Time management tips for PhD students
How can you manage your time effectively during your PhD? Well, it’s complicated…
Using AI for academic research and writing: Some cautionary thoughts
There’s been a lot of buzz lately around the use of AI to help with research and writing. While there are a lot of potential benefits, you need to be very careful about how you use it.
Networking tips for PhD students
Networking is one of the most important (and most often neglected) aspects of a PhD. It not only helps your research, it's crucial for your career... In this video I share how to build your networking skills, from everyday habits to longer term strategies.
The most important time-management habit (do this every day)
Do you ever find yourself sitting down at your computer but not knowing where to start?
If so, it's very easy to end up on autopilot, checking email and so on, letting your attention follow whatever pops up. Once you're in that loop, it can be quite difficult to get out again.
How to build your PhD research skills
The goal of a PhD is to develop and then demonstrate the skills of a professional academic researcher.
So in this video I break down 6 of the most common mistakes that hold back your skill development and talk about what you should do instead.
A PhD is not just "an original contribution to knowledge"
One of the common phrases I’ll hear is that a PhD is an “original contribution to the body of knowledge”.
This is one of those phrases that gets repeated so much that nobody seems to stop and think about what it actually means, or whether it’s an appropriate phrase to use. So in this video I’m going to break down some of the common misconceptions around originality and give you a different perspective on what’s actually required.
What is a PhD?
A PhD is the entry qualification to the world of professional academia. The goal is to develop and then demonstrate the skills of a professional academic researcher.
How to manage the stress of a PhD
Stress is so common among PhD students that many people assume it’s an inevitable or necessary part of the process. While some stress is inevitable and some stress can be useful, overwhelming stress is a warning sign that something is wrong…
How getting a PhD changed my life (and how it really didn’t)
Looking back on my PhD 15 years after finishing: how it changed my life, how it really didn’t and the lesson it’s taken me a long time to learn
"I can't contact my PhD supervisor until I have something to show"
By far, the most common cause of PhD failure (or extreme difficulty) I have seen is isolation and a lack of feedback from other academics.
Often, this is because a student is working remotely, but the problem can be compounded by the student thinking, "I can't contact my supervisor until I have something to show."
How to cope with a problematic PhD supervisor
“Is there any system that protects PhD candidates from having a problematic supervisor? For example, any ways to make complaints? Or would complaints not help but make the relationship worse?”
How to manage anxiety and panic
While meditation and exercise can help you feel better in your situation, they won’t necessarily be enough to improve your situation.
Sometimes, we feel anxiety because there are real, tangible, practical issues we have to address, or decisions or changes we need to make. The more we avoid those issues, the worse, inevitably the anxiety will get.
How to cope with PhD impostor syndrome
Impostors, by definition, hide their identity. In the context of a PhD, this means hiding any insecurity or weakness in knowledge; avoiding asking the "stupid question", avoiding mistakes, avoiding risk and avoiding difficulty. It is a state motivated by fear, by the avoidance of a negative outcome, but it actually makes the negative outcome more likely.
Planting seeds or putting out fires?
If you're putting out fires, you're dealing with the urgent, short-term problems, but potentially neglecting your longer-term success.
If you're planting seeds, you not only have to wait before getting the benefits, you also have to put in work over time to cultivate them. It's slow, but the earlier you start the greater the payoff in the long term.
An easy way to update your literature review quickly
If it's been a while since you last looked at the literature (or a specific area of the literature), here is a very quick way to find recent relevant papers.
Your final PhD year: moving towards submission
The final year of your PhD is all about pushing towards submission of your thesis. In order to reach that point, you need to go through a process of consolidating and finalising the various aspects of your work.
Coping with PhD research stress
PhDs are supposed to be difficult, but when it affects your mental and physical well-being, something has to change.
Self-reliability
If you set goals for yourself but you don’t achieve them, you might think about how to improve your productivity, your time management or your motivation, but you’ll probably find that this doesn’t work because there are more fundamental skills you need to work on first.
One of those skills is self-reliability…
Don’t neglect your data!
Why you shouldn’t neglect your own data (and what to do if you have neglected it until now)