Looking back at my PhD journey so far – passing on some tips

It’s been back to campus for a lot of students this semester and there’s a renewed vibe and feeling at uni at the moment – it’s great!  It’s been so great in fact that I feel really motivated. I’m only halfway in my candidature, but since it seems like campus has re-opened, I feel like I’m at the beginning again and there’s this chance for a fresh start. I’ve also been seeing more of the other HDRs in my cohort and we have all been reflecting on our first days as a PhD student. Here are some of the things we’ve learned first-hand, but also some of the tips that’s been shared with us.

• Write something every day. I think a doctoral thesis is about 80,000 words. If I wrote 500 words a day, which is about one page, single spaced, it would only take me 160 days to write my thesis. Of course, writing a PhD thesis isn’t just about getting words down on a page. There’s data collection, data analysis, literature reviews, experiments, and so on. There’s so much to do. In fact, there is really so much to do that we tend to forget that we have to write out an 80,000-word thesis. Try and write for two hours each day. Just write something each day, it will help and you’ll find you want need to panic as much about how much you need to write when you’re down to your last few months of your candidature.
• Time and writing. It requires a lot of free writing, a lot of editing, and a lot of discarding – writing sometimes opens the researcher into the PhD hole of thinking everything is relevant (consuming passion). This is okay but be aware of it. Catch yourself when you say, ‘I’ll start writing after I read just one more paper’. There will be countless papers to read, believe me, but at one point you have to draw the line and just start writing. The ability to discard is just as important as collecting the information you need.
• Procrastination. You will, at least at one point in your candidature, procrastinate. Accept this and learn to manage it. Find out how you procrastinate and manage it instead of letting it get the best of you. There are some physiological benefits to well-managed procrastination, such a creativity and positive stress. The key is to be aware of it and being capable of managing it. – accept and manage, there are physiological benefits to procrastination. Emails can sometimes be a distraction, they are for me, and so if your work doesn’t require you to be responding immediately to all emails, try and schedule dedicated time only for emails and ensure there is an end time so you can then get back to doing work, whether it is writing on your thesis or analyzing your data. (Here is an earlier post I wrote about emails: https://blogs.adelaide.edu.au/what-messes-with-your-head/2019/08/26/phd-self-care-project-emails/)
• Embrace criticism and think about your development. This one here requires a bit of practice, especially for PhD students who tend to be perfectionists. Why is feedback so important? Sometimes we are too close to our own work that it becomes difficult for us to see any areas for improvement. With that, we also need to remind ourselves not to take criticism too personally. Easier said than done, I know. I remind myself that as I try and master any craft – feedback enables one to develop, grow, and become a better researcher. Be open to hearing and learning from constructive criticism. Sometimes the little things make a significant difference to the making and breaking of your work – others’ perspective can be helpful if you allow yourself to be open to it. Your seeming ‘weakness’ now can very well be your strength tomorrow. I’m skilled at producing academic reports and papers but recently learned that I need to work on developing a more effective business writing style. It may not seem important ,but gaining this competency will be useful, not only in applying for research funding from non-academic institutions, but it may also be a point of difference for recruiters considering me for an industry position. Think about your development and the opportunities for mastering your craft. Receiving feedback can also be a very motivating experience. During one of my recent performance reviews, my manager asked me what my three-year plan was, and I explained how I wanted to complete my PhD by a certain time. ‘If you say you’ll finish by then, I know you will – you’re efficient, determined, and you’ve been meeting all your deadlines,’ he said. Fingers crossed that he is right, but boy was that the boost I needed to get through an especially tough week!
• Understand your relationship with your supervisor. Reflect on what your working style is and understand how best to complement this with your supervisor’s working style. I work best by having clear deadlines and receiving periodic feedback and so my first couple of months as a PhD student was an adjustment. I didn’t have any classes to attend and I didn’t have to sit on any written exams. I quickly learned that I worked more effectively if I met with my supervisors fortnightly. I would send the work I needed for them to review beforehand so that they had the time to go through it and provide me with feedback. This isn’t the best working style for others. Some of the other students in my cohort would meet with their supervisors only a handful of times each year and this allowed them to get larger chunks of writing and data-analysis done. Find what works best for you and your supervisory panel.
• Manage your information from the start. The PhD research project is a huge undertaking. Ultimately you are learning how to rigorously conduct research. You’ll be gathering huge amounts of data and reading for seemingly countless hours. It’s possible that you find yourself feeling lost in the immensity of data and relevant literature. Strategise how you will store, collect, and sift through all your data. Book a time to meet with your librarian too. She can provide support and resources to data management tools that are most suited to your research. Select and set up your tech strategically. Be purposeful and deliberate with all the tech that you use. This will ensure you are able to work effectively and efficiently at home. Consider what works best for you otherwise you will become a slave to technology and social media. These are just some of the technology I use and I make sure each has a dedicated purpose: Zoom, MS Outlook, MS Teams, Slack, Box, Google drive, Endnote, Twitter.
• Get yourself and your work out there. Network through social media, coffee catch-ups, webinar presentations, academic societies and forums. Also try talking about your research you’re your friends and family. Learning to effectively communicate in varying styles will help engage various audiences to engage with your research.
• Read about the work of other doctoral researchers in your field. Apart from the saying that, ‘knowledge is power’, keeping abreast of the research will also allow you a critical understanding of the gaps that remain which your work could potentially fill.    
• Remember to take your regular dose of Vitamin D and Sea. Recharge, refuel and look after your mental health. Just a 30-minute walk once a day is life-changing. This is so very essential, especially while constantly hearing news about the health and economic crisis. Direct the anxious energy into action. Identify what things you can control and kindly allow yourself not to worry about things that you cannot control. You can’t control what is happening to the global economy, so it might be more useful to focus on practical ways you can plan for the short-term future (i.e. budgeting, maybe using some extra time to brush up on a skill that may be useful to have in your CV). Focus on the tasks at hand with work and your degree. There is very little use in me ruminating about what can happen next year when things with the pandemic change so very often.
• Done is better than perfect. There are two types of PhDs, perfect and submitted. Pay close attention to all your accomplishments, no matter how small they may seem to be. Celebrate small wins and you’ll find that they help boost your productivity too!
• Keep visualizing the goal in mind. What do I want to do after? Remember your ‘why’ and periodically bring up the big picture in your mind and then keep constantly taking small steps to get you closer to your goal. One step at a time. Sometimes the best thing to do in during hard times is just to take the next step – just do the next thing. Do what needs to be done, one step at a time, little by little. It’s very similar to the production of a doctoral thesis. Creating a document of 80,000 words can seem intimidating but you get there by writing two hours each day. One day at a time. Rest a little. Then do what you need to do, take the next step. It might be formatting your bibliography or attending a CaRST session or transcribing your audio notes on your data. Just do the next thing. And then rest a little. Then do the next thing again. You won’t see it right away, but all your little steps are getting you to where you need to be.
• Stop and smell the roses. Enjoy the process, actively reflect on how wonderful it is to have this opportunity to deeply immerse yourself in a research project of your choice. No matter where your career takes you after your PhD, this is a special time. It’s really easy to overlearn, overinform and sometimes there is something in earnestness that can destroy. It is essential to step back and appreciate the process. If I may, I’ll leave you with this metaphor: I think of my PhD process in terms of it being a swim route that I enjoy, that I relish, and not the swim sequence that will get me to win the gold medal.