The PERFECT PhD daily schedule and clever habits!

hello my beautiful phd friends so have you always wanted to make your phd go more efficiently do you feel anxious well it all comes down to the perfect schedule and habits and this video will help you this video today is brought to you by my newsletter i've launched a newsletter which has tons of exclusive content about academia about productivity about looking after your mental health it's the stuff i'm reading the podcast i'm listening to the deals that i'm able to get for you guys it's all exclusive content also invitations to invite only q a sessions that i'll be holding so a load of things that you can only get by getting access to the newsletters so go to andrewsstapleton.com.au newsletter i'll put the link in the description below but uh get access there and get all of the secret content i've said it time and time again a phd is a marathon and not a sprint so that means that by setting up your day in a certain structured way and executing it religiously day in day out you will get to your end goal which is a phd and so um what i've done is i've looked at the kind of daily schedule that i think the perfect sort of phd student would follow now you don't have to do all of these right so don't become overwhelmed by saying i have to follow this exactly otherwise it won't work at all that's not the way this works um executing things you know only partly means that that part of your day is going to be much better and more efficient so yes take and pick and choose the things that you want from this schedule and also yeah just don't feel overwhelmed you know your phd journey is yours and it's your challenge to overcome so uh follow this the best you can but uh pick and choose to make sure that it fits with your goals and what your daily schedule looks like all right let's get into it i'm going to start before you even get into the lab or your office i'm going to start in the morning when you wake up in all of the books that i've read there is no doubt that the common theme is success and productivity and good routines and good habits start from the moment you wake up so i really think for a good awesome phd kind of schedule the day starts the momentum starts from the moment you wake up now it can be as simple as making your bed every morning like i know in the military and that sort of stuff they they really encourage this kind of execution so the moment you wake up the first thing you do is set your habits in motion by making your bed now i'm not a huge bed maker but on the days that i do do it i just think yeah this is like this is the good thing to do it sets my mind off on the right path um i have been a fan of exercise for the last year right during my phd i did no exercise but i have been running three times a week between five kilometers and about 15 kilometers in the mornings and it has been a i guess an eye opener for the power of exercise on mental health on the benefits of sort of like just feeling better being more clear having the endorphin rush like one of my friends said having a run is like taking a um antidepressant so i did i started running and i remember one day i was sat there and i was like oh my god this is incredible and i texted him i was like i feel amazing so i really feel like getting exercise into your morning routine will help no matter you know you don't have to do five kilometer runs you can just go for a walk around the block but getting out doing something for yourself not only helps your mental health it also improves your health in general and i feel like that lays the perfect foundation for an awesome phd kind of experience and routine um healthy breakfast so i've been trialing recently only eating fruit until midday and even though it's i've not been able to find any science on whether or not this is beneficial i do feel better now i'm going to carry on doing it to make sure it's not weird placebo thing but a few uh books that i read by successful entrepreneurs and other businessmen they were like okay only if i only eat fruit until midday and i was like i'll give it a go i'm all up for self experimentation so yes having a healthy breakfast and if you're not sure what that looks like i think having only fruit in the morning is kind of a good start to that i do like it i feel more energetic but we'll see how that goes so having a healthy breakfast making sure it's well-rounded and i tend to steer clear from dairy in the mornings but yes you know whatever works for you whatever makes you feel alert alive and like well fueled for the day i think that's the important thing another thing that's really important and i've been doing more and more uh with sort of regularity is meditation mindfulness apps so get yourself insight timer the app get yourself if you can afford it um headspace i think that's awesome there's also calm but there's a load of apps out there that are based in science um that means that the meditations you're gonna do are just gonna set you in the right sort of frame of mind for the day anticipating what the day is going to be like you know can induce a lot of anxiety but just taking 10 minutes that's all it takes every morning you can do it on the bus you can do it on the train you can do it in your room wherever but just taking a little bit of time to just calm your mind really helps and i feel like that is how the perfect phd day would start and we haven't even done any work yet but you're already laying the foundations for an awesome productive and health focused day yes when you get in okay let's say you've gotten into the lab or the office what's the number one thing you should do i think it is the worst thing now there is a book called eat that frog i think by brian tracy and i've been a huge fan of implementing essentially that concept every single day so do not do this right what what do you normally do you go and you open emails you go oh go get a coffee or go speak to someone you know you feel like you owe it to yourself to like ramp up the day but i found that just by getting in staying focused and tackling that number one thing that you definitely have to do look at that list look at the list that you've created um about you know like all the things you need to do and if there's one that makes you feel gross and anxious do that and the reason that like there's so many good reasons for doing it the main one i like it is because first of all it takes off that big thing and also it removes a lot of anxiety and stress away from me and if it's a big task then i make sure that i spend at least an hour on that one thing working tiny bit by tiny bit towards that big goal that i you know stresses me out so that's it um eat the frog really it's it's the number one thing do not get sucked into emails or social media um i don't check emails until the afternoon and i think it's fantastic you know like i know that some research groups run via the email but if you can do not do that first thing spend one hour at least doing the the number one horrible thing that you have to do it may be writing that paper it may be doing some lab work it may be reading 10 articles whatever it is just um do it when you get in first thing and then you'll be amazed how much kind of lighter you feel after that and yeah that is the most important thing now mornings are so so so important um and so after you've done that number one important thing for an hour i like to get like an hour and a half of good solid what what kal newport calls deep work in so that is something that will progress you towards your goal of getting a phd at the time it may be i need to spend an hour and a half in the lab doing this research i only spend an hour and a half writing i need to spend an hour and a half planning my experiments you know the hour and a half block it will change what is in it based on where you are during your phd how far through a certain experimental kind of process you are um but essentially that one hour and a half of deep work stick some headphones in get uh uh what's the thing my noise um is another app that i use to just blast sort of like white brown green noise all sorts of noises into my head to just to distract me and uh sort of like provide me with the ability to focus in an open office environment so one hour and a half focused block work right so at the moment in the morning we've done about two and a half hours um but it's it's about that morning like using that energy you've got and then in the afternoon you know you can do those um do those other tasks but i don't want to get ahead of myself um after you've done that hour and a half or between an hour and an hour and a half it's fine of deep work and you know it's like a muscle use i do an hour and a half now but i started with an hour maybe only 40 minutes actually 40 minutes of hard work and i sort of slowly exercised that muscle in that capacity until it got up to an hour and a half but you may feel like you only need to do 45 minutes of deep work and that's absolutely fine but whatever you do after that then you can check emails right you can check emails you can do all that busy work get on social media follow up people like just do that little bit of admin work before you go to lunch so already the day has been filled with valuable work you've got rid of the biggest tasks on your to-do list that you don't want to do and also you've worked a little bit towards your bigger goal and i think that morning is just going to set you up for success later on and it's so important that yeah the mornings are the most productive time at least for me and i feel like a lot of people don't use the mornings well enough then have some lunch uh delicious delicious lunch uh you know take about i i liked an hour lunch i love sitting down for an hour eating chatting socializing trying not to think about what i need to do in the afternoon or what i've done in the morning like a lot of people the culture in some of the labs was to eat at their desks and as soon as i went in i was like no so i tried to sort of foster a culture where people come together to eat or i would go see people say oh do you want to go grab some lunch or you know that sort of thing i think that's the time it's like a little circuit breaker to um to refresh your mind and get the ideas going you know start that collaboration you know your colleagues are there to potentially collaborate with in the future so uh get that conversation started get it going talk about common interests and lunch is uh under represented or undervalued i guess moment of the day so make sure that you use it to your full extent and just relax enjoy yourself have a conversation about something that isn't work that's so important now the afternoon okay in the afternoon you've done a load of work in the morning what you want is another hour to an hour and a half of focused work so once again look at where you are do you need to do you need to do some lab work do you need to write something do you need to produce a poster presentation do you need to work on your conference presentation do you need apply for stuff do you need to go and clean up the lab like one and a half hours of focused work that will help you get to your end goal now these days like you'll notice i've got like in the morning to eat the frogs let's talk about eat the frog about an hour and a half lunch and another hour and a half so that's only about three hours worth of hard work during the day um and that's all you need but execute it consistently now one thing i'll say about the tax tasks that you put in the blocks of time for your deep work time you need to come up with a day and a task that will get you closer to your goal so at the moment it may be that you don't have any results so get those results but once you've got those results then you can write it up but don't sort of like jump around too much between different tasks because you'll just feel scattered so humans do not like monotony but it is the one thing that will get you to your end goal show up write show up do experiments but do it in like you know hardcore blocks where you're just doing one type of thing for a long period of time um and that's how you kind of build uh the the foundations for you know your thesis and just executing and the more you exercise your willpower the uh the better the results will be and the easier it will be for you to have that focused time because you'll see progress and you'll kind of want to work towards your goal more and more then the last thing in the afternoon after you've had that extra hour and a half is to do all of the shitty jobs do you like respond to emails um do admin stuff fill out the paperwork do the ohs forms uh or you know just do all of the stuff that's built up all of the stuff that's just like admin like life admin uni admin all of that you know meet up with students go speak to your supervisor all of those little things that just build up during the day that they matter but they're not going to get you any closer to your end goals necessarily and so that's how i think i would fit in all of those rubbish tasks you know ordering supplies for the lab was a big one for me but i would do that at the end of the day once i committed to the eating the frog and the three hours of focused work and i think that is how a phd day should be structured so it's like the most efficient productive but also not too overwhelming i hope now here are some tips that i think are important to know about phd daily schedules and habits the first one is don't wait for inspiration or motivation to suddenly like spark you into action it doesn't work like that um you need to create habits and habits are based on cues so what happens when you first sit down at your computer a lot of us the habit is that we go on emails we go on social media no break that habit and the way you break that habit is you notice the cue and then you purposely i guess force yourself to not open the emails you work on that eating that frog first thing in the morning and then afterwards your reward is maybe i can go on social media for a bit or maybe i'll go grab my get myself a cup of tea whatever it is um you need to break that that cue and habit and reward cycle and uh yeah it's i don't ever feel like sitting down and writing a blog article i don't feel ever feel like sitting down necessarily and recording a video but it's a habit i've got into every single day when i sit down first thing in the morning i create a video or i create a bit of content and it's not inspiring it's not motivating i don't feel like i have to do it but it's something i do know and it's so very important so yes don't wait for motivation or to be inspired to work create the habits execute to the best you can at that time and just go for it and another important thing to note is that sometimes things can feel overwhelming now when things feel overwhelming remember that all you have to do is make a one percent sort of increase in your uh in your sort of ability to get to the end goal so even if you're like you know what i don't feel like writing i've got an hour and a half i've got my bloody like white noise going on in my my ears um but i just don't feel like it that's fine not you know but you do have to just do some work say i'm going to spend five minutes writing on this thing that's all you have to do and it's strange because once you get started the habit kicks in i know a few times i've been like i don't really want to write but like you know what i'll spend five minutes just getting the headlines sorted or structuring out my blog or uh or writing down an outline for a video and then as soon as that habit starts it starts sort of like you know snowballing into me actually doing the thing so it can feel overwhelming but breaking the task down to something that can be completed in about two minutes is going to be the way for you to overcome that sense of feeling overwhelmed and it can be as simple as turn on my computer and open a word document like that could be the habit uh that you get yourself into if you're feeling overwhelmed and yeah you know remember that this is a marathon and not a sprint so doing a little bit every day is what you're aiming for some days are going to be better than others no doubt but having the self-discipline and the um the right habits of embedded in you will help you get to that end goal which is a phd so yes there is my phd daily schedule for success and the habits that i think you should sort of try to implement for maximum results so there we have it there's my perfect phd schedule and habits let me know in the comments what you think also remember to sign up to the newsletter where i have tons of exclusive content that's not going to be published anywhere else and lots of invites as well to invite only q and a's what i'm reading what i'm listening to what i'm thinking about all of the productivity tips all of the self experiments that i'm doing and the results so yes go check out the newsletter at andrew stapleton dot com dot a u slash newsletter and i'll put the uh link in the description below so go check that out all right then my beautiful friend until next time i hope you have a fantastic day and i'll see you in the next video

Channel: Andy Stapleton

Views: 24,106

Rating: 4.9683099 out of 5

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Id: c22okqXBAdU

Length: 19min 19sec (1159 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021