Focus is a skill you can learn, and there are some basic steps that can get you started. If you are supervising or advising someone who struggles with focus, you will also find this advice useful.
Category: The Doctoral Journey
Hard work vs hard work
How do you differentiate between work that is hard because it’s complex and challenging, vs work that requires a large volume of labour?
Should you love your PhD?
You might love your PhD. Or you might have been told you are supposed to love your PhD. And love is weird, and complicated. PhDs are messy and complicated. Let’s talk about feelings.
Is 2021 the year you finish your thesis?
Look, the true answer is ‘probably not’. I’m not being discouraging here, I’m talking about cold hard maths. Here are 10 … More
Not forgetting everything you did last year
So I love a good plan, and a good schedule, and a good daily resumé/done list. I keep track of … More
The 5 stretches that kept me going during my recent final book edit
This year was the year of so much editing for me. Having two books coming out a few months apart meant that I had barely submitted responses to one set of edits than the edits for the other book would arrive in my inbox (sometimes I could count the breathing space in hours). It was tough for my brain to stay focussed, but it was also tough on my body.
When talking in seminars makes you feel like you don’t belong
Some workplaces and research cultures explicitly or implicitly run so that every conversation is actually a battle for airtime, and it’s common to try to sabotage other people’s chances. We should be working towards the exact opposite: energising, authentic, worthwhile, academic conversations. That’s what we love about getting together with our nerd pals.
Should I do it myself? Writing and delegation
What you need to do yourself to prepare a publication? This is one of the big shifts for people moving … More
When reading makes you feel like an imposter
What these students show is they see reading as an intelligence test. (To be fair, they probably learned this from school.) As a graduate student, they have been a ‘smart’ person all their life, but maybe now they are not smart, or not smart enough.
What matters isn’t your writing software, it’s your file structures (sorry!)
Thanks to Anuja Cabraal who asked this question! It’s about 2,500 words of answer, so this is absolutely a Definitive … More