The ability to pay attention is one of the most important assets of a PhD student (or researcher) and plays a crucial role on our focus and productivity, but also on our creativity and wellbeing. In this month’s “Monday Mantra”, I give you not one, but two sentences that you can use to remind yourself to manage this resource wisely. Choose your favorite!

Have you ever felt that you have too many threads open in your research work, and you cannot seem to make substantial progress in any of them? You are not alone. After closing the long series of posts on “happiness in the lab”, a bit of a lighter read this week. In this post I give very short advice that you can use as a “mantra” for this and the coming weeks, somewhat related to staying productive – but with a twist.

This is one of the most basic, flexible and effective productivity techniques, which I’ve been using for many years. I know many PhD students and academics that swear by it, but I am still surprised by others who do not know about it. In this post I come back to its origins, how to do it, and how I have combined it with other routines to keep me on track. Essential in this age of smartphones, social media and other constant distractions!