Tell me: how do you structure your PhD workday?

Are you following a general 9-5 schedule, assuming you’ll finish your work during those hours (and if not, you’ll squeeze in a little or a lot of extra time in the evenings or on the weekends)?

How do you know you are making progress? Do you use word count or other metrics to keep track?

I have come to realise that academic productivity is — and always will be — non-linear. In the face of this inconvenient truth, we adopt all sorts of systems and conventions in an attempt to keep a sense of control over how our work is going.

– Time-based systems such as an 8-hour workday.
– Output-based systems such as word count.
– Peer-based systems as in: “what is everyone else doing??”
– Effort-based systems when our hours or word count, or whatever our system is, fails to reassure us – at which point we start moving on to thinking we should be doing more, especially when it looks like nothing much is happening on the page.

Maybe if we just keep at it until we absolutely can’t do any more, we will have done enough. But will it be enough?? Feels like it is never enough.

One idea changed the way I think about how to best manage PhD work (and the question of ‘doing enough’): manage your energy, not your time.

It is about understanding your own rhythms, your own creativity — and letting those guide your work. Being aware of your energy levels is essential in making this work.

In practical language: most of us have a few hours each day when we are mentally sharp and we have most mental energy.

Use these hours for your most challenging academic tasks, like writing, every day.
Prioritise this work above all else.

That’s it. That’s the idea.

The rest of the day can be filled with meetings and other tasks, but your most important work gets done. Every single workday.

Now, there is a lot more to this as in life tends to be complicated, but simply reflecting on how this approach compares to how you manage your time and energy now is a good place to start.

Maybe you’ll notice a pattern of working lots of hours without feeling you are getting much done at all.

Or perhaps there are so many distractions you feel you never quite get round to uninterrupted work for a few hours.

Perhaps both.

What do you notice? And does the idea of managing your energy — rather than your time — appeal?

If you’d like support, I am available for mentoring and I would be delighted to work with you. Or, check out my online course — it guides you through designing and implementing what a highly effective work routine, which can help you finish your PhD in just 2-3 hours a day. 

Cassandra’s PhD Tips:

1. Attention is My Prime Resource

   Attention is the PhD candidate’s prime resource. Attention is the power to get things done. Through attention, the student learns, researches, conceptualizes, writes, and finishes a dissertation. Yet, this same resource is the target of social media, news networks, politicians and political organizations, businesses, and nonprofit groups. The most crucial strategy for completing a PhD is to recognize attention as a precious, prime resource and treat it accordingly, by nurturing, protecting, and using it wisely.

   I nurture and strengthen my attention with three habits. First, I start each work session with a 2–5-minute meditation in which I close my eyes, breathe deeply, and relax. Second, I tighten my focus by committing to a single, 30-minute task: this unit of time always feels achievable to me, but it’s fine to exceed it (as I often do). Third, I prevent distractions automatically with the Freedom app on my computer and a Focus app on my phone, but with an extra twist. These apps are scheduled to start when I wake up, so my attention is not divided before my work even starts!

2. Uncomfortable Feelings Express my Core Values

   Fear and anxiety reveal that I’m concerned about compromising or losing something I value. Anger shows that something I value is threatened. Grief also expresses my core values. I grieve because I care, because something I value might be lost, has been lost, or has ended. This course has highlighted the importance of connecting our work to our values. And PhD work must sometimes be done in the midst of uncomfortable feelings. I’ve discovered that the uncomfortable feelings themselves are useful for revealing my core values if I lean in and listen to them.

   Three years ago, I lost my supervisor and my dissertation topic. I considered leaving my PhD. But then I realized that my intense grief and disappointment showed that I care deeply. If I care that much about my work, then it must arise from my core values. My work is worth cherishing and defending. I should fight for it! I took walks and wrote in a journal every day for three months while I found a new supervisor and a new topic. I acknowledged my feelings and honored them as part of my human experience, and I also honored their significance.

3. Five Elements of Smart Breaks

   All breaks are not created equal! My most effective breaks include one or more of these five elements: (1) My brain swings from focused mode to diffuse mode and relaxes, so that I can synthesize and make fresh connections; (2) I reward myself  just for working and re-establish a healthy work-reward balance; (3) I move my body, instead of continuing to sit; (4) I do sensory-rich activities, to counteract the chronic sensory deprivation of dissertation work; (5) I enjoy a taste of regular life, apart from my dissertation, to keep my sense of self distinct from my work and prevent academic tunnel vision!

   One easy way to push myself into a smart break is to stand up and look outside. I watch birds or clouds out a window, step out onto a balcony, or walk around the block. What can I notice? What do I see? What can I hear? How does the wind feel and smell? Suddenly, I feel more alive!

4. Use a Writer’s Day Book to Warm-up to Writing

   For the last several months, I have started most days by writing spontaneously in a Day Book, preferably over my first cup of coffee. I got the idea from The Essential Don Murray: Lessons from America’s Greatest Writing Teacher (Don Murray, 2009). My free-writing session lasts for 15-30 minutes. My one rule is that I write. This simple practice flips on a virtual switch in my brain. As I write whatever comes to mind, I let the emerging words lead and surprise me. Later, when it’s time to write for my dissertation, my brain is warmed up, humming, and more likely to generate ideas. It has been crucial for me to identify and use my own writing method, which is quite different from the writing methods of my supervisor and secondary readers.

   I prompt my Day Book entry with morning rituals. I make coffee, get a simple breakfast, check the sunrise, and play some classical music. With my first cup of coffee, I open my laptop to a Google Drive document or open a small journal, and I write whatever comes to mind. I just show up on the page and let the words happen. I practice the inductive writing method.

    

   

Academia is a challenging environment to perform and feel well in, most of the time. It can be a relief to realise that it is not some character flaw on your part that is causing you to feel like you may be stuck (or whatever other not so pleasant feelings you may be feeling): the odds are stacked against you in this environment. Once you realise how some of these mechanisms work it becomes easier to shrug your shoulders: it is not about you personally anymore. And at that point it also becomes easier to find ways of addressing your particular hurdle.

I received an email from a PhD who is taking my course, who mentioned it was so helpful to see it spelled out: to see exactly why academia may be making you feel stressed, overwhelmed and why you feel you might be underperforming: “My colleagues and I often tell ourselves it is not us and that it’s ’the system’, but it was really helpful to read in detail about why the academic set-up may be having such a negative effect on people.”

Oh academia, most confusing workplace of all, what do you do to us? Why and how do you make people feeling so stressed and miserable “doing what they love”?

In the course I tell a true story of how a number of promising economists selected by an elite US university — starting out bright-eyed, eager and ambitious, and ready to do “whatever it takes” — ended up underperforming to the point of it being a real challenge getting papers written at all, let alone published. The PhD finish line became increasingly out of reach. When I first heard the story it didn’t make sense…but it is a repeating theme I have seen (and experienced myself): very smart people starting to seriously struggle.

I won’t go into too much detail, as I want to keep things relatively short and snappy here, but I will say this: the current academic set-up is not designed to help you perform well (however you want to measure it…but that’s another story) or feel well. The human factor seems to be not factored in in the academic work process (rather a shame when you think of it!). Some of these features are intrinsic to writing a PhD/ doing academic work, but the stress factor has multiplied due to increased competition and wonky incentives in the system as a whole.

I started to understand this phenomenon when I started looking at it from a chronic stress perspective. In a nut-shell (summarising a whole field of study in three sentences), people get stressed when their efforts are not met with sufficient rewards. Additionally, people get stressed when they feel they are not in control of outcomes. Also: perfectionist tendencies (prerequisite for joining the academic tribe) intensify these stress levels. Being stressed out of your mind isn’t great for anyone.

Once you start counting the ways in which the ratio of effort and reward is skewed in academia, you will laugh or cry! Think of four years or more of work to finish a PhD. Think of how papers are received: the model is criticism (not always of the constructive kind). Think of how little mentoring and support there tends to be along the way, a trend intensified by the work pressure senior academics have to deal with. Think of the individualised culture. ‘Feeling valued’ is the best way to prevent stress and help people perform well, and academia isn’t that into it. (On the whole, structurally. Of course there are many wonderful people, supervisors, colleagues and so on who do support each other… I believe choosing the right supervisor and department is the absolute best advice anyone can give you when choosing to embark on a PhD.)

There will be more laughter and/or tears when you look at the control ratio. The PhD process is long and it isn’t linear, even though it is often conceptualised as such. By its very nature you are trying to do something new. It will not work out the way you thought it would (part of the process), and you will have to adapt along the way, repeatedly. There is nothing wrong with this: your research in all its twists and turns can be exciting, but stress and excitement are close cousins. Where I feel this goes wrong is once the process becomes arbitrary, and I would say that in the current set-up it has done so. In the hyper-competitive grant/ publication/ job market you have little control over outcomes.

The wonky control dynamic may also show up in a supervision context: your supervisor may not ‘get’ what you are trying to do, and give you unhelpful feedback (even though she or he is trying her best (or not…)). Being so dependent on one person isn’t a great model, stress-wise. Same as above: choosing the right supervisor goes a long way, but isn’t always feasible.

I could go on, but you get the idea… In sum: academia is a stressful environment. And although a burst of acute stress will help you finish that paper, chronic stress which we are talking about here is detrimental to academic performance and wellbeing. That’s what’s happening, and it’s why you may be feeling down or panicked or overwhelmed. It is both good and bad news. Good, because it’s not you (there is nothing wrong with you)! Bad, because it’s not you (you cannot fix the system as if by magic).

Once you know all of this it becomes possible to think out how you might address working in a less-than-ideal environment. You can find resources on this blog, in my free courses and, if you want to really dive in, in my online course. You can do this! First step, always remember: It is not you!

What I (re-)learned about writing this time around (aka: writing tips to finish your paper ASAP!)

1. Routine

Sorry, boring start to the day, but this is so incredibly necessary. By all means, if you are the person who writes whenever she feels like it, and it works well for you, do it that way. But chances are slim. Why? Because academic writing and difficult emotions go together. Why? Because academic writing is hard. Having a writing habit in place will catapult you right into it, where you want and need to be. If you write regularly, at set hours, you have cleared the most difficult hurdle: getting started. Start at 9:00 every day, sharp. Earlier if you are an early bird. Or at any other time, as long as you can be consistent. (For me, finishing my PhD it was always at 10:00. Some people have already put hours of work in by that time of day, but it worked very well for me. Two – three hours of focus is a lot, if you put these hours in consistently.)

2. Inspiration

The moment you start writing you realise the actual doing is more difficult than the thinking about writing! Blinking cursor alert! Urgh. So one option is to procrastinate. The second option is to hurl yourself over the barrier that separates you from that writing flow that is in there somewhere. A neat trick to do so is to get as inspired as you possibly can. What I suggest you do is to pull out a paper or book that is incredibly well-written or that has inspired your thinking about the topic you will be writing about. Or you could even pick a novel. It doesn’t really matter, as long as it has a rhythm or substance that gets you over your resistance. (For me, I when I was finishing a particularly difficult chapter of my PhD I used a book by Peter Mair. He was my supervisor, and an old-school academic. A writer more than a technician. He could definitely write an opening sentence. And when I would read it I would realise: yes, I can do this too!)

3. Lighten up and do it fast!

Okay, this one is a bit controversial. And during some stretches it will feel absolutely impossible! And yes, I am referring to that middle stretch where part of you is sure your work is never going to come together, and another part of you knows it will as long as you just keep pushing and plodding along. Which is what you are doing. Right in the middle of this, when fear and stubbornness are at full force, what would happen if you lighten up a bit? If you could add some quicksilver energy? I got this idea from the book ‘Big Magic – creative living beyond fear’ by Elizabeth Gilbert, and it works wonders. She calls it “the martyr vs the trickster” (p. 221), aka dying for your art vs gaming the system. When every word feels like a serious, difficult, impossible affair, are there ways to lighten up, speed up, do it quickly, or ‘not right?’ It may be the exact thing you need to get your ideas down, and for the writing pace to pick up. (You can go back and fix it later, but who knows you will find out there isn’t any fixing to be done!)

4. Take a break

Okay, so intervals tend to make an appearance in pretty much every blog post of mine, reason being: working in intervals works. Just a few days ago I got an email from a PhD I had a coaching session with, remarking how much working in intervals had improved her work. And her energy levels! Thing is, to work in intervals you need to take breaks. Proper breaks. And it gets so much more difficult when you are really under stress, and there is a deadline looming. Seems that procrastination while stubbornly sitting at your computer is the easier option. What if you do take a break? And make working in intervals a habit? You will gain control over your working hours (mental boost) and more chance of a writing flow, and new, fresh insights to happen. It’s the faster way.

5. Celebrate

Our brains have a negativity bias. That is, the regular person’s brain. Personally I think an academic’s brain will be about a thousand times worse. Trained to focus on what is lacking (gaps in the literature anyone??), what is wrong, what is insufficient. And we have criticism down to an art. Not necessarily criticism of the constructive kind! It was an eye-opener to me to work on a project with people outside of academia. They were trained to make the process as effortless as possible, to promote teamwork, to uplift each other, to keep moving. What a difference! So hopefully you have some of those colleagues, who do understand the value of support, around. But regardless of your peers and colleagues: how do you treat yourself? I say: celebrate every step of the way. And you don’t have to wait until you have submitted that paper. Finishing that paragraph is reason to celebrate too!

1. PhDs are uncertain creatures

The first thing to note is that feeling a lack of control is normal, at times central, to any PhD project. Unlike projects and assignments that are smaller and where you get immediate feedback on how you have done, this one is a huge, sprawling one, and a project where you are supposed to something innovative and worth a couple of years of your time too! Who sets the bar? How do you know how you are doing? Often, it can be impossible to tell. Simply acknowledging the feelings of uncertainty that doing a PhD provokes, and recognising them as normal, par for the course, and not something to stress out about can help. If you are feeling like you have nothing to hold onto right now work-wise, it doesn’t mean anything about how your project is going. It just means you are doing a PhD.

2. Devise a set work schedule

I keep going on about this, but it really, truly helps to have working habits you can rely on. They can be the structure that creates stability, the routine you allow on to know you are on track. Why? Because you are doing the work. Measuring and monitoring PhD progress can be difficult when looking at the content of what you have done in a day, a week, a month, or sometimes even a year! But counting work sessions is easy. And keeping it simple is what comes highly recommended. Know that as long as you keep going one work session at a time, you will have a PhD at the end. Your feelings of uncertainty about it don’t count! (If you want to devise good working habits I recommend working with the ZenAcademic Worksheet. There is a free mini course to accompany it in the free resources section too!)

3. Create momentum

You may not be able to control your output (see: 1. PhDs are uncertain creatures), but you have control over your effort and input. To create a sense of momentum (and control) procrastination needs to go. You can do this! To help yourself, make sure you keep your work sessions short (= doable) and set your aim high, one session at a time, as if you are going in for a sprint. (If setting your aim high invokes a sense of dread, set it low. That is also fine. Whatever makes you get to work, whether you need a challenge or a gentle nudge right now.) A whole workday may be intimidating, but a short work session is doable. No, perhaps you cannot solve that intricate intellectual problem you are struggling with today, or even this month. But you can work on understanding an aspect of it in the next 45 minutes. It is an exhilarating way of working: jumping right in. Whatever you get done in that work session, know it is enough. Then take a break and repeat. By the time you get to lunch you will have made real strides. It counts! And it makes you feel good.

4. Complete something

Counting work sessions is one way of feeling and knowing you are accomplishing something (even when the tangible rewards will only come in future). Another way is to complete a task. And notice and celebrate. Every small step counts. How could you divide the work you want to do today into smaller, doable tasks? It takes the mystery out of it, helps the fog clear. You may feel like you don’t have a grip on the entirety of the project, and that you somehow have to figure out how the pieces fit together before you can move on. It tends to work the opposite way: pieces fall into place as you go along, because you are moving along. What is the next small task you could complete (in the next hour, today, by the end of the week) that would help your project ahead? Then do it and celebrate!

5. Set boundaries around your workday

It is all good and well feeling out of control at work at times, but the unfortunate thing is the mind keeps going afterwards! It wants it figured out! Which may mean your mind keeps going in circles, and refuses to relax. One of the challenges of writing a PhD is getting it to not occupy more of your mind and life-space than is healthy and balanced. Setting an intention of not working (or thinking about work), can be powerful. When will you switch off? Evenings? Weekends? After 6 every day? Block (a lot of) time in your agenda for doing anything but work. Exercise helps gets your mind off things. So does yoga. So does meditation. And so does having fun!

Do you feel in control of your project? What do you do to feel more in control of your work? Any tips to add to the five above? As always, if you found this post helpful, could you share it? I appreciate it!

The ZenAcademic Worksheet (which you can find on my free resources page) now comes with a free mini course! It is an introduction to implementing the worksheet, which will help you:

• Create a work (and self-care) routine that is right for you
• By doing the above: getting your research done and writing on track!

There are no real secrets to academic productivity, but there are quite a few components to it. Decisions you make every day about how you work, when you work, and what to work on… As well as how to deal with obstacles such as procrastination etc. The mini course will help you get this academic year off to a prolific start by covering the (all too important) basics.

You can sign up for the free 4-day mini-course here

Hope you enjoy it!

All my best wishes,

Amber

PS. I am now also on Instagram: come join me here

The reality is: writing a PhD is doable. Finishing the PhD is doable. You can do this.

So how to put this monster in its place? How to shrink it, do you can get on with what you want to be doing, that is working on your project, and finishing it well?

This summer I worked with a couple of PhDs who wanted out of overwhelm. Can you relate?

Are you getting frustrated and overwhelmed even after only a couple of minutes of ‘work’?
Are you heading towards your laptop full of enthusiasm, only for it to dissipate in a flash?
Do you find yourself doing a million other things, such as reading and ‘further research’, instead of writing that next paragraph?
Do you find yourself discouraged at your lack of clarity?

What helps tremendously when your project is overwhelming you and you’re feeling a bit deflated, is to make sure you are setting yourself doable tasks. Break it down. If you’re still not getting anywhere, break it down further.

Example: your supervisor/ a reviewer has asked you to add more about X in your paper.

Plan of action: break it down into doable steps. Note: ‘Adding more about X’ to your paper isn’t one task. It is a whole series of tasks. Let’s have a look at what it may involve:

• Scan your paper to find parts where an introduction to X might be relevant
• Selecting that part/ those parts where you want to introduce X
• Brainstorming about what exactly about X you want to include: how does it fit with your main argument/ research choices?
• Look up papers/ references about X and scan (stay focused! Distraction alert) them, to see how others have done this/ to make sure you make well-informed decisions on what to include
• Write a first draft of the paragraph introducing X
• Rewrite
• Polish til done

Maybe I have missed a few steps! Writing a paragraph sounds like ‘nothing’, but it involves a lot of work!

One way to keep momentum high is to give yourself a fixed timeframe to get the next small step done. Say 15 minutes to find the parts where an introduction to X may be relevant. Then another 15 minutes to select the parts you want to work on. You can also do this intuitively (sometimes we can take steps very fast indeed), but the key point here is to not let yourself be distracted. Stay on task. If this task is done, move on to the next.

Some tasks will be more intellectually and creatively challenging than others, and may not generate immediate, tangible results. That doesn’t mean it’s not work, or that you’re not moving forward!! The thinking, the pondering, the not-yet-knowing is all essential. It is what academic work is all about. Using a timer can be really helpful here, to make sure you don’t slip into overwhelm, to keep it concrete and doable. Setting limits helps. Give yourself 20 minutes to think about something, or 45 if you are in a creative/ thinking flow. Know when you want to stop, and intend for the task, even if it is intangible, to be completed at that point. If it isn’t, don’t worry, you can give yourself another work session to plug away at it. Or not! And this is the important part. You have a choice. It’s easy to let a whole morning or afternoon slip away, so now is really the time to check back in.

Ideas need time to develop. Give yourself that time. Maybe if you check back in with the same questions tomorrow the answer that was elusive today will present itself just like that. Ideas are interesting like that, they emerge. We’re not in control of this process. But we are in control of the task we are working on. That’s the aim anyway.

Focus on doable tasks, set time limits for your work sessions, and check in with yourself at the beginning of each work session to make sure you are working on the next small task that will help your paper one step closer to completion. This is how you build your paper step by step, without much of the noise and overwhelm.

If you want help with this: I can coach you. I can help you tame your project so it becomes doable, and you can get out of overwhelm. Have a look at the Stress-Free PhD Programme. Along with coaching, your PhD will be back on track before you know it.

The next live sessions of the Stress-Free PhD Programme start November 12th! Get your early bird tickets here. I am also giving away two free places in class. Enter the GiveAway here.

Getting into a routine can seem like an elusive goal, that is until you manage to do so, and once it’s a routine, it’s a routine!

The key to routines is that they take the decisionmaking out of it. You are not busy deciding whether you are going to start at 9, or, 10 or 11. Or whether to start at all. It is decision fatigue that will stop you in your tracks, and if you can eliminate that step you are probably good to go.

Prof. Ann Graybiel is one of the pioneers in researching the neural architecture of habits, and studies how the brain converts a new behaviour into a routine. She and her team discovered why habits are such strong determinants of behaviour. She calls it ‘chunking’: neuronal activity drops while performing the habit, with increased brain activity only at the beginning and end of the habit. It is as if the entire habit has become one single low-effort activity. This pattern of brain activity is completely different from non-habitual behaviour in which neuronal activity is high through-out. It takes effort and will, whereas habits do not. Habits are semi-automatic. Once you have habits in place they will want to assert themselves. Your brain craves to perform them. Which is why it is so difficult to break a habit, once established, no matter your good intentions.

So how do we get from the annoying situation where you can’t seem to get going despite your best efforts and intentions (pretty demotivating in itself) to a place where you have a routine in place?

Graybiel advises there are four parts to building deliberate habits: context, reinforcement, consistency and hard work (in the beginning).

Context

Context provides the cue. An example: she advises people who, say, want to take up jogging as part of their morning routine to put out the shoes and the gear the night before so they see them first thing in the morning. It’s a cue for the brain to perform the new habit, especially important when you are learning the new behaviour. (For me personally, the cue for writing was the 10:00 start time, which was non-negotiable. Clock strikes 10:00 means Freedom app switches internet off, writing brain switches on.)

Reinforcement

Reinforcement provides the reward. This may be an immediate reward (such as a small break after writing, or how much better you feel after a short jog, something that says well done) or a delayed reward (such reminding yourself of the body of work you will create if you stick with your habit). Positive reinforcement can also involve acknowledging progress made (even if it’s tiny. Every tiny step counts).

Consistency

Consistency is a sine qua non. If you want the routine to stick, to become a low-effort habit, the brain needs to experience it over and over again, until chunking occurs. Seen that old habits never quite disappear— they remain lurking under the surface— it is imperative to practice, practice, practice, with no exceptions, until the behaviour has become effortless. If you allow for exceptions in the early stages, the process will be that much more frustrating, and you’ll perhaps not reach the habit stage.

Hard work in the beginning

Which brings us to hard work in the beginning. Building habits is effortful. It is the difficult part. Stick with it. Keep going. You can do it. It will pay off. It gets easier. Much easier.

Read more about prof. Graybiel’s work on habit formation here (paywall, sorry!).

This was one of the questions asked at one of the live check-in sessions of the Stress-Free PhD Programme. The next live session is planned for October, but you can start right now, and you’ll be invited to the next live sessions. Do you have work routines in place? The Stress-Free PhD Programme will help you to create effective work routines step by step, day by day, over the period of six weeks’ time (you can’t do this overnight).

1. Limit your work hours

‘Manage your energy, not your time’ is the best advice I got when I was finishing my own PhD, and now it is the advice I give others. You need mental energy for intense focus, and you cannot do it for more than so many hours a day. Three or so hours of focused work is achievable, perhaps a little more if you are up against a deadline. Trying to concentrate for an entire 8-hour workday doesn’t work! Your brain can’t do it. Less is more. You can get a lot done in even one (!) focused work session a day. Instead of counting hours, and feeling you have to work ‘more’ to achieve and feel good about yourself, try tracking the quality of those hours. Quality over quantity, and every focused work session counts!

2. Work in intervals

The same principle applies for how you work: intensity matters. Working in intervals ensures you stay focused… The key here is to stop before you get tired and distracted. For most people this means intervals of around 20 minutes to an hour. I recommend 45-minute intervals to start. Next time you sit down for a work session, use a timer and track when your concentration starts to wane. It means your intervals should be slightly shorter. In between intervals, take a break! Get away from your desk and let your mind wander. Mind wandering is key for new ideas and insights to emerge, and it also helps you replenish your mental energy for the next work session.

3. Prioritise

Taking a few minutes at the beginning of each work session to figure out what you should be working on is a powerful practice. Ask yourself: what is the most important thing to work on next to move my project one step ahead? And follow up with: and what is the next small step to take, and finish within the next work session? Achievable goals will propel your forward. Breaking it down like this will make sure you have your priorities straight (you are working on the ‘most important’ thing, not the most urgent one, or the most convenient one) and it will make is doable (you are focusing on something you can actually complete). Double win!

4. Plan for distractions

Take a moment to write down your top-3 of distractions. Is it social media? Checking the news? Your colleagues distracting you? Noise levels? An inability to concentrate when working at home? What takes you out of the zone? Is there any way you could plan for these distractions? There are apps to block the internet, you can block out your colleagues with head phones, you can switch your phone to airplane mode, and you can find a place to work where few opportunities to procrastinate are present. For a couple of hours a day, what would concentrated work look like? Dream it up, then find out how you could make it a daily reality. Make sure it’s doable though. An entire day without distractions is an impossibility. But an hour (or two or three, depending on circumstances) is doable.

5. Focus doesn’t always look productive

Academic work is messy, and it isn’t linear. Maybe you feel stuck and blocked, and you can’t seem to get anything done, despite your efforts. Don’t worry! Not all work is ‘active’ and visible. Sometimes the brain is working things out…on its own time. Trust this process, and know that during these ‘slow’ and frustrating times the important work of generating new ideas gets done. Research shows that the best way to find answers to complex puzzles is to think hard about the puzzle at hand, then completely relax and think of something else. The answers will come…when they do. Let yourself off the hook and allow yourself time and work sessions to simply ponder, and not ‘get anywhere’. It will pay off a few days, weeks or months down the road…

6. And repeat!

Making focus a habit is the key to success in the long run. Creating a work schedule can be really helpful to get there. What would your ideal workday look like? What time will you start, what time will you finish? (Remember: keep it short and sweet). How long will your work sessions be, what will you do during the breaks? How to plan for distractions? Go down the list of steps above. No need to overthink this schedule, just do it, and adjust as you go along, day by day. Once you find your rhythm, stick to it, and it will become almost effortless. You will want to keep working this way, and before you know it focus will have become a habit…

If you’re interested in building powerful work routines check out my brand new 6-week Stress-Free PhD Programme. It will increase your PhD productivity, re-ignite your inspiration and lower your stress levels. To celebrate the launch of the programme I have two free spots in class available. Join the Giveaway here (last day, today!).

If you’re not familiar with my work, I believe a good PhD plan includes effective work routines, incorporating self-care as well as creating the conditions for intense focus! In my brand new programme we’ll take six weeks to develop these routines. We’ll be building a daily writing habit, improving focus and mental stamina, and shifting our mind-set from fear and deadline-based to working from a more balanced place. Intrinsic motivation here we come! You can find all the details of the programme here. I can’t wait to get started.

There are two ways to enter the Giveaway, and an optional extra:

1. Facebook: Share one of my blog posts, like my FB page and leave your details below.
2. Twitter: Share one of my blog posts with hashtag #stressfreephd, follow me at _AJDavis, and leave your details below.
3. Bonus points if you also share one of my other blog posts on FB or Twitter

You can enter with only one of these, but if you do all three, you have triple chance to win! The giveaway will close on June the 5th at midnight CET and I’ll post the names of the winners here. (If you win, but are already enrolled in the programme, I will send you a refund.)

Thanks for helping me spread the word, and good luck!