Hi Reader! After a long hiatus, made of colliding deadlines and a general "falling off the productivity wagon", we're back on track! This week, we ramp up our newsletter activity with a flashback to a post on how to face an addiction to social media, and a new tiny practice that helped me get through some of the difficult episodes in this intervening time without newsletters. Flashback: Facing addiction to social media in the PhD (Tweet-length gists of past posts, so that you don't have to...
3 months ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader! This week, we touch upon the two largest themes of our blog/newsletter. A new post in the blog continues our series on alternative ways to think about (and do) doctoral productivity. We also flash back to a post on dealing with addiction during the PhD. Oh, and you can see me talking about the actual research we do about these topics, in a recent webinar I did. New Post: Two Hundred Weeks: Productivity for Mortal PhD Students (book extract) Is there a way to be productive in our...
5 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader! As this Spring morphs eerily fast into something of a Summer over here, I can imagine you plowing ahead in your dissertations and research projects, trying to make progress before the holidays come and we take a much-needed break. The everyday struggle to be productive consumes all of our attention and time, Yet, this week's newsletter brings you the idea of also taking an occasional breath and a step back (or two steps back). We bring you a newsletter-exclusive tiny idea that has...
6 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader! This week, we continue our "alternative productivity" series of new blog posts with one about an underdiscussed issue in the (doctoral) productivity literature: the mindset with which we approach tasks, systems and to-do lists in the doctorate. Also, we flash back to a post looking at the origin of many of our ailments, by discussing whether or not one should do a PhD at all (hint: of course, it depends -- but on what?). New Post: Productivity as Avoidance, or How Not to Think...
6 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader! As we race towards Easter (in case you're in a country where that's a thing), we bring you a new post questioning productivity as something to aim for in our PhDs - and what we mean in the blog when we say we try to be "productive". We also bring a short post from the past trying to answer the question: how many doctoral students worldwide suffer from the mental health and dropout problems we often talk about? And I travel to a live event: a scientific conference where I will meet...
7 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader! Lately I have been dismayed at my own productivity (and I don't mean in terms of publications or hustle-busyness productivity, as we discussed in the previous newsletter). A report that would have previously taken a few hours to write now becomes a multi-week project, and writing anything that other people can understand feels like swimming through molasses. It may just be that I'm getting older, but I refuse to fully give in to this downhill march towards inability. Yet... how can...
7 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader! As other obligations eat into the time I normally dedicate to write "A Happy PhD" blog posts and newsletters, I can't help but think more and more about productivity: my own, and of doctoral students (especially those that have to juggle multiple obligations/jobs/priorities). This week, I bring you an early preview of an upcoming post on doctoral productivity (and some arguments against it), as well as a flashback to an strategy that has (counter-intuitively) boosted my own...
8 months ago • 8 min read
Hi Reader! January is quickly passing by, and hopefully your New Year resolutions long-term strategy and habits are still holding up. This week, we review a key habit that helps many PhD students (and myself) better notice their daily progress. There is also a new blog post about a tiny practice to beat procrastination, and a newsletter-exclusive tiny idea that is crucial for everyday productivity. Flashback: Journaling for the doctorate (I): Types and benefits (Tweet-length gists of past...
9 months ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader! I hope you are enjoying some amount of well-deserved (and really disconnected) holidays. As we start 2024, this week's newsletter brings you some essentials to make your start of the year more effective and focused: a classic post about a reflection practice I engage in at this time of the year, plus a new blog post we previewed earlier in this newsletter (where I challenged ChatGPT to give some good doctoral productivity advice). Finally, I share a tiny practice I'm using to avoid...
9 months ago • 3 min read