{"id":4045,"date":"2021-09-09T13:12:05","date_gmt":"2021-09-09T12:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/?p=4045"},"modified":"2021-09-09T14:03:07","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T13:03:07","slug":"advice-to-myself-starting-the-final-year-of-a-phd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/2021\/09\/09\/advice-to-myself-starting-the-final-year-of-a-phd\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice to myself: Starting the final year of a PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having completed a good \u00be of my PhD remotely, I like to think that I\u2019ve learnt a thing or two about motivation, reflection, and time-management. Here are a few things I\u2019ve realised over the last 18 months that I am going to try and keep reminding myself of as I navigate the next year. Even if I don\u2019t follow my own advice, there\u2019s always hope that it\u2019ll help another student<\/b>.<\/b><\/h2>\n

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Alicia Peel, EDIT Lab PhD student<\/p><\/div>\n

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1. Never start from a blank page<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Whether it\u2019s for an essay, an analysis plan, or a scientific paper, sitting down in front of a blank document is daunting. Something that has worked for me is to begin filling the document a day or two before I want to really get going on the writing. Add a title, or a few provisional options. Add all the headings and subheadings you may want to include. Copy in a few bullet points of the key pieces of information you want to cover. Then, in a few days\u2019 time when you sit down with your hoard of snacks for that \u201cbig writing session\u201d, you have a bit of structure on the page to guide you and can get stuck in straight away.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

2. Teams is academic Instagram (and you are being catfished)<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The versions of ourselves that we present in meetings are always the best, most put together versions. Having remote meetings on Teams has just exacerbated this. What you see of someone from the shoulders up for a few hours each week is rarely an accurate reflection of how they are actually functioning. Similar to a duck appearing to be swimming calmly on the surface of the water but paddling frantically below. Most other PhD students that I have spoken to remark on how everyone is coping better than them, working harder than them, producing more than them. But this only seems true because that\u2019s all we show each other. The reality is that we are all giving ourselves a quick pep talk in the two minutes before our team meeting starts every week and summoning all of our strength to present our happiest and most high-functioning selves. We look like we\u2019re on top of things because yesterday we didn\u2019t leave our desk until we\u2019d worked through the whole of our to-do list. The analysis we\u2019re presenting seems so well thought out and ground-breaking because we\u2019ve been stressing about every tiny part of it for the last three months. And as soon as the meeting is over? We\u2019re going to be back in our dressing gowns crying into our third cup of coffee about the colour scheme of our WCPG poster.<\/p>\n

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“Most other PhD students that I have spoken to remark on how everyone is coping better than them, working harder than them, producing more than them.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

3. The PhD workload is dynamic<\/strong><\/h4>\n

During every PhD, there are times when we will be working flat out, all hours of the day, to meet deadlines. What I\u2019ve learnt is to use the times when things are quieter to balance out those manic periods. If you find yourself with a day or two where you\u2019re on top of your to-do list, make the most of working at a slower pace. Do not make things harder for yourself by panicking about why you\u2019re not insanely busy, feeling guilty that you could be working harder or inventing tasks that will end up being a waste of your time. Take those days as opportunities to dedicate a few hours to reading interesting papers that have been pushed to the bottom of the pile, or catching up on academic admin, like updating your CV, researching post-doc options or getting your thesis notes organised. Or even ending your day early and going for a walk. Being productive doesn\u2019t always mean churning out papers, and those \u201cslower\u201d days go a long way towards helping you feel more prepared to handle the busier times.<\/p>\n

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“Use the times when things are quieter to balance out those manic periods.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

4. Start things early<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Everything is more enjoyable when it\u2019s not a high-stress task. Try keeping a note of \u2018further-in-the-future\u2019 tasks somewhere. These could bethings like conference posters, presentations or even writing up a paper. When you get an awkward short gap between meetings, or you\u2019re waiting for feedback on something before you can resume working on it, go to that list of future tasks and make a start on something. You might not get very far, but you\u2019ll thank yourself for any progress when you eventually come back to it two days before the deadline. Plus, it\u2019s a nice change of pace to occasionally work on something that doesn\u2019t have the pressure of an imminent deadline looming over it.<\/p>\n

5. Every PhD is different<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The paradox of being a research student: everyone\u2019s PhD is better than yours. In reality, it\u2019s almost impossible to compare PhDs and you definitely shouldn\u2019t evaluate the strength of yours based on what others have done (or what you perceive others to have done). Some students collect their own data, some use several different methods, some take on more active roles in other aspects of research life. All these things mean that every single student is balancing their workload differently and will produce a different output. Even other students in the same lab, using the same methods, will have faced a completely different set of challenges because their research questions are different. If they weren\u2019t, your PhD wouldn\u2019t be a unique compilation of research. At a glance, everyone else\u2019s projects look better simply because you are only paying attention to the headlines. The hardest thing to do is to take a step back and imagine how impressive your research and achievements look to other students (and if you can\u2019t picture that on your own, go and talk to a new first year student for a nice ego boost).<\/p>\n

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“The paradox of being a research student: everyone\u2019s PhD is better than yours.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

How much of my own advice will I follow in the next year? That remains to be seen. By the time I\u2019m approaching handing in my thesis my perspective may have completely changed and these points could go out the window (\u201cstart things early\u201d haha nice try). But for now, the aim is to approach my final year with a sense of balance, realism, and intention to complete the best PhD that I can in the boundaries I am working within. I\u2019ll let you know how it goes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having completed a good \u00be of my PhD remotely, I like to think that I\u2019ve learnt a thing or two about motivation, reflection, and time-management. Here are a few things I\u2019ve realised over the last 18 months that I am going to try and keep reminding myself of as I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":629,"featured_media":2172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[33,45,15],"class_list":["post-4045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-life-scientific","tag-academia","tag-phd","tag-work-life-balance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/629"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4045"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4077,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045\/revisions\/4077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}