Following on from my last post, at the UQ Biology postgraduate’s annual conference I shared some productivity tips that I found super useful during my PhD. Many of these I learnt from Maria Gardiner and Hugh Kearns at ThinkWell. Accompanying these are some thoughts I have from working with students and seeing the issues they come up against while putting their chapters together.
Writing
I quite like writing, and seem to usually have plenty to say. I definitely find that writing is not as hard as knowing what I want to say. Therefore, its important to have a really good think about the key message of the paper, and the clear line of thinking that leads a reader to the key message. In essence, a good plan makes the writing process much more straightforward. Some student drafts (including my own!) end up with lots of tangential paragraphs that end up confusing the story. These extra paragraphs are then often discarded, and delay the process more than necessary. A well-thought through paper plan or outline can avoid the unnecessary and later-discarded efforts.
Further to this, many manuscripts end up being fairly long winded, and once fairly well progressed the authors start to think about the target journal. Which often results in either a) finding a journal with accommodating word counts, or b) spending time deciding on which hard-won words to cut out, or c) both! Therefore, having a plan of a target journal, and target word count, are useful to have early on in the piece.
Take Home Message:
- Make a good plan for your chapter/ paper, and do this early on
- Include the target journal, number of words, number of figures/ tables in this plan
- Keep the main question(s) clear
- Decide early: what are the key 2-3 figures that really explain your story?
Get that thesis/ research done!
The ThinkWell crew taught me that the best thing for productivity is to write for 2 hours every morning, first thing, before checking email. Its hands-down the best tip I learnt in my PhD. When I don’t have writing tasks, I use the first-thing time to work on the harder tasks so I can have a clear head for them – complex analyses, coding, etc. And, of course, keep that email off while you’re working throughout the day.
Some people swear by the Pomodoro technique. Essentially you break down your tasks into achievable chunks, and focus on each for strictly timed intervals, with short breaks. Research shows that achieving something can increase your motivation – so ticking off those manageable tasks in short chunks can increase your motivation to keep working, and continue achieving. This can be done in a group setting - with people who will hold you to account!
Take Home Message:
- Write for 2 hours every morning, first thing, before email
- Keep email off while working
- Try the Pomodoro technique
- Getting tasks completed can increase your motivation to keep going
Trouble shooting
There are different approaches to struggling through tasks – some people fiercely stick to the task until they can figure it out themselves, and others hit a block and seek help immediately. Generally, an intermediate strategy is ideal! Try sitting back and thinking rationally about what a reasonable time to struggle with a problem might be, before getting help. It is not ideal to spend months stuck on a new analysis technique, if there is someone in your department could help. Likewise, people are busy, so you want to give it a good go before asking for help. It may be worth discussing with your supervisor the ideal length of time.
Supervisors are often too busy to help with much of the day to day mechanics of your analyses, but there could be a postdoc or someone else around that could help. Be strategic about who you approach, and think about whether their input might be worth co-authorship, or even co-supervision. Make sure your supervisor is happy with bringing an extra person in.
Take Home Message:
- Think clearly about what a reasonable amount of time is to struggle with a problem before seeking help.
- If your supervisor is too busy to help with some of the issues, see if there might be a postdoc or someone who has more time (!) that might be interested in helping
- Discuss both with your supervisor
Limiting distractions
“Service” is expected for most academics – sitting on boards or committees within the university or in the broader community, giving talks to community groups, advising NGOs – and is a rewarding way to feel like you are contributing to more than just research. There are so many possibilities, and as your academic career progresses, there can be increasing pressure to accept invitations to be involved. I definitely struggle with turning down opportunities to work with organisations that are doing great practical conservation work. As a result, I have sometimes felt overloaded and not able to deliver as well as I’d like to. So its generally beneficial to pick the one (or not too many!) that you are most interested in, and contribute well, than agree to all and under-deliver. It can help to not make your decision immediately – have a mandatory “cooling off period” of 24-48 hours before responding to the request.
Take Home Message: contributing to the academic or general community outside your research can be rewarding, but pick wisely, and don’t say yes to every opportunity that comes along.
Getting published
Getting your research published can feel like an epic struggle. The monumental effort it takes to get the manuscript utterly complete, the tedious process of 500 boxes to tick for the online submission process, and then a rejection! More changes, more checking, another submission! A useful phrase to keep in mind is “rejection is the rule”. While that may sound demoralising, it helps to try not to take a paper rejection personally. Persisting with the manuscript by taking reviewer comments on board, and resubmitting it until it is finally accepted is the key to getting over the line.
Take Home Message: while “rejection is the rule” when it comes to getting published, persistence is key to getting that paper over the line.
