it so difficult to work from home. And of course there were a thousand cultural and historical reasons why it was difficult to work at home, but a big one. Was that their spaces weren't set up and they had a real lack of body doubling. If you're used to studying exclusively in the library, and then all of a sudden, you're also supposed to be on your couch, trying to study while people in your house maybe are walking around or doing a thousand other things, it's going to be a lot more difficult to keep yourself on track.
So. During that first wave of the pandemic, there were a lot of virtual options that either popped up or became much, much more popular. Even in my community. We started hosting. Zoom work togethers. We used to meet in the chat. Space and we still do. On occasion, but I had it, the feature of working together in a zoom room because people quite frankly needed that reinforcement of another person, even if it was in a virtual square, on a screen. Thousands of miles away. There are a lot of options where you can sign up free and paid for virtual coworking or body doubling sessions.
One of the most popular ones is focus mate, and I'll put all of these links in the show notes. You can have a couple of free sessions a week, but you can also pay for a membership. This is where you basically sign up for an appointment slot with somebody else. You both have your camera's on, or your Mike's on, depending on the settings that you pick. You check in at the beginning of an hour or however long, the session is you check out at the end and then you have that visual reinforcement. Zoom work togethers work much in the same way.
Sometimes they're ad hoc. Sometimes they're scheduled. Like they are in my community. There are things like flow club, which market, especially to people with ADHD and other executive function, things that are happening. And then there's even a genre of YouTube videos, Tik, TOK, streams, and all sorts of live. Happenings on the internet that are called kind of study with me videos. Somebody sets up a camera on a tripod.
You usually can't see their face, but you can see them taking notes. Sometimes they go along with a Pomodoro system and sometimes they don't, but those can be really fun. I have a particular person that I like that studies in a library, and I like to watch the light change out the window as they're studying.
And I am too. You can also do all of this body doubling in person. If that's something that's safe for you for your immune system. And you have a good set of ventilation. So in person options, look a lot like working in a library or working in a coffee shop we're meeting a friend and deciding to work together in a specific space, even if you're not going to talk about it. These can be harder to arrange sometimes.
And of course there are barriers for lots of us for meeting in person, but. When in doubt, it can always be a little bit of a boost to go somewhere different where people will also be on a task, even if it's not your exact task to help get something done.
The reasons that this works. Our number one, the intentionality of these sessions. You have to go to a coffee shop on purpose. You have to sign into a focus mate on purpose. It's a start, it's an end. It has a little bit of temporal distinction to it. And that can be really effective. Number two are the gentle reminders to stay on task that aren't someone waving their finger in your face. Having you stay on task.
It's a much less activating way to provide yourself some structure and perhaps not get quite as much of an adrenaline nervous kick around it. And number three, they're really great for straight up scheduling. I love them because they break up my day. And I know that if I have a work together at 11, like I do the day that I'm recording this. That I have some reasons to get things done because something is going to happen at that time.
I know that even if my morning gets off track, I have a session scheduled for 11. I'll be there, there will be other people working. I'll be able to focus again, or at least I'll give myself a really decent chance to try.
You should also know the body doubling. Isn't perfect though. And one thing that can happen and happen to a lot of us, I would say probably 18 months, two years into the pandemic is that some of the novelty wears off. You are in your 1000th and 400 work together session. Your 1000 focus mate. And some of the magic doesn't quite hit like it did the first time novelty seeking is real.
It's not anything to be ashamed of. And I encourage you to switch modalities. Sometimes if you're used to working in a specific virtual option, try something else, maybe switch it up with something in person. The choices are endless, but if you're finding that the sparkle isn't quite there try changing an element of it. The other thing to know is that sometimes you can lose the sense of consequences.
So if you go to the coffee shop, for instance, or if you go to a work together and you say at the beginning, or you say to a friend, or you set out in your planner to say, read this article and instead. You go shopping online for whatever you would like to go shopping and nothing bad happens. It's sometimes can trick your brain into thinking that this isn't an effective tool. First of all, it might not be an effective tool for you.
Not every tool is for everyone, but it can also. I have the same effect is kind of missing an internal deadline. You think it's going to work? You realize that it doesn't because you blow past it. There's no real sense of consequence. And then it gets a little bit easier next time to noodle around. If that happens, I do suggest taking a break from some of these tools, trying something else. And maybe coming back to it just in case that. It works for you in a different season, in a different frame of mind, in a different location. Like I said, I host work togethers every weekday in my community, which you can join for $5 a month.
And there are lots of free opportunities to do work togethers all around the internet. So I encourage you to find some groups, start somebody doubling and see what it does for you. See you next week.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
3.9 the process of the process - how to use reflective writing
sometimes, we breeze right by a tool because it seems like an extra step - but i'm here to encourage you to not knock reflective writing until you try it! this week's episode has reasons why you might want to use it, ways to try it out, and variations to play with! get into it!
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It may sound silly. But this week, we're talking about why writing about your writing might just be the unblocking tool that you've been missing.
📍 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.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
Many of us have different techniques that we've been exposed to that we think. Yeah, I'm not sure I really need that. And for me, reflective writing was top of the list. I'm a person who does a lot of reflection already. Like most academics. I spend a lot of time in my brain. And when I get bored of thinking about my research work, I like to think about the process of my research work.
So reflective writing. The act of reflecting on my process, my learning, my research in writing like physical writing always seemed a little superfluous to me. I'm already doing that kind of reflection in my head as I go. So why would I write it down? But. Like so many tools. Don't knock it until you try it.
So I'm here this week with a couple of different ways that you can build in reflective writing. Into your academic practice and maybe some reasons why it might help you out. Now. The number one reason that I find that reflective writing can be really useful for people. Is that it slows our brains down enough so that we can actually see our thoughts more clearly. I I'm sure like you have about seven thoughts going on in my head at all times. And it can be a little bit overwhelming who hasn't sat down at the computer. Wanting to check an email and then pull getting. And then getting pulled into a conversation, a research hole. A list of all the things you need to do, your brain reminding you, that you need to book that dentist appointment. There's a thousand things that are happening all at once and reflective writing the act of sort of writing things out, reflecting on them, thinking through them more clearly, and actually taking the time to articulate those things in actual language. Is one way of slowing down the stream and taking, look at one at a time. Hi. I know that this is something that can be really useful, not just for us, but for our students.
And that's actually how I was introduced to this topic. The first time it was part of a learning reflection exercise that I was being encouraged to do with my students, but basically. The way that it broke down was asking students to reflect. About an experience both before, during and after. And in my case, it was the experience of writing a research paper. I asked them beforehand.
What do you think might happen in this process? What are the things that you're anticipating might be harder challenging for you? What do you think you need to know? I then talked about the. Process of reflecting during the actual experience. I asked them to write out in pieces of paper that they turned into me, the different things. That they were doing.
Narrate for me the steps that you're taking to do this research. How did you come to your research question? How did you find the sources, et cetera, et cetera. Then afterwards, I asked them to reflect on the experience as a whole. What were the things that became clear to them? What did they feel like they learned?
What would you do differently the next time? Uh, what things haven't you learned, et cetera? And it was he a surprisingly useful activity? Not just for them, but for me too. 'cause they got a sense of how they were approaching the various challenges. Now. You can do this kind of reflection. On your own work process.
And I find the doing it yourself can actually really help you see more quickly where you're getting stuck, where you could use more support, and it gives you a chance to recognize how much work you've actually done so far. And really give yourself a pat on the back for all of the things that you've learned that you're maybe taking for granted. So here are some different ways that you can do reflective writing in your own academic practice. You can of course go with the old standard, the old standard for a reason.
Journaling. Journaling is a great way to keep track of how things are going on a day-to-day basis and capture all of those things that might slip through the cracks.
Lots of people keep a lab notebook or a research journal or a daily journal where they keep track of the day-to-day occurrences. The blocks, the questions, the wins, the insights, and keep them in a place where they can come back to them and refer to them. You'll be surprised how many insights you have and how many insights you're losing until you start a more rigorous capturing process. Free writing is also a great way to do reflective writing. I like to start a lot of writing sessions, particularly if I'm blocked with a little bit of free writing.
And of course some of the free writing is relevant and some of it isn't, but putting a lower stakes writing activity lets me warm up, literally my fingers and whatever else I'm using to type whether that's voice dictation or. Long hand, it gives me a chance to warm up. And see where my head's at before I sit down and try and write some academic prose. You could do this also about your reading. And I really recommend it.
If you're in a heavy reading period, like studying for exams or working through a pile of literature. Keeping some quick notes, especially about how you think these pieces might apply to a project or a specific task that you're doing. I can be so useful because once you're on book two or book seven or book 55, it's going to be a little bit less clear than it was in the minutes immediately before, during, and after you encountered each text.
You might also want to experiment with brain dumps.
This is a hate generic catch all term for when you just sit down and dump out everything that's in your brain. For me, these tend to be a mix of, to do lists things that are rolling around ideas, for projects, reminders of things I have to do. They often get a little bit emotional and they're a really good way. For me to calm that buzzing bee feeling that I have about my writing sometimes. And sit down. Get all of those thoughts. Onto a piece of paper where I can decide when and if I want to deal with them.
Last, but not least the tool that you might want to use.
That is one of the gold standards of reflective writing. Our morning pages. This is something that was pioneered by Julia Cameron in a book called the artist's way, which your mileage may vary with the overall book, but she really recommends that everybody, especially those people who are writers. Start every day in the morning, with three longhand pages of writing it's stream of consciousness.
It's whatever comes to you. But I have found that even if you type it, even if you do it in the afternoon, Even if it's not quite three pages. Uh, you don't have to be as rigorous as she recommends, but the practice of reflecting and writing more frequently, even daily, or as frequently as it makes sense for you, gets you into the habit of reflecting on how things are going in a more lower stakes way. Like so many of these tools, a lot of us only reach for them when we're stuck.
But some of the magic comes when we use them more consistently when we capture the good days, as well as the sticky ones. Now. I am going to go as far as to suggest that reflective writing is a great practice to build in to your ACRA. IMO. If that's something that you're doing with us this month. It's a way to build your word count. Practice the act of writing and slow down, especially in a season where you might be sprinting or pushing to get to a certain goal. A little bit of reflection can go a long way in making sure that you're staying more or less aligned with your plans and your intentions. And if you want to join us for Mo, there's a link in my bio to sign up for free.
You can sign up any time this month. We're so happy to have you. Okay, thanks so much and see you next week.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
3.8 100 meter dash - how to plan for a burst of work
whether you're planning for a sprint week, AcWriMo 2023, or another burst of focused work, i'm here with five steps to a sustainable, action-packed time. avoid the common pitfalls and set yourself up for satisfaction and rest!
resources mentioned:
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If you are planning to work sprint, or maybe you're getting ready for ACRA. IMO starting in November. And this is the episode for you.
📍 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.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
This episode is all about planning for a burst of work. This could be a sprint a two week writing sprint. It could be something that you're planning for. ACRA IMO. In November. It could be for a work retreat. Or a bootcamp day, but there are a lot of reasons why you might want to have a burst of work.
It's something that you do that is a place of concentrated effort on one part of your project. Object, but there are actually some tips and tricks that make it easier to plan a reasonable amount of work inside of that burst. So it isn't just another ambitious plan that you don't manage to hit.
First step that I like to do is to identify a chunk of work. Now. Lots of people will be like, okay, I'm in a sprint for two weeks and write this journal article. And that might work if you already have a text and it's well-researched, and you've got all of the reading done, but you might want to aim for something a little bit smaller.
I am doing a burst of work on the lit review section of my article. I am planning a burst of work to get through all of my course prep. I'm planning a burst of work to get through. Um, five blog posts that I need to write and schedule. It depends on you and what your resources are. What's a reasonable chunk of work, but the first step is almost always to decide what you're going to be doing that burst on or about.
The second step is to maybe create some sort of flexibility inside of the plan. I really like to use good, better, best goals here, where you can say like, okay, baseline. I want to finish all of the reading in this particular area. A better case scenario would be that I get everything outlined and the quotes put into that outline.
And best case I have a rough first draft of it. Having a spread like this builds in a little bit of flexibility, so that even if you only hit your good or better goals, you still can feel that sense of accomplishment.
Lots of us love the challenge of an ambitious goal and something like a sprint week can really help you hit that ambitious goal because it has different rules, but. Sometimes it's just one more piece of pressure that we put on ourselves. One more unrealistic deadline, one more thing that we plan for that didn't quite hit. So bringing some flexibility into that process makes it a little bit easier to adjust to all of the unexpected life things that might happen.
All of the reasons why you might not get as far as your brain wanted you to do.
Step three is to create some time in your calendar. This is again, going to look different for everybody, but maybe it is blocking off mornings during your sprint session to work on the project. Maybe it is planning some weekend days that you don't normally work. Maybe it is scheduling and a bunch of work togethers, or potentially clearing your schedule of some extraneous meetings or appointments to make sure that you have some time.
But it's hard to do a sprint and then change nothing about your schedule. So, whatever that schedule change looks like. It usually means that you are creating some extra space for this extra work to go into.
Step four is to create some support for yourself. And support for the work specifically. I love work togethers during sprint weeks because they're scheduled. There are other people, um, I host work togethers in my community, every weekday. So her at least some. That I have in my schedule already blocked off.
Um, I love to schedule a time to work with friends that I don't normally work with. I'd like to try out different work together, pieces of software like Focusmate or life IO. Um, but either way, I know that for me, having prescheduled time with other people in advance is one of the most important ways that I can give myself some support during those times.
For you, it might be asking your partners to help you out with some of the house things for that week, or it could be about letting your coauthor on a different project. Know that for the next two weeks, you're really going to be focused. In another area. It could be about doing some meal prep. Um, to help support the work, but thinking about what things help you.
Actually show up and be at your desk can be really helpful. And you also step five, want to create some supports for your human self. I like to, for myself and advise my clients to, for as much effort as you're putting into planning that sprint put at least half of that effort, if not an equivalent amount into creating some support for your human self, whether that means.
Uh, clearing things so that you have time to decompress at night, maybe it means meal prepping and getting a bunch of food ready in advance so that you can grab and go things. Maybe it is also booking a yoga class every single day. Or making dates to walk with friends in the park or to set up. A playlist of YouTube videos that you really want to use to move your body during that time.
I know that for me. I can build up a lot of energy during these bursts. And my brain is so busy and I am moving through things and it feels really good, but I need some of that energy to go somewhere at the end of the day. Otherwise I'm not going to sleep. So I like to, during sprint weeks really make an extra concerted effort to get in that movement.
And for me, that usually means scheduling something ahead of time so that I know that I'm going to be supported in that particular way. For you, it might be about seeing friends or going to coffee shops or making sure that you get enough sleep. But if you're going to put in an extraordinary amount of effort on the work, you probably need an extraordinary amount of support for your human body. That's going to be doing it.
And last but not least, I think it's really important. Step six, to schedule a non-negotiable end to this particular burst of work. Whether that means that you are going to exclusively sprint during the month of November for ACRA IMO. And December is going to ease off a little bit. Maybe it means that you will have non-negotiable weekends off.
Maybe it means that you sprint for two weeks in two weeks only. And it ends say at American Thanksgiving where you know that you are going to want to be with your loved ones, as you gather around a delicious meal. Whichever way you want to schedule it. Having a non-negotiable end means that it's not that you just decide to start sprinting.
And then never slowed down. It's a lot like the sprint metaphor in terms of like running and sprinting, . A sprint is when you purposefully have a burst of extra concentrated energy, you run faster. You do not sprint a marathon. You sprint a hundred meter dash. So thinking about, okay, this is a concentrated burst, but it is going to end and I'm going to have some recovery after that end.
It can be really helpful because a lot of our brains really like to say like, okay, I did this concentrated amount of work here. I've reset the baseline. This is what I'm capable of. This is what I should be able to do every day. It's not, it's a special condition that you made special support for and yes, it felt really good and it felt really satisfying, but it isn't forever. It's not a permanent sustainable pace.
Sprints are really great, but they're not sustainable over the longterm. So do your best to think about these as a burst of work, that's about changing the conditions so that you can build a little bit of momentum. It is a time for you to reconnect. It's a time for you to focus on one project at a time.
It's a time to build momentum, a sense that things are changing and things are moving forward. It's not about saying, okay, this is what I can do. In extraordinary conditions, let's make sure that that becomes my new normal. If any of this sounds good to you. I am running a whole month of free resources for ACRA IMO, which is modeled after national novel writing month where people try and write an entire novel in a month.
Academic writings a little bit harder than that in terms of kind of making it work. But I have over the five years that I've done this already created a system that is a little bit more sustainable, has a little bit more flexibility, but still brings in a lot of that attention. You can sign up for free.
At the link in the show notes, and I would love to have you join us in the month of November. But whenever you encounter this podcast, I hope that it brings you a little bit more strategy and intention around planning a burst of work. See you next week.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
3.7 the restorative nature of Stardew Valley - grumping it out
as a coach, i feel like i should be able to push through pretty much everything - that's what i help people with every day, right? but lately, i have been a capital G Grump - and this podcast episode is about how i work through that. if you've been feeling the weight of the world, this is the episode for you.
Sign up for AcWriMo 2023 here - a month of completely FREE resources to support your academic writing!
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What is the key to being grumpy? Was to actually lean into it. Let's talk about it on this week's episode of.
📍 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.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
Last night as I was lying on the couch, watching some show, it doesn't even really matter. And wondering if three cookies would fill the emotional need. That two cookies had not. I said to my husband. Everyone I know is hitting a wall right now. And I can't tell if that makes me feel better or worse.
I've had so many conversations recently. In my community in one-on-one session with my friends, with my colleagues about how tough this year has been, particularly the last couple of months and how we all expected it to be smoother and how we all were throwing some degree of a temper tantrum about it.
I myself have really been struggling to do the work that I need to get done. I, for example, procrastinated on a lot of my tasks. I would put them on my list for the day. And then instead I would play Stardew valley and read a lot of books and articles about ADHD and executive dysfunction. And I drink a lot of tea and I showed up for all of my clients, but I still didn't do all of the things that I was supposed to do.
The coach voice in my brain keeps trying to step in and suggest other activities to try because you know, this is something that I specialize in. That coach voice would say, what if you actually went and cleaned your real life, vegetable garden and got it ready for the winter. Instead of farming a digital garden full of a made up fruit called key berries.
Or what, if you worked on some of your knitting while you listened to one of these books on audio, rather than scrolling the web and thusly looking for news or something else to get you that little bit of a dopamine hit. Or what if you took a really delicious bath with candles and Epsom salts and a good meditation session.
Instead of watching all of planet earth for the 17th time. And feeling really upset about what's happening to the polar bears. And unfortunately this loud clear part of myself kept coming back and saying, no, I don't want to, I don't feel like it stop suggesting these things. I am an Olean into playing more sturdy valley. Just to spite you.
So. I have been as one of my favorite Instagram followers, Umi Sacagawea would put it. Crumping it out. Rather than trying to force myself to quote, be productive or rest better, or be more positive at about, at all. I am being grumpy about it. I'm eating cookies and watching my favorite shows. I'm making dates with my friends to go walk in the woods so that we can be grumpy together.
I'm going to bed early and I'm sleeping in and I'm actually really leaning into some of the coziness that this season of fall, where I'm at anyway brings with it. And while I wish I could say that this has been a really creative time and I am feeling so regenerative and that soon I'll be back with new courses and workbooks and new important, useful things to say about the nature of rest is an academic.
I just don't know that any of that is true. What I do know is that for everyone, me, you, everyone, we've all been going through a series of interlocking in concurrent traumas. Or for the past couple of years, and in some of the past months, specifically, And there is a grief that's building up and anger and frustration and sadness and fear.
And worry. Maybe all of those are building up for you too. Crumping it out. Won't make substantial change in climate policy. And it won't shift the conversation about international relationships and it certainly isn't going to make the balance of power any more equitable in the U S or any other country.
It won't end war and it won't fix the job market and it won't undo the fact that there will always be an unequal distribution of pain, violence, and resources. But crumping it out is an acknowledgement that there is a limit to the amount of work that we can do. Consoling and controlling ourselves to keep going when things are hard.
Crumping a doubt is a way to deal with the unfairness of it all. The pain of it, all the grief of it all. To feel it. Give it some attention and start to unpack it a little bit. So many of us have been shoving all of these things to the side. To keep our focus on publications and work and family. And sometimes it's going to bubble up.
There are definitely seasons where you have to shove it aside. When your funding is going to run out or when that article is due or when you need to keep teaching in order to get food on the table. But sometimes all of these things are going to bubble up and there's not as much that you can do about it.
I personally am feeling the grump, starting to lift just a little bit. I only needed three pumpkin donut holes. Which were stale, but oddly satisfying to make it to my desk today. I can focus a little bit longer this week. I can wake up a little bit easier and then finding maybe 2% more of a spark in at all.
I'm not all the way back. But some of the way is so much better from where I was. And I have to say that it's grumping it out. That got me there. I hope that this week you can find a little bit of solace and comfort. If you were grumping it out. And move into the next phase of whatever this season wants to bring us.
And if you're looking for even more support, Please go ahead and check out the link in the show notes to sign up for act Ramo. I'm so excited about all of the things that I'm putting together for next month. There'll be prizes and trackers and workshops and webinars, and a bunch of surprises from all kinds of special guests. So sign up, it's all free in the link in my bio, and I will see you here next week.
Bye.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
3.6 take a fine day and make it trash - stealth expectations
have you ever had - objectively - a decent day, but it still doesn't feel satisfying? i talk all about stealth expectations - and how they might be impacting your work and relationships - on this week's episode!
mentioned:
Sign up for AcWriMo 2023 here - a month of completely FREE resources to support your academic writing!
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If you have ever had a really good day and then wrecked it with the power of your mind, this is the episode for you.
📍 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.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
Most Friday afternoons or sometimes Saturday mornings and make a list of all the things I want to do over the weekend. It's a menu of sorts. I can get easily overwhelmed with decisions. So having a range of options to pick from encourages me to remember to do some of the 1000. 472 hobbies that I have.
And it lessens some of the pressure of the minute by minute decision making of what to do. In the early blushes of this routine, I loved it. Worked like a peach every time. And then something else started to happen. As soon as it became clear that I wasn't going to do everything on that list. I'd be annoyed with myself for not quote, maximizing the weekend.
And if something unexpected came up, it starts to worry about how I would fit everything in. Even if there was just so much time. And if my husband had plans of his own, that impacted mine. Well, that could be the spark that lit a whole powder keg of yuck.
Altogether. It wasn't even a pattern that registered as a problem. It was just an intensifying sense that my weekends were less fulfilling than they had been. It wasn't until later when I was reading Atlas of the heart by Bernay brown and came across a section on stealth expectations, that things started to click.
As she writes. Every day. Sometimes every hour, we are consciously and unconsciously setting expectations of ourselves and the people in our lives, especially those closest to us. The unconscious unexamined and unexpressed expectations are the most dangerous and they often lead to disappointment. When we develop expectations, we paint a picture in our head of how things are going to go and how they're going to look.
We set expectations based not only on how we fit into that picture, but also on what those around us are doing in the picture. And this means that our expectations are often set on outcomes totally beyond our control. Like what other people think, what they feel or how they're going to react. And when that movie or picture fails to play out in real life, we feel disappointed.
And sometimes that disappointment is severe and it brings shame and hurt and anger with it.
And wow. Oh, goodness. Was that a big part of what was going on? By making a list, even though I called it a menu and set out to make some choices from it. I set some unhealthy expectations, some stealthy expectations for myself about what I should be able to accomplish. I'd moved through the weekend and each activity itself would be enjoyable whether I planned it or not.
But because those activities weren't living up to some fuzzy idea that I had for myself that I would do all of the things I would put a little disappointment into the soup. And leave feeling less satisfied without really having a reason why. And once I examine that behavior and myself, I started to see how it's always been a part of my relationships with others, but especially with my work day to day.
How many of us have had a quote fine day, but we, because we didn't cross everything off the to-do list, we leave the desk feeling a little bit deflated. How often have we planned for a really big work session only to have something come up or have something else put on our plate. And even though there's still time to adjust more mad about it.
Or maybe you had some expectations about how an advisor would work with your writing or how a course would go or how, how a conference paper would be received. Maybe you had a vague idea of how long it would take you to write the next section of your chapter. And because you finished it Friday instead of Wednesday, you feel behind and rushed, even though you still have plenty of time.
We all have expectations about how things will go, how they'll feel and how other people will react to us. That's a part of how we, as humans move through the world. A world that is at times routine, but often unpredictable. We have to anticipate some of these things to some degree. And often once we express those expectations, we can manage them.
Once I realized that I was treating my options for the weekend, like obligations, some of the pressure was released and it was easier to reset my expectations for something that was more reasonable. Many of us have a perfectionist streak in us. We maybe are noticing and supporting the places where it's showing up clearly, but brains are sneaky. And so are these stealth expectations?
All right. Katie you've outlined the problem. I get it. I'm there. I'm with you. What do we do about it? What do we do in the face of this cloud of sneaky expectations that can float in here are a few tools that can help. Check in with how you're feeling. Moods are mysterious and emotions can be tricky to nail down, but sometimes it can be a good place to start.
Once I name what I'm feeling. Frustrated annoyed, disappointed, excited, flat deflated. I try to aim for as little judgment as possible, but I don't always get there. It's often easier for me to trace where that feeling is coming from. And if I'm ending most weekends, no matter how they go with feeling unsatisfied, then that's some solid data for me to start with and start exploring.
Okay. If you have a sharp sense of disappointment about how something went and you're in a space where your nervous system feels up to it. It can help to use some of these questions to get some clarity. How did I think this was going to go. What made me think that. How did I think I was going to feel.
And what was I imagining in terms of the other people involved?
These questions can help us really get to the root of what we were picturing and what actually happened. And that space in between the space of south expectations is often fertile ground for more exploring. Okay. It can also be relatively more straightforward to handle your own expectations of yourself.
It obviously gets a little bit more complicated when other people are involved. I often work with clients who have expectations about how grad school would feel or how things would go with their advisor. And these are some of the tools that are most helpful in the realm of working with these expectations with other people.
Step one. Write out your expectations, even if you don't verbalize them to anybody else right away. If you send a draft to your advisor, it might help to write down what you expect to get back. Line at its overall comments notes on the argument, help with grammar. If or when you don't get those things, then you can either choose to be more specific in your requests or find someone or someplace else to help.
Find someone or someplace else to help you get the support that you need.
Too. Figure out where your expectations are coming from. Are you seeing other people tweet about amazing conferences? Are you seeing other people talk about amazing conversations in their conference presentations, and then you feel let down when yours are a little bit more stilted. Two other people get loads of help on their job documents and all your advisor does is send out letters of recommendation.
Then you can check those expectations against more sources of data or dirt or data sources that are closer to your situation. There's so much that's individual about our S our situations or relationships with our advisors, with faculty members, with other people. But it can be really helpful to check in where we're getting our expectations and whether or not they actually apply to us.
For example, a chemistry PhD student might not have the same kind of relationship with their PI that a humanities one does. Just for one small example. Overall, all of this is the work of a lifetime. Like perfectionism, stealth expectations sneak in and take root before you notice them. It's exactly why we call themself, but noticing the invisible expectations we have for how things will go and bringing them to the surface.
I can really help us stay out of that disappointment and shame that we don't even necessarily mean to welcome ourselves into. This has been really helpful for me over the last couple of weeks is I deal with my own expectations about what I should be able to do. During the course of the day. And I hope that it's a little bit helpful for you too.
See you next week.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
3.5 the next right thing - breaking down big tasks
"just break that [insert scary huge] task into smaller steps" - it's evergreen advice but in my opinion, it's some of the hardest to implement. i talk about why, and give you a few new things to try when you're looking at a monster of a task!
AcWriMo 2023 is coming - sign up for FREE here!
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I'm sure. At some point, somebody has told you to break that big task down. But if you don't know how to do that, then this is the episode for you.
📍 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.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
In the hall of fame of straightforward, but hard to actually implement advice. Is the, if you have a big task and it feels intimidating, just break it down into smaller pieces.
I know that I've been given this advice several times and while intellectually I understand what they mean. Take the big thing and break it down into smaller pieces. Practically that can be really challenging for a variety of reasons. And the biggest one for grad students at least is that sometimes you're doing a task where you don't know what the steps are.
If I told you to break the task of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich down. You would probably have some context for the smaller steps that go into making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Maybe you don't, maybe you have other kinds of sandwich experience, but at least you have some context for understanding the general scope and parameters of making a sandwich with specific ingredients, peanut butter and jelly.
Now, if I tell you to write a lit review for your chapter, you might not have any context for that. You might not know how long it should be. How it should be formatted, how it should be structured, how many sources you need to read the order in which you need to read those sources, how quickly you should switch into outlining.
All of these things, plus a thousand other hidden secret interior tasks to a lit review. Are part of the context that make it really difficult to just look at your piece of paper and say, okay, I'm going to break the lit review task down into smaller pieces. If you don't know what the smaller pieces are yet, or you don't have a sense of the way that you want to approach a complex task, like writing a lit review, then it's really hard to know what those smaller pieces are going to be.
So I find that specifically for people who are in the beginning of projects or in new types of projects or projects that don't really have a clear end point. That the breaking things down. Advice isn't as helpful as it could be. Now. I will not just leave you here and be like, Hey, this piece of advice that everybody says is really good. It's actually not going to work for you. Abandon all you who hope.
I'm going to actually give you three different ways that you can break tasks down when you're in that kind of nebulous space, where it's not immediately clear the steps that you need to be following. The first way is to use the time. Now. I'm a fan of timers. I've recorded several podcasts about how much I like timers, but
the reason I like to use time when I am working with on approachable, intimidating, big tasks. Is that I might not know what the first thing that I should do for lit review is, but I do know what 25 minutes feels like. So I encourage you. To in the beginning, say, okay. Eventually I will get stuck into this project and I will have a better sense of what the next tasks are, but for the first week or two weeks, or maybe even longer, I'm going to focus on measuring my progress by time, rather than by the tasks that I'm accomplishing.
And then pick a chunk of time that feels less intimidating to you. If it like it does, for me, feels absolutely impossible to work on something for an entire hour. Then set up a 25 minute goal. I'm going to work on this for 25 minutes. Now it is a little bit slippery. To say, okay. Um, in those 25 minutes, what are you going to do? But if you are really struggling with getting started,
And sometimes just saying anything that you're going to do on this project is going to be great. Just do it for 25 minutes. Using that kind of open-ended strategy can really help take some of the intimidation down and make it a little bit easier to schedule. Bonus points. If you combine that with other supportive mechanisms like co-working or to do list or some sort of reward system.
The time really lends itself to.
Using this time strategy really lends itself to working in cooperation with some of the other things that help make your brain go. Yay.
The next strategy that I recommend that you do. Is think about the phase of the project that you're currently in. Now I don't mean to oversimplify it, but most academic work projects below. Most academic work projects have a relatively similar flow of work tasks. Now, of course there's variation. Of course, there's reasons why you can and might shake it up. But normally there's a research phase where you learn how to do the task.
There is the collation of source material, whether that's experiments or reading, or a little bit of both. There's some sort of planning where you make a sense of the structure, then there's drafting revising. And then finally polishing. Now. Not every task is going to fall into that category, but if you're absolutely completely lost, then I say, start with step one, which is research how to do this task.
And in case nobody's ever told you, this is a task that almost all people do for any kind of new tasks that they're encountering. Once it's your fourth lit review. You might not need to spend as much time in this particular stage, but if it's your very first lit review that you're ever writing, then yeah, I really want you to go and read a couple of blog posts about how to structure a lit review. Ask for some support, maybe go to one of your writing books.
There's a thousand ways to do it. I don't think you need to read it. Every writing book. I don't think you need to pay for a special course. I don't think you need to read every blog post that's ever been published on. On the internet about it, but one or two is going to give you a sense of at least an approach or two that you could follow.
Next. When you're thinking about these phases of work. I do find that if you're struggling to break tasks down, that sometimes it's helpful to say, okay, I'm not sure exactly what things I'm going to be reading. For example. Inside of this room. Lit review reading sub phase that I'm in. But I do know that I don't want this phase to last any longer than the next two weeks without me checking in and making some sort of reflection point.
Now this can sound overly prescriptive. Like two weeks is kind of arbitrary. What if it takes me two and a half weeks? And to that I say it absolutely is arbitrary. You pick a date that you feel relatively comfortable with, and it's not saying that if you go. Any past that date with your reading, that you have to stop.
All it is, is saying that in two weeks, you're going to check in and you're going to assess, do I need to read more? Do I need to read different things? Do I need to change my strategy? Am I ready to start doing some reflective writing? Am I ready to start outlining? These are all low stakes questions. You don't need to ask them to anybody but yourself, but it can be really useful to say, okay, this reading phase, won't just continue ad nauseum until I feel like I'm done because the secret with almost all of these phases and.
By extension, a lot of these tasks. Is that there is very, very rarely in fact, practically never a sense of an internal switch that flips that's like, ah, I've done enough reading or yes, this outline is perfect. I'm ready to start. And so having an arbitrary date where you check in, gives you a little bit more data and it encourages you to not just read until you feel ready, which could take two weeks, but it could also take six months. And many of us don't have six months. So putting a date on it.
Making a decision. Even if it feels arbitrary, it can be really helpful.
Now. What I have noticed is that when people are in a specific phase, it's a little bit easier to break down some big tasks. So you might not have a thousand point to do list of all 1000 steps that you're going to take in order to write this lit review. But if you're in a reading phase, you might know the next three things that you want to read.
And I'm sure that three things will be, get three more things, but for now you can break it down and say, okay, These are the next three articles that I want to read. So when you're focusing on breaking down these big tasks, I really encourage you a to use time
to give yourself some structure around. Yes. I don't know exactly what I'm going to do, but I'm going to work on it for this amount of time. I encourage you to think about the phase that you're in. And consider setting up decision points.
Even if you don't know how long it's going to take you to do some of these tasks inside of this particular phase. And then last but not least, I really am encouraging you to zoom in. And think about. What are the next two or three things that you can do that are going to move you forward? You don't need to know the entire list in order to make progress. So focus on the next three things. You're going to read the next paragraph that you're going to write the next revision task that you're going to tackle.
Breaking things down is a skill that gets stronger over time. So I encourage you to practice it. I encourage you to experiment with maybe a new strategy that you've never tried before. And know that. Even for the most seasoned and skilled of us, this can be a really challenging thing to do.
Thanks so much for joining me and make sure you check out the show notes for news about ACRA IMO. 2023, which is coming soon. Bye
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
3.4 are you underwater? - three things to try when you're overwhelmed
some seasons, i have to work a little harder to keep my head above water. in case you're having an overwhelming season yourself, here are three (easy-ish!!) things you can try, today, with no extra equipment or software. get into it!
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Just in case you've been feeling as overwhelmed and underwater. As I have been lately, I'm here to share three things that have been helping me on this week's episode of.
📍 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.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
Life can get on top of even the best of us. And if you're having a fall it's anything like mine. Maybe you are working a little bit harder to keep your head above water than you might normally. I know that I've certainly been feeling moments of overwhelm and I'm here this week to share three things that have been really helping me when I feel like I just don't have the time, the energy.
Or the motivation to really do my full, complete systems. So the first thing that I do. Is I call it the three things system. lots of people have used variations of this. This is mine. I pick the most important three things to do that day. And then everything else is a bonus. Sometimes I don't even pick the three most important things. I just pick three things, three things that are going to move me forward.
So it might be, uh, unload the dishwasher. I respond to that email and open up my dissertation document. It might be a finished grading for that class, make my bed and take a shower. Your three things are going to be really individual to you. But for me, it's about saying yes, I know that I have 3 million things to do today.
But let's focus on these three things first. It doesn't mean that I don't pay attention to the other stuff I do. And the secret is that if I tell myself I only have to do three things, it makes it easier to get started. And more often than not. I continue on and I maybe do four, five, sometimes even six things that day.
If you are feeling underwater by the weight of your to-do list, if you just keep adding and adding, adding things, then I suggest that you give the three things, method, a try, it doesn't fix everything and it certainly doesn't make it so that you only have three things to do every day for the rest of time, but it does help with that feeling of, I am so underwater and I don't know where to start.
Because you pick, even if it's an arbitrary place, you pick a place to start.
The second thing that really helps me when I am feeling underwater is actually writing things down on a post-it note. I really like task management software. , I've used all sorts of different ones. And sometimes I go back to the basics because my task management system is built for the optimal version of myself. It has recurring tasks. It has things that gets populated. And the calendar repeat system doesn't necessarily remember that I am a human with fluctuating needs and a chronic illness.
And sometimes I just don't have the space and capacity for things. So it's actually one of the first. First signs of my particular flavor of overwhelm that I stopped paying attention to my task manager system, but it often means that important stuff falls through the cracks. I might forget to do something I might forget to send that email or do that chore. And I find that post-it notes or any other piece of scrap paper that you might have laying around actually helps to fill the gap for me when I'm too overwhelmed to use my full task management system.
But I still want a. A little bit of support. You can actually couple this with the first strategy that we talked about, the three things strategy. And put those three things on a post-it note and then cross them off. I know people who make a sequence of post-it notes and they kind of try and unlock them during the day, you know, finish the first one, get the second one.
I know people who use their best and happiest pieces of paper for this. Use your great pen. But there's something really satisfying and the tactile act of crossing things off.
I know that when I'm at my most overwhelmed, I'm also not at my most clear headed. I usually have a little bit of brain fog. It could have some pain happening. It could have some executive function things going on. And a post-it note backup system just helps give me a concrete reminder that there's things that I wanted to do today.
And I don't have to go into a task management system or my crowded brain to remember what they were.
So strategy number three is one that might sound a little bit counterintuitive to you, especially if you like me have a script that goes in your brain that says, oh, I don't deserve to take care of myself for
all of that stuff has a secondary priority. After getting my work done. And this strategy is actually called very simply taking care of your body stuff first. Now. I am a lifelong Dave Otay. Of soft pants. I love going to work in my pajamas. I will often try my best to put on a respectable shirt, but more often than not, I find that it's easiest for me to roll out of bed.
Roll into my pantry, get some breakfast, brush my teeth and then a roll upstairs to my desk. I don't like taking a shower first thing in the morning. I certainly don't like putting on anything with a waistband before noon. But I find that. On the mornings, when I'm feeling the most overwhelmed, it's really easy for me to fall into a pattern of being like, oh, I'll take a shower. As soon as these important things are done or, oh, I'll go for a walk as soon as I'm done with this important stuff. And because I'm feeling so overwhelmed, that important stuff,
which is almost always code for work. It doesn't necessarily flow right out of me. It might take me three or four hours to do something that normally would take me one. And I am feeling. Ickier and stickier. Minutes go by. So on my most overwhelming days, I like to flip the script. And take care of my body stuff first. I'll have my breakfast. I'll take a shower. I'll put on clothes that make me feel a little bit more put together. I'm not going to really stretch the boundaries and put on, you know, something with a waistband, but something that I didn't sleep in the night before is great. I often try to take a walk around the block just to feel some fresh air and not just look at the same three walls every day.
And then I get started. I find that getting my body taken care of first, whatever that looks like for you. It actually gives me more energy, which makes it a little bit easier to focus and sure. Coffee will do that. Or red bull do that. There's all sorts of ways to get that energy. But the buzz that I get from feeling clean, feeling put together feeling like at least if nothing else happens that day, I took a shower, helps me really feel like nothing's wasted yet.
I've hit the baseline I'm doing okay. And it lets me start that day with a little bit of a win.
It's so easy to put off all of those things that start to make us feel better and make us feel a little bit more in control until after we get the work done, like, oh, of course I'll feel ready to work out and go to yoga as soon as I'm done with my to-do list. But if you're feeling really overwhelmed,
The chances that you're going to finish that whole to-do list and finish it in time to go to yoga at five o'clock or pretty slim. So this gives you a chance to take care of yourself. Maybe get a natural energy burst and start the day feeling a little bit more confident, or at least a little bit more clean.
If all of this sounds really rudimentary to you feel free. To carry on with your life. But if you have ever been in one of those sticky, tough spots where everything feels like it's on top of you, I hope that a couple of these strategies give you a little bit of hope or at the very least normalize the idea that some of us really do have to during certain seasons of our life.
Make an effort to give ourselves low effort structures that help us feel a little bit more in control. Some things come easy to me in certain seasons of my life. And then there are some times when it really is a struggle to get that shower in. So if you've been feeling like that, I hope that this gave you a little bit of hope and a feeling that you were a little bit less alone.
See you next week.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
3.3 i can get an editor for my dissertation? - special guest episode from dr. lauren saunders
i am THRILLED to introduce you to dr. lauren saunders, VP of editing and research at Dissertation Editor, and to share this first of its kind expert episode! i know that when i was writing my dissertation, i felt like the only person who could help me was my chair, which led to many a moon where i made things harder for myself. had i had this episode then, i would have understood that writing centers, people in other disciplines, and editors could help me too. listen in if you've ever been curious about what it's like to work with an editor - i know i learned a ton!
learn more about the Dissertation Editor's book, PhDone at their book website, or grab a copy for yourself here: Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and Amazon, or connect with dr. saunders (Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn)!
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Stay tuned for a special episode, where I, with the help of my guest, I'm drawing back the curtain and letting you know all about what it's like to work with an editor on your dissertation. If this is something that you've been curious about, I'm happy to let you in on some trade secrets on this week's episode of.
📍 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.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
in keeping with this season's theme of demystifying, some of the things that you just might not know about grad school. I am so thrilled to welcome our guest, Dr. Lauren Saunders, the VP of editing and research at dissertation editor. She is here to talk to you about subject matter and how that really plays a role in the editing process. And I know that I learned so much about what it's like to work with an editor listening to this episode.
Stay tuned for more details about how to get involved with editors and pick up dissertation editors, new book at the end of the episode. But without further ado, Dr. Saunders.
I have always felt really strongly that when you're looking for an editor to work with, subject matter expertise does not need to be on your list of criteria. A great editor, and a great editor for your work, is someone with an expertise in writing, who has read a wide range of dissertations across a range of different fields, and who knows how a dissertation functions.
A dissertation is a really specific and sometimes kind of baffling genre of writing. It's pretty singular and most people only ever write it once. So the benefit of a good editor's experience is going to be the fact that they're an expert in the writing genre of the dissertation, not that they're an expert in your field.
So I'll delve into the reasons why I feel this way, but I'll start with a story that was a really foundational moment in my academic career and a big influence on why I feel this way. In my sophomore year of undergrad, I took a great graduate level class in writing pedagogy. Because of that, I was able to get a job in the campus writing center.
I was one of only a few undergraduate students working there at the time, and was definitely having a little bit of imposter syndrome. And one of my very first consultations was with a graduate student who wanted help with her thesis on the chemical properties of cactus juice. My PhD ended up being in literary studies, and at the time I was a double major in dance and creative writing.
So this couldn't have been much further from my own subject matter expertise. I remember feeling way out of my depth and trying to remind myself that worst case scenario I'd at least be able to find a few commas out of place or something like that. But then as we got into the conversation in her consultation session, I started asking the writer questions about the progression of her argument and what the reader needed to know about the state of the field in order to understand the significance of her results.
We talked about the importance of building an argument logically.
Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC. We ended up coming up with a really big organizational change, putting a distilled version of background material from Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 into the introduction that made the whole document read much more clearly. She was really happy with the progress we made, and I remember feeling kind of awestruck that I could speak with confidence about a paper with such technical subject matter, but there are a lot of reasons why I was able to.
So I'll talk through some of the reasons why I think this is the case, then offer some recommendations for the qualifications you should look for when picking an editor. First, I'd say that subject matter expertise isn't required because the writing style of a dissertation really hinges on the fact that you, as a writer, are responsible for proving your knowledge.
In the dissertation, you're responsible for proving that you understand the state of the field, your conceptual framework, your methodology, and why your results are significant. It's different from a journal article in the sense that, in an academic article, you can take some things for granted about what your audience knows.
So, for example, you can just say, this study used such and such methodology, and then move on. In the dissertation, you have to show that you know exactly what characterizes that methodology, that you thought about various options for what methodology to use, but that this one was the best aligned with your research questions, etc.
Similarly, in a journal article, you might be able to gloss over some foundational texts or assume that anyone who picked up this journal would understand some canonical argument between two scholars in your field or something like that. In the dissertation, you have to articulate really. explicitly how your new findings are adding to existing knowledge and intervening in a scholarly conversation?
And that means you have to write the dissertation document in a way that invites your reader, even a reader who isn't one of your committee members, into that conversation. Obviously, a dissertation is still a really technical document, but I think there's a little bit of a misconception that it's supposed to be really opaque and unnecessarily complex, and that's not the case.
You're not necessarily aiming for a wide readership of just any layperson, but someone who's familiar with academic writing should understand the progression of your argument, even if you're an expert in cactus juice and they're an expert in literature. If they don't, That means that there's something missing from the way you're framing, signposting, and organizing your writing.
That's a reason that I would say in some ways it's even better if your editor is a little bit outside your field. If they don't have a comprehensive knowledge of a certain theory you're using, and you omit a key detail about it, they'll notice the omission and point out the connecting idea that's missing.
Your advisor, who maybe literally wrote the theory, might not see that type of error in the same way because they're so close to the subject. The role of your advisor brings me to my second point about why your editor doesn't need subject matter expertise. The point at which you bring in an editor is usually going to be after some of the more general conversations you're having with your advisor about your content.
I always recommend using a funnel approach to your writing and revision process. And by that I mean that the most overarching revisions that deal with your content should come first and should be taken care of at the planning stage. Ultimately, your advisor is the gatekeeper who decides whether you've earned the PhD or not.
And so the biggest questions about your content should go through them, and ideally that should happen earlier in the process. As this funnel narrows a little bit, you move into the organizational concerns about how you're progressing through your argument. I think that's a great place to bring in an editor who will be looking at your work through a different lens, and be able to help make recommendations for the structure that will best support the progression of your argument.
Finally, the narrowest point of the funnel will be the line level and formatting edits. And third, a great editor is going to be even more familiar than a subject matter expert with some elements of a dissertation. If you've read hundreds of dissertations, you start to develop a really keen eye for what makes a great research question or hypothesis for a literature review that successfully synthesizes the knowledge it needs to include.
An experienced dissertation editor becomes an expert in methodologies by virtue of reading so many methodology chapters and seeing which methodologies pair well with which types of research questions. My humanities PhD didn't include any of the qualitative methodology that appears in many of the social science dissertations I read on a daily basis, but I could definitely quote Cresswell verbatim just because of having read so many dissertations that use those foundational texts about qualitative research.
So ultimately, you're not looking for an expert in your field. You're looking for, in general, an expert in academic writing, and more specifically, an expert in the dissertation form. So I've talked a lot about why you don't need an editor who's a subject matter expert, so I'll finish with a little discussion about which qualifications you are looking for.
First, you want to find an editor with expertise in writing. A background in something like rhetoric and composition or English lit is great. Having taught writing courses or worked in writing centers is another good cue that this argumentation and structure of your work. You also want to find someone who has not only written a dissertation, but who has also read a lot of dissertations in a broad range of fields and for a number of different universities.
Those experiences are what make an editor an expert in the dissertation writing and academic writing genres, which tend to be really different from editing something like fiction. You'll also want to make sure you find an editor who has experience in the academic style guide you're using. So if someone has only ever edited dissertations written in Chicago Turabian, but you're required to use APA 7, that might not be a good fit.
With things like final formatting, you'll want to make sure your editor has a good grasp of Microsoft Word tools to ensure that the finished dissertation meets the guidelines of your university style guide or template, many of which have really specific requirements for things like the table of contents, title page, and pagination.
Most importantly, you'll want your editor to be an expert in the type of dissertation you're writing. If it's the traditional five chapter model with introduction, literature review, methodology, results, and discussion chapters, you'll want to find an editor who's worked on a lot of that type of dissertation.
My own dissertation was a lot more freeform since it was in the humanities, so I would have looked for an editor who was familiar with a more thematic chapter structure. This expertise is really important too if you're working on something like an applied doctoral project, which is its own specific genre of writing.
So my big takeaway would be that expertise in content matters very little for an editor, but expertise in the genre of dissertation writing is absolutely key to a productive editing process.
I hope that this week's episode was as useful for you as it was for me. And if you want to learn more about the process of working. Working with an editor on your dissertation or picking up a copy of dissertation editor's brand new book, pH done a professional dissertation editors guide to writing your doctoral thesis and earning your PhD. I highly recommend it. All of those links are available for you in the show notes and stay tuned for.
Even more episodes, demystifying grad school, all season long. See you next week.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
3.2 follow your rhythms - the three chunk method for scheduling
if time blocking (aka writing in your calendar, "dissertation 10 am to noon") always felt arbitrary to you - then may i present the three chunk method? this is what i use for all kinds of different schedules to help balance out work on various projects, and take advantage of that mythical "flexibility" we all say we love about being a scholar!
get into it!
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We all say that we love the flexibility of being able to set our own schedules and make our work fit into our lives. But what does that actually look like in practice? Join me as I share my favorite trick for doing just that. On this week's episode Of
📍 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.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
A question that I get all of the time is how do I break my day up? And I get it. It can be really difficult to go through the mental and emotional strain of having to figure out your schedule. Week-in week-out, especially if you're in a place where there aren't as many structuring. Elements. For example, if you had a job that required you to go in to a specific place every day at 9:00 AM, and then leave that place at 5:00 PM. If you're lucky,
Then you have some structure. There might be meetings in there. There might be a lunch break. There might be other sorts of activities, but you have a real sense of when to show up when to leave and the rest of your day often follows around that. As scholars, we often don't have that sort of stability. You might teach Tuesday, Thursdays, or you might have to be in the lab, but only on certain days or in certain seasons, you might have a stable week to week schedule. Or you might have. Something that feels a lot closer to chaos. But I'm here to show you a tool that I have used really successfully, whether I have been in a season where I was really structured, you know, on campus for the same amount of time, every day with lots of meetings or when I was on fellowship and had complete control over my schedule. And basically every other thing in between.
And that strategy is breaking my day up into three parts. Now. This is one of those tools that sounds really self. Explanatory. And in some ways it is. I think that most days have about three separate chunks in them, but the beauty becomes in the customization.
For example, my default that I suggest to people when we start talking about this technique is to use your structuring meals. If you're a regular meal person. So. When I was on fellowship, I used to have one chunk of my day. That was before lunch. I would have lunch. I would have another chunk between lunch and dinner.
And then I would have a third chunk after dinner. You might want to split your chunks up based on your teaching schedule. For instance, maybe you have a chunk of that goes until you start teaching. Maybe you have a chunk after you teach and then a chunk after you get home from campus, or you could chunk it up in terms of your part-time job.
You know, I have my chunk before I go to my job in between my job and something else. And then finally in evening junk.
The magic of the junk is following the natural sort of splits in your day and not trying to force them. So in other time management techniques, like time. Fucking for like time blocking, for instance, you might be encouraged to set up a calendar and be like two hours for this two hours for that. And they would start and stop relatively arbitrarily at nine or 11:00 AM. So on and so forth.
What's nice about the chunk method. Is that whether or not I have my lunch at 1130 or 3:00 PM, which is the natural range for somebody like me, who often gets caught up in their work and does not necessarily break for lunch when I should. Then the chunk is less about the specific time and more about the fact that I have a certain brain energy that tends to be pretty stable for me in the morning.
Same between after, after lunch and before dinner. And then the last evening chunk usually feels in my body. More or less similar whether or not I ate at 7:00 PM that day or 8:00 PM. 9:00 PM. Don't tell anyone I'm a late dinner eater. So for you, it might be that your chunk say you're, pre-teaching junk.
Might only be two hours on some days, and it could be six hours on other days, but the natural break in your day comes when you do this really intense activity teaching. And it's not worth it to kind of fight that.
Now, what can you do with these three chunks now that you have them? So I like to use my three chunks and use it to in the same way that people will use time blocking in order to spread out my attention around different projects. So when I was on fellowship before lunch, I often would do my writing heavy tasks because that was one of my best brain energy was normally there.
In between lunch and dinner, I'll be very honest. I often, uh, volunteered at the humane society. I went to yoga classes some days I would run errands. I would do laundry. I might do a little bit of reading or a little bit of admin, but it wasn't my best brain energy. And I didn't force it to be so.
And then the third chunk, I often had a third wind after dinner where I would do a little bit of grading, do something that was less intense, but still move me forward for the next day. What I loved about the three chunks system though, is that I had a rule with myself that only two of those chunks was going to be focused on work.
And so if I woke up in the morning and I wanted to noodle around on my phone all day, then I'd be like, okay, you get to do this in your pre-lunch chunk. And then after that you're going to switch gears and your next two chunks are going to be a little bit more. Work-focused.
It's not a perfect system, but it really helped me feel like I could have more space in my time for self care activities or just the work of being a human. And it allowed me a flexibility around that, that I didn't necessarily have before. In my pre chunk days, I would often say, okay, I will go to whatever yoga class starts after I finished my work for the day. And more often than that, that led to me noodling around for most of the day, feeling really guilty and then working at a rush, missing yoga, and then feeling the kind of after effects of not taking care of my body.
Lots of people. Who have more standard structure jobs have the kind of expectation that they will go to work. And then they will have some sort of chunk of time after their work completes or before it, depending on what their shift schedule is, where that time will be their own, it won't belong to their employer. So the idea that I too could have a chunk that did not belong to my dissertation was revolutionary and it really helped me lean into some flexibility.
Speaking of flexibility. That's another benefit of the chunk system. So as I alluded to before, I often have a mid-afternoon crash, it was true in 2020. It was true in 2015. It's true today. Between lunch and dinner. I often am not at my sharpest. I don't particularly focus well during that chunk. And so I.
Got in the habit. It's being like, well, there's no one to stop me from going to the grocery store or going to a yoga class or going on a walk with a friend or making phone calls or scheduling dentist appointments. I was like, here's this time. I'm not necessarily going to use it for work or use it effectively for work anyway.
Why don't I just use this chunk for me. And then I'll use time where I often am more settled down in order to take a little bit more. Yeah, concerted intentional action on my work.
If you're finding it really hard to make space for anything that's not your dissertation or not your scholarship or not your teaching. It can be really useful to use this trunk system as a way to kind of do a gut check and say, okay, Um, I working at 20% focus for all three chunks. Is there a way that I could narrow down my focus, be a little bit more intentional and then free up one of these blocks of time for something other than work.
As a scholar, you do have the benefit of flexibility. And this is one of those double-edged swords that we talk about all the time is a benefit. And then often don't really give ourselves. So we say, ah, it's. So I love being able to set my own schedule. I love to be flexible. I love to have all of this freedom about how I spend my time.
And yet we default into a, I need to be at my desk at night, or I have to work until 6:00 PM or 8:00 PM, or I have to work until my to-do list is done. And we don't take advantage of the flexibility that we say is so important to us. So the chunk system might help you write a little bit of a permission slip to be a little bit more flexible in that particular way.
But this is just one of those concepts that you could experiment with.
It might really work for you to think about your day was as having three blocks of time, two of which goes to your work. And one of which go to your human self. That might be great. Maybe your experiment is saying, okay. I am. Currently using zero chunks for my dissertation. I'm using all of them for my teaching. I want to shift that balance a little bit.
Or maybe it's about coming to grips with the reality that right now, in this particular season or micro season of your life, you need to have two human chunks for every one work junk. This is just a way to kind of make less decisions. Around how, and when you'll spend your time, And just say there's three buckets. I'll pick three things and I'll go from there.
Yeah. I hope this helps. It's always helped me in the past. Feel free to take what's useful and leave the rest. And I can't wait. To share more with you about all of the awesome things that we have going on this fall and thrive PhD. See you next week.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
3.1 when your chair isn't enough - building a team of mentors
welcome back to season three of the podcast!! this season, i'm demystifying all the stuff that makes grad school hard that you might not know about, and this week, we're talking about mentorship!
i don't know about you, but i got a lot of advice and gave a lot of thought when it came to building my dissertation committee, but no one really ever talked about building a mentorship network beyond that. so, if that's you too - this week's episode will tell you all about why you need a team, how to evaluate what you already have in terms of mentorship, and how to build strength in the areas you need.
use this free worksheet (download the PDF here) and the reflection questions i share to get started!
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What if there was a way to take some of the pressure off your dissertation chair and get more comprehensive, supportive mentorship all at the same time. Let's talk about it in this week's episode of
📍 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.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
No one really explained to me how to find mentors in grad school. People gave me a lot of advice, however, on how to pick a chair for my dissertation committee. And I imagine there's a lot of advice around, selecting a PI or a lab to join. In a perfect world. The head of your PhD project would be also be the Keystone of your mentoring as a graduate student. But even if you have the most educated open-minded available, supportive person in the world, I would still give you the same piece of advice.
Get yourself, a team of mentors. No matter what you're after degree career plans are no matter what your personal life looks like. And no matter what your subject is, a team of mentors is a wise move professionally and personally. Reason number one is that team mentoring can take some of the pressure off of you.
We are all complex beings. With lives that stretch way beyond the PhD. Having a team of people that you look to for advice, mentorship and support can make it seem a lot less overwhelming when you need to confide difficult information or seek support about a sensitive topic. Before I consciously started to create a team of mentors. I often hesitated or even straight up refrained from confiding in anyone about sensitive issues like my health or my future plans, because they didn't want it to impact my standing in the program. My access to funds or even my reputation as a grad student. But after I started to build a team of people,
I had so many choices from all sorts of areas in my life on campus and off who could offer advice without being directly responsible for my degree process at the same time.
Reason number two is that team mentoring can take some of the pressure off your mentors, too. At some point, I realized that it was completely bananas, that I was expecting tenured faculty members at an R one university to give me solid advice and mentoring about how to best translate the skills that I was getting during the PhD into a job outside of academia.
I'm not saying that to excuse faculty ignorance or to excuse refusal, to engage with the realities of the job market, but to acknowledge that there were many, many people right on my campus, even that could give me much more sound advice on different kinds of careers, because they had them. I had similar issues when I had questions coming up around how to have a family in academia or how to manage a job search in a geographically confined area.
My mentoring needs had extended beyond the work that one mentor could do. And I needed to adjust my strategy.
By not expecting any one person. To give me sound researched, supportive advice in every area of my life, personal and professional. I freed all of the parties from having that burden. I shifted from asking all of my questions to one person, to asking specific tailored questions, to specific people. And that gave me richer conversations and widen my network at the same time.
All right. You might be thinking I'm on board. How do I find this team, Katie? And the first thing I would say is that you need to evaluate your mentoring needs. This is the critical step that I see. So many people skip. Many people can see the benefits of expanding their mentoring network beyond their chair, but not that many people know how to secure a diverse range of voices to support them.
And I would argue that stepping back and assessing what one's mentoring needs are first can lead to a more . Targeted and efficient networking, building phase all around. I created a chart and you can get it free in the show notes to help you brainstorm what areas you're already receiving mentoring in and where you can improve.
Of course, these categories might shift depending on your PhD and its parameters, but for most people, this is a good starting point. That worksheet outlines five different mentoring zones. And in the next section of this episode, I'm going to give you some questions to help you evaluate what kind of mentoring or support you already have in this area and what kind you might want to look for moving forward.
Get your pencils out because here those questions come.
Area one. Discipline or your field or your subject?
For many, this is the area that's the most easily addressed in a role that's probably filled by your dissertation advisor, at least partially, but some questions to ask yourself. Do I have support to keep abreast of all of the latest developments in my field. Are there places I can go to make sure that my work is part of conversations that are important in my discipline.
Am, I well connected to mechanisms for distributing my work in my field. Whether that's applying for journals, conferences, Twitter conversations. What have you.
And last but not least if my dissertation advisors research does not completely overlap with mine. Am I looking for other spaces and conversations where I might be more of a direct fit?
Zone two is teaching. Although teaching is not part of all PhD programs, many jobs in academia, involved teaching in some capacity. But as many of us know many jobs in academic or even non-academic spaces require teaching as part of the role. University's normally are well-equipped to support your teaching growth. If you know where to look.
So here's some questions. Am I getting feedback on my teaching regularly. Either from faculty members, staff, from teaching centers, student teaching mentors, or even fellow graduate students. All of those different kinds of people can give you feedback or help you to interpret the feedback that your students are giving you.
Am I learning and growing as a teacher. Am I staying involved in current pedagogy developments or experimenting with new technologies. And am I seeking out opportunities to teach, even if my funding doesn't include a regular teaching assignment. Many students report that giving guest lectures or volunteering for limited teaching engagements like workshops or greater positions can give them really valuable experience for their CV.
Zone three is skills. Grad school gives you a concentrated opportunity to develop many skills, but your advisor might not have the time or capability to support your growth in a complete way. So. Are you improving your skills as a writer? Are you taking advantage of on-campus writing support, like writing centers or writing groups?
Are you involved in any writing groups? Are you seeking feedback on your writing from a wide range of audiences? Are you improving as a reader? Are you reading widely in your field? Are you organizing the information that you're ingesting as part of your reading? Are you improving your networking skills?
Are you practicing informational interview skills? Are you cultivating an online presence? And are you improving any of your discipline specific skills? Like lab skills, teaching skills, media skills. It's going to be specific for you.
Zone four is career planning.
For many reasons your academic advisor might not be the best person. To help you plan out a diverse range of career options and the skills and steps that you'll need to follow in order to make those possibilities happen. But there are a growing number of places in spaces that might help you do that.
So are you being open-minded about the types of positions that you'll be seeking? Are you taking time to meet people from your discipline or your field who hold a wide range of positions? Are you consciously building a CV to support whatever your career aspirations are. Are you building a resume or at least thinking about a resume that might translate to employers that are outside of academia.
Have you sat down and evaluated. What kinds of activities you actually enjoy doing during the PhD? And what that might mean for your job search. Have you done the same introspective work about your values, your ethics, and what kind of life you envision the role of your job playing for the rest of it?
And the last zone is your personal life. So being vulnerable, isn't easy. Especially in a high pressure academic environment. Building a team of mentors where you have places to go to be your authentic self is so valuable. So, do you have people that you can confide in when you're not feeling your best mentally, physically, or otherwise?
Do you have people that will help connect you to resources that will help you be well and healthy. Without having to worry about what asking for help may mean.
Are you building a network of people whose values align with yours and can those people respect your values and how you're choosing to live them out?
Do you have people who will be able to listen, respect and talk through personal issues in a confidential and sensitive way.
So when it comes to building the team, Take this wheel and place people where you think they might best support you, or maybe you're already supporting you. Do you have any empty spaces on that sheet? Hopefully the answers to the questions in each of these sections will help guide you as you determine where your network is already strong and where you can build it up.
And when you've identified an area that you can build your network, these questions can help you narrow down the specific kind of support and mentoring that you're looking for.
And then you have the beginnings of a script that you can use to approach them, asking for their help.
Keep in mind that specific limited requests are always going to be more successful when you're building a new relationship. For example. Emailing a professor who's teaching you admire to see if they'll review a syllabus that you're pitching for next fall. Bonus points. If you can guide that feedback even more specifically by asking questions or limiting their feedback to structure or content.
That request is going to be much more likely to get garner a positive response than an email that's asking for more vague mentoring on teaching. Mentoring is built on building relationships, but beginning that specific relationship with a request can feel more genuine and less forced. The important thing here to remember is that not every mentor, it needs to be perfectly aligned with you in every area of the mentoring wheel.
Some people might give you outstanding mentorship and the aspects of your discipline that are confusing. And clique-ish. While also giving you terrible advice about the job market or teaching or balancing all of this with your personal life. Having clear expectations, both for each person in your mentoring team and for yourself as the designer, builder and maintainer of that team.
Can make some of these abstract relationships feel so much more concrete and useful.
And you deserve to have relationships that feel supportive for all of you. And that just might be more possible if you have a team rather than just one singular mentor. Thank you so much for joining me and I will see you next week.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
2.19 sometimes you can't avoid it - how to make working on vacation suck a little less
of course, i want everyone to take completely work-free time off this summer. but the reality remains that summer is often some of our most precious time as scholars. so how do we balance the immoveable deadlines of work with the very human, very necessary time off that can also come in the summer?
this episode has some of my best tips for negotiating boundaries, setting schedules, and dropping into focus mode quickly! enjoy!
mentioned:
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I wish that I could promise you that you will never have to work when you're traveling or away from your desk or on vacation. But if you ever need to, because academia does not sleep. This episode is for you.
📍 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. And in season two, I'll introduce you to various tools that might make the hard stuff from writing to managing your time to taking care of your brain just a little bit easier.
And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for a brand new summer planning template, all available for you for free. Now. Let's get into it.
Summer is usually a time for traveling home. Taking a little bit of a break. Being able to see people that you care about. Sitting in the sun. At least for me going to the pool. And there is also this alternate pressure. There is something so seductive about starting the new academic year. The new term with a fresh slate. And so many of us try to balance.
Work and time off during this time of the year so that we can get the best of both worlds a summer that's restful, and also a fall term or new academic year that isn't going to kick us in the butt immediately. Once it starts.
All of this is so complicated because we are often burned out after a long academic year. We're tired. We're exhausted. And we also put a lot of these human milestones, whether that's vacation with the family or time away or chores that we're going to catch up on or life projects to the summer season, too. So.
Of course, I want for you to take intentional time off over the summer. And that is a really good plan. And I wish that for all of us. However, if you can't just take two or three weeks to completely disconnect. Or you do have pressing deadlines. Let's talk about how you can balance both. How did, can you be a human and still get some things done over the summer?
The first area that I think is important is to think about setting boundaries with the people that you may be traveling with or with yourself. So step one is to communicate what you need as clearly as you can. When I go home to visit friends and family and I live about five hours away, so I don't get to see them as often as I like it is so easy to fill up every minute of my time.
With family. Visits with friend catch-ups with eating all of my favorite foods and seeing all of my favorite places. And if I need to get work done, it can be a huge obstacle because every minute of my waking time is filled. And I don't have any other brain focus hours available to do any work. So I find that it's really useful to let everybody know the impacted parties, so to speak.
As soon as possible that I'm going to need to do some amount of work when I'm traveling. Because it can help set that expectation in advance. I tend to say things like I am so excited. To be coming home or going on a trip with you are going to stay. But as you may know, I also have this really big deadline coming up.
I'm planning on working for an hour or two every morning when I get up. So between eight and 10:00 AM or between nine and 11. And after that, I'll be all yours. So two hours in the morning, but then the rest of the time is yours.
The second thing to think about is compromised. Is it easier to skip one whole day of festivities and get everything wrapped up, really get into that deep focus zone, get some time and some energy and some space to really focus. Or to scatter that work throughout your break. I like to make the bargain with myself personally, that if I worked for an hour or two every day, I can make the rest of the time present and focused with the people who matter.
With no phones or computers. But you might find that it's actually easier to just clear one day of your schedule and get that deep focus instead of trying to work more regularly. It can also be helpful to remind people that by skipping a quote-unquote low level event, you know, not the main thing, the wedding that you're traveling for, or the most exciting day of your vacation.
But by skipping something that's slightly less of a priority. You can be there for something that is a really big priority. The work is a moveable. Usually that's why you're doing it. I'm breaking the first place, but the timing of it can be flexible.
And lastly, inside of this boundary category, I really recommend that you develop a signal, your own personal signal for do not disturb. Will you be in a location where it is easy to be distracted? I know that when I try and work at home at my kitchen table, it is very difficult, both for me and for everybody else to respect that I'm working and not to be disturbed because I'm right there in the middle of it.
So develop a way for people to quickly and quietly know that you're in a focus zone without them having to ask if you're working. This could be a sign on your bedroom door that announces that when your door is shot, you aren't to be disturbed. Or wearing headphones or sometimes even leaving the space.
A little bit more on that in a minute.
The next category of suggestions that I have in this area are about setting up your work conditions quickly and easily so that when your work time does come, you can drop right in. Step one in this process is to use your work rituals.
My brain, for example. Associates certain visual and taste cues with working. Yeah, I almost always will sit down in a chair, put in a piece of peppermint gum. When I'm trying to get ready to work. So when I'm traveling, I make sure I bring that ritual with me. Proper mint gum, my playlist, sometimes even a candle. If I can manage it.
Even if I'm in the busiest airport. By brain slips more easily into these work modes because it knows that peppermint gum equals go time.
It might also be useful to find a work zone. Is there a new coffee shop in your old childhood neighborhood? Does your uncle have a sweet home office that you can borrow? Are the libraries open? Sometimes you have to go to a new location to totally escape the, Hey let's make cookies right now, or, Hey, do you want to sit down and watch the new episodes of love island?
Be creative. So many places have wifi or better yet wifi and coffee, and they can help you make the most of a few hours and really reinforce that space between vacation you and work. You.
Last in this category is something that all of us struggle with and for good reason. Trying to avoid some time traps. So if you only have a few hours to work and get really important things done while you're traveling or while you're on break. Then try to avoid the time consuming tasks that don't necessarily have a huge impact and move right into the high value work.
This might mean putting in a website blocker that blocks Twitter or Instagram or the new threads or wherever you hang up. Maybe even your email. And setting up a vacation autoresponder can give you some space to respond to emails in a delayed way. Maybe you put your social media on pause, use the short work hours for the most pressing high impact tasks to make it feel like you really accomplished something when you snuck away.
Last, but not least this category be mindful. Be compassionate. Because this thing is really hard to do.
First step, take a few centering breaths. Are you having a sticky encounter when you're rushing to finish this essay before the deadline feeling guilty, maybe about missing some of the festivities, maybe you are resenting every life choice that ever led you to be at your high school library, grading student papers.
Well, everyone else is enjoying time at the pool. We've all been there. Take a few deep breaths and get re-centered. Rather than letting all of that bubble up and be a low. Or maybe high key distraction during your work sessions, it sometimes can even help to free write it. Write it out in your journal or maybe even a Google doc so that you can revisit those thoughts or not afterwards.
Be compassionate with other people too. Many of us come from backgrounds that don't totally understand all of the work that goes into a grad degree. And it can be so vulnerable to explain that you're behind on a deadline. To others, it might look like a sequence of typing activities that you are doing into various windows.
But that work is important enough for you to take time away from other things to finish it. Being compassionate with others that might not understand how important the work really is. Can help you feel not quite as attacked when those well-meaning, but probing questions and comments, start to roll in.
And last, but not least be compassionate with yourself. Missing out on a long awaited and often expensive trip or travel opportunity, it can be hugely upsetting for me. I start to feel really guilty about not finishing things earlier about having to take time away from the people who I've traveled so far to see people who care about me and that I'm not having this like idyllic holiday season.
Where I'm really making the most of every summer minute, or even sometimes I can feel guilty about not resting enough.
Having to work during the summer break or any other break doesn't necessarily mean that one high priority is higher than the other. It just means that you have a full, complex life with values and roles that sometimes overlap. We all wish that we could take perfect summer breaks and be there for every minute of all of our exciting trips and time together with our families and loved ones, but finding a way to fit the work into the whole picture of our lives.
And try new things out to support ourselves can be a gift. All on its own. And if you're looking for a little bit of structure, I really do encourage you to join us in summer camp. We're about halfway through, but you can still sign up. We are taking new members all the way through the end of August. Don't forget to use the word podcast for 10% off. Thanks so much. And I will see you next week.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
2.18 i'm back, baby! - coming back to your desk after time away
whether it was a vacation you looked forward to all year, or an unexpected break from work, coming back to your desk after time away is not as easy as it sounds. i give you two strategies for combating the dislocation that can happen, all through the lens of jet lag!
resources:
blog post on shut down routines
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Whether you're just coming back from a break or about to leave for one. Let's talk about how to ease back into your work when you get back. On this week's episode of
📍 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. And in season two, I'll introduce you to various tools that might make the hard stuff from writing to managing your time to taking care of your brain just a little bit easier.
And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for a brand new summer planning template, all available for you for free. Now. Let's get into it.
I'm a big fan, as you probably know, if you've listened to this podcast of taking a break and sometimes those breaks are super intentional, like time off in the summer. Or a vacation or time off in between terms. And sometimes they're a little bit less intentional. Like when you have to go away unexpectedly because of a chronic illness or an emergency, or just a sickness that you didn't predict.
And I talk a little bit about that in a blog post that I've put in the show notes, but whether you want to weigh on purpose or it was unplanned, you then do have to deal with the inevitable coming back. Now. I love coming back to my desk. Usually. If the break was long enough and I got enough rest and recovery points in the old system, I often am really excited to come back, but that doesn't mean that my brain and my body are totally in sync when I do. . So in this week's episode, I'm going to share some of my theories about how you can tackle this little bit of brain, body dislocation when it comes to being back at your desk.
I approach coming back to your desk a lot. Like I approached jet lag. Or that sense of time dislocation when you travel and arrive in a location, that's a different time zone from where you started. Now, if you've experienced jet lag, you know, that it is a mind body phenomenon. And I truly believe that transitioning back to work after time away is the exact same thing.
So there are two different ways that you can deal with jet lag. But either way it's going to happen. And whether you're traveling cross country or around the world, or coming back after a break. But I want to normalize the idea that very, very few people I know am hopping into their desk chairs the day after vacation wide eyed and bushy tailed and ready to go with no sense of kind of weirdness or sluggishness jet lag happens. You can prepare for it. You can shift your schedule, you can try and sleep while you're traveling. You can take a sleep aid and you're still going to be a little bit off and it's the same way with work.
When you get back to your desk, no matter how well you planned and prepped to be a way you're going to be a little bit off when you get back. And that's okay. So there are two strategies that I use to try and deal with the sense of just location when it comes to being back at my desk. And the first one is the similar to a way that I handle jet lag, which is trying to get my body on the schedule of the place where I wanted to be in this case, my work routines.
This is a common strategy for dealing with jet lag. Like I mentioned, You do your very best to keep your body doing the things that it should be doing. And it's new time zone. So if you fly and suddenly it you've lost a whole day, you might try and stay up until bedtime, even though you missed a night of sleep.
You might try to eat meals around mealtime. Your brain might not be fully there, but you just adjust the body as much as you can. And hope that the brain follows. In a return to work context. This looks like trying to keep your schedule. So you get to your desk. When you want to, you keep your meetings and you worry a little bit less about your brain following suit.
You do what's possible and your body helps to guide your brain back into work mode. So you might show up at your desk at the appointed hour, nine or 10:00 AM. You might check your emails. You might noodle around on the internet. You might make sure that your files are backed up. You might do any of that kind of fluffy admin work that sure. Isn't the big stuff. But the goal on that first day of the trip is just to try and adjust to the jet lag.
And the goal on that first day back is just to try and get your body where it wants to be. Strategy too. Is to worry a little bit less about the schedule and focus on the tasks. Sometimes you get to your new location in a jet lag context and staying up or keeping a schedule, just isn't an option. When I was in grad school, my dad lived and worked in London. And when I would fly from California or from Michigan to visit him most times I would try really hard to stay up and beat the jet lag. But sometimes probably two or three times, I just crashed out. I got to his flat, I fell asleep for eight hours.
It's not ideal. But it's what my body needed at that particular time. In a work context, this looks like identifying the most important task or to. And working on that, no matter when or where you can get to it. So if you know that you really need to get that syllabus finished up this week so that you can send it to your department, you don't really care if you do it hat 10:00 AM like you would ideally do. Or if you work on it from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM, because that's when your brain feels like it's ready to function.
You worry less about the schedule. You'll get there eventually. And you focus on the tasks and stuff.
Either way in either situation. I really encourage you to give yourself time to adjust. If you are planning a really big trip, you save for it, you plan it. Ideally, you're not going to do the most important things. The things that you're really most looking forward to right away when you land, because jet lag will make it harder.
If you can't wait to visit that museum and you do it straight off the plane. Chances are you're going to be at least a little bit dislocated, if not full, improper suffering. So it's the same way. If you're getting back to work.
In the same way, if you're getting back to work and there's a way to avoid it, warming up with some adjustment days can be really helpful before you launch into the most important stuff. I often spend the first day back catching up on emails, doing some planning and getting things organized. If I tell myself the day after time away.
That. Okay. You must arrive at your desk five minutes before the appointed time drink one cup of coffee and then do the hardest thing on your list. When I am already feeling a little bit weird, a little bit off. That's a sure fire away for me to spend that whole day being annoyed and frustrated.
And it's very unlikely that I'm going to get that writing done. I know though that the second day is a little bit better. And the third day's a little bit better too.
Basically all of this boils down to no matter how you left or how long you've been gone coming back to work as a transition. And transition's always go a little bit more smoothly when you support yourself through them, rather than wishing you weren't going through it. I know there are very few things that I can just think my way out of and that post vacation slump is one of them.
So, if you need to reread the whole chapter that you were working on to get oriented. I do it. If you need to plan a half day and then take a nap in the afternoon planet. If you feel. The way that you feel that first hour back is not the way that you're going to feel forever, but it is the way that you feel in that moment.
I encourage you to support it and be open to it. Changing. And if this is the kind of advice that you're looking for, or if someplace with a little bit extra support. Fun and excitement sounds like a great way to ease back after your first half of the summer. And I encourage you to check out summer camp. We are starting our fourth session on June 26th, but you can join us every other Monday.
As we are going to be going all summer long. So, if you're looking for something with a little bit of support to help get you back to that desk, after some expected or unexpected time away, we would love to have you. And make sure you use the code podcast for 10% off. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you next week.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
2.17 one notebook to rule them all - research notebooks
i have never felt jealousy like i did the day i heard about research notebooks.
but my jealous can be your gain - learn all about why keeping a notebook might help you develop more insights into your research process! i give flexible examples, and reflection questions to help you see what things you might want to record in yours!
resources mentioned
dr. raul pacheco-vega's everything notebook
I am giving away one FREE 45 minute session with me a month to anyone who reviews this podcast on Apple Podcasts! Leave a review and I'll announce the winners in the last episode of the month, and in my newsletter! Thank you so much for helping to spread the word about the podcast! And if you are user pcynde, you won this month's free session! Email to claim!
Summer Camp has officially kicked off!! Learn more about it here - and don't forget to use the code PODCAST for 10% off any sliding scale level or payment plan!
Get your free summer planning workbook here - get a more spacious, fun, and supported summer!!
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I have never experienced jealousy like I did when somebody described their research notebook to me. And so i have done the hard work of translating it into a tool that any phd student can use. On this week's episode of
📍 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. And in season two, I'll introduce you to various tools that might make the hard stuff from writing to managing your time to taking care of your brain just a little bit easier.
And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for a brand new summer planning template, all available for you for free. Now. Let's get into it.
The first time I heard of a research journal, I was talking to a client who worked in a wet lab and was required to keep a research journal that stayed in the lab at all times. They kept track of the experiments that they ran, the reagents that they used, all kinds of good stuff. They kept notes about preliminary findings.
It seems like a dream to me, especially as a humanities PhD. First of all, the idea of a lab was immensely appealing a place to go and do your research instead of just on the couch. But mostly I really loved this idea of being required to keep track of what I did during the day, the steps I took, the literature I reviewed the sources I consulted. How helpful would that be?
And as someone who can regularly lose whole days or weeks to research tangents or record of what I did sounded so good and so useful. Now several years later as a coach, I recommend research journals to a lot of my clients. And now by extension to you, dear listeners on this podcast. There are as many ways to keep a research notebook as there are research projects. So infinity number of ways,
but most methods boil down to two key functions. One that it's in a singular location. Digital or analog where you get in the habit of checking in and checking out at the start and end of each work session. And feature number two, it's a way to capture the day-to-day of your research process.
Experiments, run materials, use boxes, process literature, read, et cetera, so that you can go back and refer to it when, and if you need it. And that's it. A notebook where you keep everything all in one place and that everything, or the steps of your research.
Perhaps the most famous of these research notebooks methodologies is Dr. Pacheco Vegas, everything notebook. I'm going to include a bunch of links in the show notes where you can learn more about his method. But basically he buys a specific notebook. He color codes, everything, there are pens, there's a system and it's a notebook that holds everything. It doesn't matter what research project he's working on, what stage of the project he's in, everything goes into this notebook and when he fills it up, he archives it.
And so he knows that everything literally that has influenced or touched his research process is in one of those notebooks somewhere. How helpful. I will say that you should explore his method for yourself. He does a much better job of explaining it than I do, but for me, the idea of the everything notebook became a little bit overwhelming.
I often had multiple projects on the go and I just can't be trusted to keep the same notebook and the same pens. And remember. From day to day, the specific, detailed color coding system that he uses. But if you're looking for something a little bit more flexible, I've got ideas and tips for you.
First of all in the digital realm, there are also lots of helpful examples of how and why you might keep a research notebook or a research journal. Some are run in LaTeX, some are based in notion and I will include those links in the show notes. As usual. I think that the specific tool that you use is so much less important than the intent or the function that you're using that tool for. Lots of tools can store information in a way that's linked in searchable. So it's really important is getting clear on what you want to keep track of.
So to that end in today's short and sweet research journal exploration. I have a few reflection questions that might help you. Guide the creation of what a research journal or notebook could look like for you. So. Sit down. Maybe pause this podcast and sit with these questions. Question number one.
What are the types of information that you most wish that you could recall after a long day or week of work? What are the things that slip your mind? What are the things that would be most useful? What are the things that you most wish. Would be automatically, or at least had a system to be captured.
Question number two. What are the types of information that are hard for you to reconstruct? Is it where your time goes? Is it hard for you to know what you worked on from day to day? Is it all just one big blur of a draft? Is it hard to know what specific things that you worked on, you started the day in one document you ended in one document and you're not really sure what happened in between.
Is it hard for you to remember? Or what is it hard for you to remember or reconstruct what motivated you to pull a certain source in the beginning or to make a certain experimental choice or the settings on the lab equipment that you were using? What's the kind of information that is hard for you to reconstruct after the fact, even if it seems really clear in the moment.
Research question number three. Would it be helpful for you to narrate? In a place where you can access them afterwards. Rather than just in your mind, the process that you follow during the course of your research. So many times I'm working with clients and they, I say, okay, you're sitting down with a new chapter, explain to me your process. And they can't really, they have.
It's vague sense that they start with an outline. They do some amount of research, but mostly it's a process that's driven by anxiety. That they do a whole lot of research that feels relatively unbounded. And then all of a sudden the deadline comes up and boom. They're anxious, they start to write. So would it be helpful for you to narrate the choices that you're making on a more day-to-day basis so that you can decide if you want to keep doing them or not?
Is it that you always need to pull every source in the library of Congress catalog? Heading of your specific research question. Every time you sit down, do you always need to read every article or did it work pretty well when you started writing a little bit earlier?
That's the kind of data that you can analyze. If it's written down in a research notebook.
And last but not least. How accurate are your perceptions of how you spend your research and writing time? Would a more concrete record help you counteract any inaccuracies? For my own sake. I am a deeply inaccurate judge of where all of my time goes.
Which is why I rely on a variety of different tools, whether those are time-tracking tools or a research notebook to help me remember what I did in any given day. Because if you ask me either, I'm going to misremember the amount of time that I spent on each thing. Or I'm going to forget things altogether.
So if you find that it would be helpful for you to have a more accurate record. Maybe for more accurate planning, then you might want to explore or research notebook.
And if these are the kinds of concrete tips that sound cool to you, then I really encourage you to check out the community. It is $5 a month. It's full of articles, resources, a coaching call library. There's actually a private podcast feed there, but mostly it's a place for graduate students to show up and say, Hey.
What is this thing called a citation manager, or how are you managing to balance syllabus creation with everything else that you're trying to do this summer? We've got challenges. There are prizes. There's all kinds of support in there and I encourage you to check it out. Otherwise, I will see you right back here next week.
Thank you so much for listening.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
2.16 wait, do i know everything, or nothing? - bouncing between student and expert
it should be a smooth progression right? you start as a grad student, and you emerge as an expert! a doctor! a colleague!!
but why does it feel so bumpy? let's talk about all the reasons why you might feel like a superstar one day, and a trash racoon the next - and things you can do to soften the bumps, too!
and sign up for the FREE webinar on turning confusing feedback into effective edits - i'm hosting dr. bailey lang and i'm so excited!
I am giving away one FREE 45 minute session with me a month to anyone who reviews this podcast on Apple Podcasts! Leave a review and I'll announce the winners in the last episode of the month, and in my newsletter! Thank you so much for helping to spread the word about the podcast! And if you are user pcynde, you won this month's free session! Email to claim!
Summer Camp has officially kicked off!! Learn more about it here - and don't forget to use the code PODCAST for 10% off any sliding scale level or payment plan!
Get your free summer planning workbook here - get a more spacious, fun, and supported summer!!
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One minute you're flying high. Feeling yourself, knowing that you are a scholar and then the next minute you feel right back at square one. And like, you don't know a single thing. Let's talk about the balance between student and scholar on this week's episode of Yeah.
📍 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. And in season two, I'll introduce you to various tools that might make the hard stuff from writing to managing your time to taking care of your brain just a little bit easier.
And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for a brand new summer planning template, all available for you for free. Now. Let's get into it.
One of the trickiest parts about grad school. And a lot of other experiences where we're expected to grow and learn while also doing something. Is that we are usually both the student and an expert. We're at least growing into an expert. And this feeling of being both, it causes major intellectual, emotional, and sometimes even physical whiplash.
One second. You're writing up your research and you need to state your authority and your originality and how brilliant you are. And then the next minute your supervisor is taking pains to remind you that you haven't read every book that they have and their 92 year career. And you, in fact know nothing.
One tradition, at least in a lot of the U S departments that I'm familiar with is to invite a successful candidate back into the room after they have their thesis or dissertation defense by using their title. Can you come back in? Dr. Pepin my advisor said a signal that I had left the room for their deliberation as a student but I was entering back into it as a colleague. And in theory, that transition happened smoothly over the course of my five years in the programs. I started as a student, I went through coursework. I took my exams, I passed it into candidacy. I did my reviews. I went to conferences and slowly and slowly and slowly, I built up that expertise until poof. I defended I was an expert.
I was a colleague. I was a doctor. But emotionally and physically, and even sometimes administratively, I went backwards and forwards all of the time. Sometimes I felt like I was more than capable to teach my undergraduates and being an expert to all of my students write up my research. I felt like I was making original contributions. And then at other times I felt like I couldn't even be trusted to know what email was or how other humans used it.
Yeah. And I want to be clear that I'm not talking about here, the separate, but related issues of imposter syndrome. And the very real feeling that many of us get that the university decides our status by convenience. I will briefly say that it was in my department's best interest to call me a student when they did not want to pay me as an expert. And it was in their best interest to consider me an expert administratively when they wanted labor. Like a class covered or somebody to volunteer at a conference or to give a talk or a guest lecture, then it was fine for me to be an expert because they weren't going to be paying me anything extra. That's the nature of being a student in a program. And it also is one of the reasons that I'm such a big fan of unions for graduate students, but that's a whole other issue.
I want to be clear here, because I am not saying that all of us are manufacturing this whiplash in our heads. There are administrative and systemic reasons why our advisors, our departments, or universities, even the field itself consider us students when it's convenient and they consider us experts when it's convenient.
That changing back and forth can be really disorienting if not dispiriting or even worse. So I just want to name this feeling. It is so hard to flop back and forth between student and expert all of the time. And know that for important structural and systemic reasons, you are never going to be able to think or self care or self confidence or hype yourself out of that switch. Some of it is completely outside of your control.
But the truth is that you can also be both at the same time. In fact, we are often expert and student. teacher and learner and a lot of aspects in our life. We are always learning to do things more efficiently, more effectively, differently, and often we're using those skills in our daily lives, too.
We're learning to write better while we're also producing a lot of writing. We're working on our, improving our focus and our time management. While we also learn more about what makes our brains work and what tools do and don't support them. The important thing here that I really want to drive home in this podcast episode is that your skills have value even if, especially if you are working to improve them. You are not only worthy as a person once you're an expert. You can share what, you know, even if there are other people who do things differently than you do. So much of what makes PhD candidates stand out and why we're recruited into these programs for the first place. is our life experiences, our identities, our previous work experiences, the communities we grew up in the perspectives that we have. All of those things make us experts in our own lives, our own communities, our own spheres of knowledge. But it's so easy to get into the hollowed white halls of academia and forget that any of that matters.
So, if you are waiting to feel proud of yourself until you're an expert with nothing left to learn. You will probably never get the chance to call yourself an expert. And even if you do, if it's going to be at the very end of your career, What would it feel like instead if you gave yourself the chance to be proud of where you are right now?
while also giving yourself space to grow and change. What would it change for you if you gave yourself permission to celebrate how far you already come on this path? While still acknowledging that there's more to go. Yeah, it is so destabilizing to be in an environment that depends on distinctions between experts and novices, for promotion advancement and in a lot of cases for even praise and feedback. But don't let the ego games of academia convince you that you're still a scrawny student at the whims of your teacher in every facet of your life. And to that end, here are three different things that you can try over the next week, or maybe even further along, that might help you feel into the ways in which you are already capable. You're already an expert.
You are already a person who can learn and celebrate what you've learned at the same time. So the first thing to try is owning your expertise. You might find that you are an expert in all kinds of things. You maybe are an expert in how to cook a fantastic set of pancakes for breakfast, or you're an expert in using the autoclave machine in your lab.
Maybe you are an expert in a particular method or a piece of software, maybe you are the grad student that everyone goes to to figure out how to get their canvas sites to work. In what ways is your expertise already being drawn on as a resource in your department, in your human life, in your communities?
And what would it feel like to make a list of all of those things that you're already really good at? Our brains naturally focus on the stuff that we wish we were better at already. Like the fact that I am not as good at Excel as I want to be, or I can't code an R yet, or I'm still taking this course to improve my language skills. Everybody's got those things and yeah, it's healthy to keep growing and striving and always improving our skills.
To a point. But if we never stop and name, the fact that we have already improved ourselves, we have already grown and changed and learned things. Then it can feel like you're caught on that. Never ending hamster wheel of just never being good enough. So take a moment list those things that you're already an expert at and see if there's any way that you can claim a little bit of that expertise for yourself. And the next week or so.
Option number two that you could try is owning your expertise in non-academic spaces.
Maybe you teach a class at your local yarn shop about how to knit. Because it gives you such a pure amount of pleasure to be an expert in share something that you love. Maybe you go and volunteer at the local museum and you give tours and you feel like, wow, I'm a docent. And I'm teaching these kids things and it feels great. Or maybe you pick the most complicated recipe that you know, how to make you invite all of your friends and you wow them with the fact that you can make souffle's right there on the spot.
You do not only need to be an expert in the thing that you were working on professionally. And sometimes that little bit of mastery feeling in another space can really go a long way.
Last, but not least I would love it. If you experimented with remembering that it is okay to still be learning. And if it feels unsafe or unwelcome or a little bit tender and vulnerable to do that at work.
Why not still learn in another space. That's completely separate. I love learning new hobbies for this. I think that. Taking on hobbies during my PhD was one of the reasons why I finished it was so great for me to go to a yoga class and work on a new pose. And fall down a bunch and you don't mess it up a bunch and mix up my left and right.
A thing that I'm notorious for doing. And remember that it was okay to play. It was okay to fall down. It was okay to not be good at something yet. That was such a liberating feeling when I felt like every other aspect of my life was such high stakes. I encouraged you to find someplace where it feels a little bit more comfortable to not be good at something.
Maybe you take a pottery class or you watch a bunch of YouTube videos and teach yourself how to watercolor. The sky's the limit, but giving yourself that chance to practice learning in another space. Might help you feel a little bit more comfortable doing it in your professional life too.
But anyway, you shake it. Grad school is one long apprenticeship in which your expert in student status in theory progresses in a linear line, but most of the time bounces up and down sometimes a million times a day. And anyone's nervous system is going to get kicked up by that. Just remember that part of that is how the system is designed.
And there's also a lot of space to give yourself support. As you move through the ups and the downs on the path to becoming a doctor.
And if you are struggling with the ups and downs of revision, make sure that you check out the show notes. I am hosting a free webinar on June 20th, all about taking confusing feedback and turning it into an actual plan to edit and revise your writing. I'm hosting the amazing Dr. Bailey Lang to give this workshop. And I'm so excited to have her and all of you join us.
More links are at the bottom sign up it's completely free and it will also be recorded and transcribed afterwards. In case you can't make it live. Otherwise, I will see you around the neighborhood. Bye. Great.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
2.15 get out the good pens - switching to paper
i'm not sure what came first - my passion for notebooks and pens, or my reliance on those tools when i feel stuck and overwhelmed with my writing. this week, i'm talking all about the benefits of going pen on paper - to slow down, to be less linear, and to get unstuck! if you've been waiting for an excuse to get out the good notebook and your favorite pen, wait no more!
resources:
summer planning workbook - she's free!
summer camp - enrolling now for the rest of the summer!
giving away one FREE 45 minute session with me a month to anyone who reviews this podcast on Apple Podcasts! Leave a review and I'll announce the winners in the last episode of the month, and in my newsletter! Thank you so much for helping to spread the word about the podcast! And if you are user pcynde, you won this month's free session! Email to claim!
Summer Camp has officially kicked off!! Learn more about it here - and don't forget to use the code PODCAST for 10% off any sliding scale level or payment plan!
Get your free summer planning workbook here - get a more spacious, fun, and supported summer!!
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Get out that fancy notebook that you've been saving, your best pen, or those cool post-it notes. You out. Because this week's episode is all about taking your thoughts and putting them on paper.
📍 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. And in season two, I'll introduce you to various tools that might make the hard stuff from writing to managing your time to taking care of your brain just a little bit easier.
And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for a brand new summer planning template, all available for you for free. Now. Let's get into it.
Computers are obviously amazing. They're so powerful. They're so capable. But have you ever met a really good notebook? That's bound just the way that you want to. And that pen that has the exact right ink flow. There's something that can't be beat about working on paper.
And one of the things that I encounter with a lot of my clients and even with myself, Is that there can be a real resistance to stepping away from the computer and working in another space. And I think a lot of that comes from this fear of not being efficient enough. Why would I do pre drafting work or outlining or restructuring? =On a piece of paper or a hard copy or a notebook, if I'm just going to have to quote, redo all of that work on my computer later. Now, I'm not here to try and turn any of us into people who write all of our drafts longhand, and then send them to the typist to get them ready for our advisor's eyes. But I am suggesting that in a few specific situations, it can actually help you speed up to slow down and work in the less efficient, but more tactile realm of the paper.
Computers are a place where you can move your writing forward really quickly. But this also creates a sensation of going a little bit too fast than the actual ideas are developing. If you have ever found yourself, lost scrolling through a long document, not finding what you needed, clicking way to Twitter to try and find it hunting down that citation, remembering that you needed to book a dentist appointment, Googling that.
The loop goes on and on then you've maybe experienced what I'm calling this sync up issue, where your brain is going at a certain speed and the computer allows everything else to go quite a bit faster. Writing, especially at certain points can be a slow process. You are generating new knowledge. Therefore it will take you a little bit of time to formulate these ideas, get them ready get them lined up sequentially so that you can write them down at a document.
Working on paper, it gives you a chance to break out of that linearity. Slow down and let your brain generate those ideas at the pace that's a little bit more comfortable for you. It's not to say that you won't get back to the computer and then have all of those temptations in scrolling that you might have already had.
But for the particularly sticky seasons, when you feel stuck, when you feel overwhelmed, moving to paper is actually a way to help break that pattern of kind of frantically clicking or typing and retyping and deleting things. That real frantic nature can be calmed down by a little bit of on paper work.
Here are a few of the ways that I like to work with my writing on paper. Take what's useful and leave the rest. But I think that these benefits alone are worth an experiment in the next couple of weeks. Writing on paper, it can open up a variety of different workspaces. Pop into an empty classroom to use the whiteboard.
Take your notebook to the library or a coffee shop, work in a different corner of your couch. This is one of those changes that seems really small. Why would it make a difference for me to go to the library instead of my office, where all of my things are and all of my special mugs. But if you were feeling really stuck, really sticky, really slow going somewhere else and going somewhere else without all of the trappings of all of the other jobs and roles that need your attention can really make the difference and get you a little bit of fresh air, so to speak.
Benefit number two. It can be easier to share your thinking with other people. If you're working on paper. A brainstorming session with a mind map that you make on a big piece of paper or a whiteboard in an empty classroom can be an excellent way to get your thinking about an argument more clear while you show your work to a writing group or an advisor.
I know that I used to sit in coffee shops with my very best friends and I would scribble things and be like, see, don't you see it? I would draw them diagrams and I would connect the ideas and having it on paper, helped them follow me a little bit more as I was trying to work out those ideas. And even if you don't have an extra person to share these ideas with, I have also done high quality brainstorming with my cats or with an imagined, interested. Yeah, kind of feedback giver. And the paper makes it easier for me to remember what I was saying and for them to follow along whether they are feline or human.
Writing long hand, whether in full sentences or just in bullet points. I can allow you to slow down the actual production of words and see your own thinking more clearly. I know that I think really fast and my fingers can almost get there, but if I'm writing long hand, it takes me quite a bit of effort to get all of those words out. So.
Free writing is one of those techniques where they slow the race and the kind of frantic nature of the thoughts down so that you can see them. As opposed to scrolling through the document, looking at the feedback, looking at the comments, imagining six different ways that you can restructure and trying to keep all of that in your head. If you're working through a particularly thorny organizational issue or argumentative change writing longhand, or even putting things on post-it notes can helpfully slow you down so that you can see what you're trying to do.
If you're in a very sticky spot. You're nervous. You're overwhelmed. Your nervous system is at an 11. Working on paper can make it easier to soothe that nervous system enough. And make it a little bit harder to bounce into a different task that ultimately is going to be a distraction from what you're trying to do.
I find that the slower pace of me writing my words out, hearing the scratch of the pen on the paper actually gives me a chance to kind of reduce that overwhelm feeling. And really dig into what I'm thinking and what I'm trying to say.
Now, there's no phase of writing that won't benefit from writing on paper. If you are feeling overwhelmed or frazzled, I find that it's particularly effective in two different phases, the pre drafting, and then the restructuring.
I have clients that start any writing project with post-it notes on the wall with big ideas, they might start with free writing in a journal or making a mind map on a big piece of paper. That pre-writing phase. Is often not linear. And when we force it into a linear by design piece of software, like word. Then it really can constrain us and make it hard to see how things might be organized.
The second phase that I recommend working on paper is if you're in the middle of a really big restructure. If you're in a restructure, then it can be really difficult to make all of those changes that people are recommending as you scroll through the document.
You might end up duplicating certain areas. You might accidentally delete more than you want to. You can get lost. It's really hard, especially with big, large scale documents to do that restructuring digitally. If you have access to a printer you might print it out, cut things up, make notes. You might re outline it or reverse outline it in a notebook just to give yourself a chance to sort of see what you have and then make a couple of changes on paper and then translate those changes back into the digital.
It's that translation process that I find stops a lot of people from slowing down and working on paper. And yeah, it is going to be a pain maybe. To sit down and type up those notes or to go through and make sure that your document lines up with the new outline that you made.
And it's this kind of tool that our brains like to tell us it's inefficient. That can be especially hard to reach for in the situations when you're feeling stressed or behind AKA the situations where they might help the most. But let me assure you that this really is one of those slow down to speed up situations. You might need to budget a little bit of extra time to input, work into your final document, but if working longhand, if writing in a notebook of doing it with your favorite pen gets you unstuck. It gets you a little more focused or support, then that benefit really outweighs the work that you need to redo. Plus pens and markers and stickers. And if you need any more of a pitch than that, I can't help you.
But if this is the kind of tool and encouragement that you really are looking for at this summer, then you are most cordially invited to summer camp. A new session is starting. It's soon. They start every two weeks and you can get more information at the link in the bio.
Plus you can download your free summer planning workbook and stay tuned for cool free webinars and all sorts of other things that are coming down the pike this summer. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you soon.
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
2.14 feel good at something - get a hobby!
in today's episode, i am going to encourage you to think seriously about your summer plans....no, not all the reading you'll do, or writing you'll get caught up on....but your hobbies. and i'll give you a bunch of research-backed reasons that hobbies might be one of the ways that you can make your life - human and scholarly - more sustainable!
resources:
I am giving away one FREE 45 minute session with me a month to anyone who reviews this podcast on Apple Podcasts! Leave a review and I'll announce the winners in the last episode of the month, and in my newsletter! Thank you so much for helping to spread the word about the podcast!
Summer Camp has officially kicked off!! Learn more about it here - and don't forget to use the code PODCAST for 10% off any sliding scale level or payment plan!
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The best thing you can do for your scholarly work might be to do something completely different with a big chunk of your time. Let's talk about hobbies in this week's episode of
📍 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. And in season two, I'll introduce you to various tools that might make the hard stuff from writing to managing your time to taking care of your brain just a little bit easier.
And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for a brand new summer planning template, all available for you for free. Now. Let's get into it.
Whether it's conscious or unconscious, it's really common for academics to have a default setting of work for most of their free time. Half an hour? Get some reading in! Got a couple of days free that you didn't expect? Go ahead and get caught up on that writing project. But one of the things that is definitely true when your default for time is work, is that it is exponentially easier to burn out, lose interest, fall out of love with your project, and just generally feel less good because you're working all of the time.
Unlike other curves, the effort put in to work produced curve is not a linear one. What I mean by that is that the more work that you put in, it's not necessarily going to lead to more and more achievement. You can work 17 hours on a piece of writing, but if you're exhausted for 13 of them, it's not going to be that much better for your final project to have put in all of those extra hours, because you're just not as efficient.
What can we do about this math that we wish would math differently? And I'm here to introduce you to a secret. Maybe something you haven't heard about. Or maybe something that tickles a far away piece in your brain. Hobbies. Yes, that's right. This week's episode is all about why I think that you should get a hobby, resurrect a hobby, have a couple of hobbies, or just generally have projects that engage you outside of work.
And here are a couple of reasons why. I've always been a big fan of hobbies, but even more recently after I've read this book Rest, which obviously I'll link to in the show notes. Rest by Alex Soojung-kim Pang has lots of actionable things, but the best chapter in it for me is this chapter about recovery, where he talks about something that we all need, which is recovery time from the parts of our lives that are stressful, require a lot of effort and focus.
And if that's not a definition of scholarly life, then I don't know what is. So this chapter is pretty actionable and it's built on the workof, Dr. Sabine Sonnentag who's a professor of work and organizational psychology at the university of Mannheim. She has studied burnout and recovery from work-related stress for years and has identified four major components of what she calls recovery.
Psychological detachment; relaxation; mastery experiences; and control. Now I value your time and I don't want this podcast to take 45 minutes. So I'm just going to talk about two of these elements that I think that a hobby specifically can really help you with . But the idea behind all of these elements are that they don't just help you take a break from work. They actually help you recover, which is something different than just breaking.
It's going to replenish you recharge your batteries, so to speak. And I think if we approach the time that we're not working as something that is going to actively help restore us, it makes burnout a little bit less likely. Now of course burnout has its roots in all sorts of systemic and unjust systems. So you're not going to be able to fix work burnout or prevent it altogether with a hobby.
But it might go a really long way. And it's because having hobbies really help fulfill these two elements of recovery, psychological detachment and mastery experiences.
So psychological detachment. Is the ability to disengage from work-related thoughts and concerns during non-work time. If you laughed out loud at that, you are not alone. I did too. But it is useful to think about what activities, habits, or tools help you take a mental break from work. It might look like taking emails off your phone or reading fiction or watching TV to help put your brain in a completely different area of thought. My brain is a little bit. Uh, persistent, stubborn, and sometimes a single input isn't enough to get it to psychologically detach from work. So for me, this often looks like activities that involve my body too.
Otherwise, it's too easy for my brain to keep braining while I'm trying to watch that show. So I might add in coloring while I watch TV, or I might listen to that podcast, but go for a walk around the block at the same time. You get it. That's psychological detachment, one of the four elements of recovery.
The second element of recovery that we're going to talk about today are mastery experiences. So mastery experiences are anything that promote a sense of competence and achievement which you might feel at work, but maybe not all of the time. Dr. Sonnentag defines them these activities as engaging interesting things that you do well.
And there's a lot of research that the more uncertain your job is, the more doing things that you feel good at and competent at in your off time can help you to counteract that. Hobbies can be great for this. Games. Who doesn't love winning a game? Volunteering where you feel useful and needed. Teaching something non-related to your work like teaching a knitting class. If that's something you're into or teaching a niece or nephew, how to bake cookies.
But this element of recovery can seem kind of counterintuitive, right? Because it takes a lot of effort and mental energy to teach or volunteer or do something that is engaging and interesting. . It has that psychological detachment benefit. So it helps you think about something else on purpose and it makes you feel like you can do things and you can do them well, or that you're progressing at them or they feel supportive .
And it feels good to feel good at things. It feels good to do things ,well to be needed, to see progress, to notice achievement. And the more that you're not getting that at work, the harder those benefits are going to hit for you.
So. Why am I pushing hobbies so hard? And it's, I am pushing them because I A) think that grad school doesn't own every hour of your time. And that having more things that you're excited about or doing is only going to benefit you, but it's really useful because the time math doesn't always work out the way that we want it to.
You know, up top, I mentioned that the effort curve doesn't always make sense --that the more effort you put in you do reach a sort of plateau where more and more effort isn't going to necessarily yield the performance benefits that you want. But the time also works similarly, but to your own benefit. So if you have 40 hours in a week to work on a project and you spend five of them on a hobby or a separate project, um, hopefully something a little bit different from work.
But that hobby is going to have benefits that far outweigh the five hours that you quote unquote took away from the project. Those five hours, according to the research and definitely backed up by my own experience are going to help you focus better. When you get back, they're going to help you, help you recover more, avoid burnout, and avoid some of those crashes that's so many of us are prone to.
And now that we've reached the summertime, and if you're in the American quarter system, hold on, it's coming for you. But summer recovery is especially important because that default sense of time being work time, no matter what is intense during the summer, if you're a scholar, because that's when we're supposed to catch up. Right?
And it can feel luxurious to the point of irresponsibility to say that I have two equal goals this summer, and one of them is to learn how to crochet. And the other one is to finish this dissertation chapter. You might not want to say that to your advisor, but in my experience, if you actively invest in your own recovery, through hobbies, through other experiences that help you detach and feel good and competent, then you're going to have more energy, not just for the summer to help you kind of move past any stickiness or burnout that you might already be feeling or help you recover from any of the bumps and bruises that we all tend to get during the academic year. It's going to also make it much more likely that you're going to show up on the first day of your new term. AKA academic new year. Uh, more rested, recovered person instead of a husk that pushed hard all summer long to try and catch up, I didn't quite get there and it starting the year already behind.
And if this permission slip to have a hobby and to make that hobby important. If not, just as important as your other work, the summer appeals, then you are going to love the free new summer planning workbook that's available in the link in the show notes. It's got all sorts of questions and activities to help you plan a summer. That's actually going to help you. Move forward and not burn out. And it has all sorts of other information about things that are happening in the thrive PhD universe this summer.
I appreciate you listening to this so much, and I hope it gives you a little bit of space to start a hobby, or maybe pick one back up again in the next couple of days. See you soon!
📍 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. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!