PSG #004: Time management for PhD candidates: master your time, live more!

When we had to finish our thesis and simultaneously work full time with tons of different projects, our time management collapsed under all these different tasks.

Endless to-do lists are seen as normal for PhD candidates:

• Experiments
• analyses
• seminars
• conferences
• meetings
• reading papers
• writing reposts

No time for hobbies, friends, or fun things.

Then there were only 8 weeks between writing my thesis and defense, with all the other tasks in the lab and my private life, I didn't know how to manage all of this.

Same for my brother, working full time and driving to his school in the evening and on weekends, writing his thesis simultaneously with all this caused much trouble.

We jumped from task to task, got distracted, and carried away from different obligations. We often just didn't want to do anything and got distracted by the smallest things.

Youtube was basically always running.

Because we didn't manage our time, everything else also fell apart. Meeting friends and family or exercise and a holiday? There was no time for that, even when we needed it so badly for balance and break….

My brother tried to write his thesis for 6 hours straight after he already worked 8 hours.

Pomodoro technique or so? He didn't have a clue about these tools. Our working place got really messy and we looked rushed all week. We had to give up every hobby and fun activity because we didn't know a different way of using time.

Our biggest dream at this time was to finish everything without falling apart.

We knew that even after finishing, there will be times again with the same amount of tasks and pressure in our life. We realized that we need to change our time management.

We hoped for a feasible time management system.

Do you also know these people who basically do everything? They work full-time, volunteer in a local club twice a week, eat healthily, do sports multiple times, and have also time to help others.

Super-humans, who can control time. We wanted to be like them because we knew that we always wanted to challenge ourselves and grow. With that comes challenges and a lot of tasks. But we also wanted to live and enjoy the journey! We thought a simple to-do list would be enough to stay on top of the game.

We thought by achieving superhuman status, we also could control our time and do everything.

Now, fast-forward: We were right about wanting to control our time, and you can do it to certain degrees. But the world is sometimes a strange place and you need to be prepared for bumps.

Our growth mindset leads us to master our time.

After researching and educating ourselves about time management, we were confused because we heard a lot of contrarian things:

• Put as much as you can into your calendar as possible
• leave no blank space in your day
• if possible overlap tasks to not lose time
• take breaks
• hustle and grind
• no pain, no gain
• balance

We realized soon that there is no one fits all tool or technique.

Every person is different and every time in our life is different. Therefore you need a toolbox to pick from!

• Some that really helped us:
• Learning how to prioritize
• Focus on the big steps toward your goal
• Setting boundaries and saying no
• Plan in buffer time for everything
• Schedule time for breaks, relaxation, and recharging

But still, then, most forget that you need the right mindset to implement these tools and use them to be effective and productive.

But in this journey of trying endless things, failing, and swearing a lot, we now can control our time most of the time.

Having different tools for different tasks and times, combined with the right mindset to actually use them correctly, changed our whole balance for the better.

We now can work full time, build a business (where we needed to learn everything 100% from scratch!), help other people, seeing and support family and friends. We manage to work out multiple times and educate ourselves more and more at the same time.

We now get asked a lot how we do all these things, consistently without getting sick and looking like crap.

We managed to gain control of our time!

Finally, in modern times you need a strong well proven time management that suits you!

We hope you understand to know the importance of proper time management and not only for your PhD time but also for your whole life.

That there is no such thing as one fits all!

Hopefully, you are more clear now that there is hope and you can gain back control. It takes a system but there is always a solution, even for you and your situation right now.

In the coming newsletters, we are going to share different tools and tips, and tricks that helped us.

See you next week!

If you want more help:

We're excited to share the PhD Survival System with you because we know how tough it can be to get through a PhD program. We have developed a holistic system that combines all the necessary areas needed to obtain optimal results.

We start with the foundation, your mindset, and on top of that we building two pillars with time management and stress management.