Hi Reader!

We are currently closing our latest research study delving into how we could use technology to help doctoral students face their productivity and emotional challenges. Interviewing our study participants brought again to my mind the recurrent productivity problems that doctoral candidates mention every time we do workshops and other training events about making progress on the dissertation. This week's flashback brings us precisely the post synthesizing such challenges, and our "tiny practice" describes a small trick I use to deal with challenge #3 (task conflict) in my own life.

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Flashback: The three most common productivity challenges of PhD students​

(Tweet-length gists of past posts, so that you don't have to read through the whole blog backlog)

With the COVID pandemic still raging across the world, I summarized what were the top productivity challenges that doctoral students reported in our (back then, online) workshops. Now, with very different global worries, these productivity challenges still pop up every time we talk about productivity with PhD students:

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Tiny practice: Do an early daily review for increased presence out of work

(Small ideas or practices –told bluntly and without much background– that I first share with newsletter subscribers)

Now that I’m a father, I’ve been struggling with chaos in my time/task management. Not only I have now less time for my research-related tasks; also work-related thoughts and worries started invading my off-time at home or socializing (probably due to my reduced work output), leading to a lack of presence that bothers me. This experience will sound familiar to any PhD student with family obligations or non-research-related jobs. Indeed, this sort of “priority (or task) conflict” is one of the three main productivity issues that doctoral students face, as we saw in the flashback above.

This state of affairs made me double down on a small practice which I consider at the core of any good productivity system: the daily review. In this small ritual, one reviews the tasks one had for today, adds any open loops and emergent tasks into one’s to-do list (and/or calendar), and looks at the next day’s appointments, setting up which tasks can be done that day, and when. I was already doing this consistently as a way to free my sleep from planning worries about the next day (and it worked). Yet, I have found that a twist on this practice works best in my new situation. Instead of doing the review right before bed, I now strive to do it at the end of my workday (which usually falls sometime in the afternoon). With a good plan of attack for next day in my back pocket, I can now head home and be more present with my family and friends.

I first encountered this idea in Cal Newport’s blog and his book Deep Work, and have since become convinced that this is a critical add-on to the execution strategy of anyone that has multiple priorities going on in their life (which is, well, almost everyone). You can also check out the video below where Cal explains his version of this practice and why it works.

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May you never be untimely worried again!

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