Overwhelmed by your endless to-do list? Stressed because of the many PhD-related tasks you need to “go through”? As we discussed previously in the blog, you are not alone (and ask any already-doctors whether this feeling goes away after graduation). Lately, as I struggle with not-so-new-parenthood-unproductivity in my own research, I have been reminded several times of a mental reframe I first encountered in productivity writer Oliver Burkeman’s work. This simple metaphor helped me change my relationship with my to-do list, without hurting my productivity (more probably, the opposite).

One of the top barriers to PhD productivity is procrastination. Have you ever found yourself with a big ugly task getting stale in your to-do list, repeatedly postponed because it is too big, too abstract, or makes you somehow uncomfortable? This tiny practice post gives you an simple trick to beat this sort of procrastination.

Have you ever spent an hour scrolling on Instagram (or your ​social media addiction of choice​) and later realized with a pang of regret that such a time could have been spent much better doing something else you deeply ​value​? This sort of realization is at the core of this week’s blog post: a tiny practice to guide our daily decision making about what to do next. This idea will also be familiar to long-time newsletter subscribers, as it was an early “newsletter exclusive”.

We often come up with complicated and costly schemes to improve our lives (buy that new gadget, watch that new show everyone is talking about), when simpler zero-cost solutions may have better chances of actually having a positive impact. In another tiny post, I share a quick tip on how to enhance your lab/work-life by using natural spaces. This idea will also be familiar to long-time newsletter subscribers, as it was an early “newsletter exclusive”.

In our efforts to fix our life’s problems, we often keep adding stuff to our lives and ideas to our theses, ignoring there’s an alternative. In another tiny post, I quickly share how you can harness the power of subtraction. This idea will be familiar to long-time newsletter subscribers, as it was an early “newsletter exclusive”.

We all tend to delay difficult, uncertain or scary tasks unnecessarily… especially, those related to our thesis. How to avoid such procrastination? In this new kind of short post (so far only available to our newsletter subscribers), I share tiny practices or ideas that have had an outsized effect on my thinking or my research practice.