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Basic Self-Maintenance for Academic Successby Ada Palmer (@Ada_Palmer)Think Long-TermRemember that the real goal of this Ph.D. program is to train yourself to be a great historian, which includes training yourself to balance the burdens of academic life. Learning to use your time well and take care of yourself so you are happy and productive is just as important as learning your field. If you become a professor, the workload will only increase as you are required to teach more classes, produce more research, attend more conferences, advise more students, do more paperwork, and face more deadlines, and many other career paths have similar heavy burdens, with stricter deadlines and fewer second chances. If your current workload seems like “too much” don’t assume nothing can be done. You can learn to accomplish more in less time, if you remember to (A) plan your time carefully, and (B) pay yourself first.Pay Yourself First Never feel that hobbies, leisure activities, exercise, or rest are “taking time away from” your studies; keeping your mind and body in a fit state to work is one of the responsibilities of your studies, every bit as much as learning languages or passing exams. A motto recommended by the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity is “Pay Yourself First” i.e. remember that, while you have many responsibilities, your #1 responsibility is to be your own custodian. Guarding your own happiness and productivity and is a duty, not an indulgence.Plan Your Time“I Don’t Have Enough Time!” I believe you. Time is an academic’s rarest and most precious resource. But that doesn’t mean you should reconcile yourself to being constantly overworked and exhausted. If you feel that you work to exhaustion every day, but still don’t have enough time for all your work, you don’t need to work more. You need to work less but accomplish more in the hours you do work, and reserve other time for rest and fun. It is possible. One centerpiece is realizing that academic life requires balancing three things: short-term tasks, long-term tasks, and leisure/rest. Unfortunately short-term tasks are the only ones with accountability: class readings, short papers, grading, applications, professional e-mails in your inbox, these all have due dates within a week or two, which hold you accountable and push you to get them done promptly. Long-term tasks like “Be ready for your oral exam in a year” or “Finish your dissertation in 4 years” are much more important, but have no accountability, so there is no consequence to letting a day, a week, a month go by without actually working on them. Similarly, leisure activities like sleep, rest and exercise are absolutely necessary to keep you in a fit state to work, but there is no consequence to skipping one so it is easy to let yourself skip two, then three, then all, letting yourself sink into exhaustion and draining your ability to work. Watch your time, and fight to keep short-term tasks from taking over!Give Your Best Hours to Your Most Important TasksIt may seem that an hour is an hour no matter what, but our ability to work and concentrate varies over time. An hour of work put in when you are at 100% may produce as much as two hours when you are tired, stressed, hungry, and not at your best. Your ability to work is by (A) circumstantial factors such as workspace comfort, (B) metabolic factors such as nutrition and time of day, (C) sleep, and (D) mental health factors such as stress management, socializing and fun. It may seem like an impossible dream to say you can do more in less time, but if you work to maximize the quality of your working hours you genuinely can reduce the quantity.Accountability can be a big help. Create your own deadlines and rules, like “5 pages by X date” or “Finish researching X topic in Y month” or “Always exercise M/W/F/Sat” or “Always have meals with a friend 2x per week.” Self-imposed deadlines, if you stick to them, can help you stick to your long-term tasks and leisure/rest plans.You can set aside certain hours of the day, or times during the week, as reserved exclusively for long-term tasks or leisure/rest and make the self-imposed rule never to let short-term tasks violate those protected hours.There are many free or inexpensive Productivity/Accountability apps/programs which let you make daily task lists, to-do lists, “good habit” lists, and check them off each day, tracking your accomplishments and reminding you clearly what you planned to do, and whether or not you kept it up. Many people like a program called Habitica because its gameificaiton adds extra motivation, but other popular options include List.ly, Todoist, 30/30, DropTask, GTasks, Limitless and Zenday. These programs can do wonders for both work and leisure/rest/health.You could pick a “writing buddy” or “research buddy” and pledge to each achieve a certain amount each week; keeping up with a friend keeps you motivated. You can also use a buddy for self-care, exercise, and other non-work essentials.Not all hours are equal. You concentrate and think better at some times of day than others. Try varying what time of day you do different things and observe for yourself when your most productive hours are, so you can give them to your most important tasks. For example, many tend to do e-mail, short-term assignments, grading and paperwork tasks earlier in the day to “get them out of the way” before settling in to research and writing, but this means giving your best hours to minor tasks, and approaching your most important work when you are already tired. Try reversing the order, setting aside an hour or two for research & writing before other tasks.“Track your time” to learn where your hours really go. Try for a week or two keeping a time diary, where you write down the time at which you begin every activity. You may discover that days which feel like they are completely full of academic work actually contain many secondary tasks or “time traps” which could be reduced. After tracking your time for 2 weeks you can discover where your time really goes, and make a plan.E-mail and social media are a common time trap, since fascinating links and new posts or shares from friends can lead to a long chain, adding up to many minutes. Try timing your e-mail/media access to see if you are losing a time there. If so, try making a rule like “max 45 minutes of email in the morning” or “no web surfing before noon” or “facebook, twitter and youtube only between dinner and 11 PM.”Set aside time for long-term tasks. It is very demoralizing to feel that you are working all day every day and yet your big projects aren’t progressing, and that morale blow can affect you more deeply than you imagine. Reserve at least a small amount of time regularly to work on your big projects, even if it’s a tiny amount. The NCFDD recommends “Write for 30 Minutes Every Day” so that, even if you only progress one paragraph, you can look back at the end of the week and see a few pages’ progress, which can make a huge difference, both to getting finished, and to avoid feeling demoralized. Whether you try 30 minutes a day, or a couple hours at a set time each week, holding yourself to a steady minimum of focus on your long-term goals will achieve a lot.Some things you do are neither work nor leisure – these are the best areas to examine to find ways to save time. Can you reduce your travel time? Your e-mail time? Your shopping time? You have to eat, but you can still save time there. E-mail is a huge time-eater; working on ways to make it more efficient, like getting off mailing lists, or creating filters and labels, can save hours a week.Peapod delivers groceries, and subscription services like Amazon “Subscribe & Save” will deliver staples like cereal, rice, pasta, canned goods, toilet paper, vitamins etc. to you through the mail (no shipping charge) at any interval you like (weekly, monthly) at prices lower than most Hyde Park grocery stores, so you can stock up and reduce your shopping trips to quick stops for milk & produce. This can save an hour or two every week.You can pick one meal a day to make “superquick” by having a premade wrap or sandwich, or a smoothie made of protein powder plus juice and/or yogurt and fruit, making time to cook something delicious for another meal.Can you use your commute for a second purpose? Biking makes your commute into exercise; relaxing music makes it into stress-reducing leisure; listening to audiobooks turns it into research and course preparation. Learn About YourselfExperiment with how, where and when to work. Some people work best at home, others in a library, in a crowded space, alone, in the morning, at night. Some people do one kind of work best in one situation and another in another. Try different options, and don’t assume that the way you have been working is the best for you without testing out others. You may discover a new working method that works better for particular projects, or combinations of work.When you start work, try doing to make yourself feel “on duty” whatever that means for you – take a shower, get dressed, change the lighting, so it feels different.Is your apartment a mess? Is the area where you work cluttered? Some people work well in a cluttered space but some feel more productive in a clean place. Try setting aside a day to really get your place in order (invite a friend to help and make it an activity) and then see if you feel better and produce more over the next week. If not, you can safely let the place get cluttered again, but if so you have found a way to improve your time.Some people find that wearing particular clothes make them more or less productive, because how you dress affects how you feel. Try working in different clothes (comfy/slobby at-home clothes, more formal clothes, looser, tighter, warmer, cooler clothes that let you feel the cold a bit) and see how they affect your concentration.Try “Work in Company” getting together with a friend to work in parallel. Having someone to chat with can raise morale, and having someone else working makes you feel you should keep working, instead of goofing off with breaks or surfing the web.The vast majority of young academics work hunched over a laptop. This compresses the spine and strains the wrists and shoulders, making work at the laptop physically grueling even though you are not consciously aware of pain. Doing it for a long time can also cause Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and other forms of Repetitive Strain Injury. Studies suggest that 60% of Ph.D. students develop RSI before graduating. Making a safe work desk is very easy, and can make you feel much better while working:(A) get an external monitor and position it up high so it is directly in front of your face when you’re sitting up straight, while your laptop serves as your keyboard and is set nice and low, near your lap. OR(B) get an external keyboard to put down at keyboard level, but put your laptop up high so the screen is in front of your face when you sit up straight. You don’t have to buy an expensive stand: a pile of books or pizza boxes will do.Metabolism and Nutrition“Listen to your Body!” It’s easy to convince ourselves that productivity is a question of mind, discipline, having the force of will to “power through” and get things done, but that simply isn’t true. Reading, writing, research, these require your brain to be operating at its best, and that depends on what your body and blood stream are supplying. You think better, learn more quickly, remember more, produce better work, feel happier and less stressed, and can genuinely get more done in less time, if you take certain health-related steps which have short term immediate benefits, separate from any long-term health benefits (though they have those too).Remember that some times of day will always be a little draggy, no matter what. The morning before you eat, the first hour after a large meal, and the last few hours before bed your brain will never be at 100%, so try to reserve those hours for tasks which require less concentration, like e-mail, grocery shopping, chores, or leisure activities.Many people find their “best hours” are in the morning or late morning, at least for those who eat something when we get up. Overnight the body goes into a kind of “low power mode” to conserve resources until we eat again. This means that the brain is only running at 75% speed until we have a little food. Try waking up your brain by eating something with glucose in it; it doesn’t have to be a full breakfast, a glass of juice, a cup of fruity yogurt, even coffee with milk & sugar can turn your morning hours into 100% hours.Keep your brain fed. While most cells in your body can metabolize many energy sources (fats, proteins, diverse sugars), nerve cells (i.e. your brain) metabolize glucose directly and can’t process most other sources. This means that fluctuations in blood sugar affect your brain more than the rest of you; your brain may be hungry even when your body still has plenty of food. To keep your brain fed you want consistent blood sugar levels, achieved by eating meals which mix different energy sources (some sugar, some starch, some protein, some fat), since they each take different amounts of time to break down, and add glucose to the blood in successive waves. Fructose-packed sodas or meals of just one thing (only carbs, only protein) can cause blood sugar crashes by dumping all their glucose at once, and none thereafter, leaving your brain underfed, which makes it slow down. If you feel like your brain is tired, instead of snacking on salty/fatty chips or sugary soda, try something with loose glucose like juice or fruit (dried apricots are particularly high in glucose) to get a quick brain boost w/ minimum excess calories.We all know about the long-term health benefits of exercise, but adding regular exercise to your routine also has immediate short-term payoffs, very helpful in academic life.Exercise releases endorphins which make you feel happy, energetic and powerful, peaking right after the exercise but lingering into the next day. This can counter exhaustion, stress and depression, and make you feel more capable of tackling work. The hours right after exercise will often be your most productive.Exercising regularly (at least 30 minutes a day 4 days a week) can accelerate your metabolism, making your body keep more sugar in your bloodstream, which makes you feel more awake, and helps you process faster and concentrate better.Exercise during the day makes you fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly at night. If giving 45-60 minutes each day to exercise (30 minutes + travel and shower) means you fall asleep after 15 minutes instead of lying awake for an hour, you have already made up the time lost to exercise by turning wasted sleepless time into good sleep.Heavy alcohol consumption slows the body down by filling it with substances which require time and energy to process and filter out. The day after a night of heavy drinking will be less productive than other days (your system is running at 75% capacity) so balance your work and alcohol use carefully by choosing prudently when to drink heavily, and using the day after a night of drinking for less intellectually rigorous tasks, like running errands, or catching up on e-mail & paperwork. Whether the cause is exhaustion, illness, or just a late night, yourself to work when you’re feeling physically weak can be demoralizing, since the work will be slow and difficult, and can sour you on a task and make you more reluctant to resume it, encouraging procrastination. Think carefully about whether a day of rest might be better than a day of forced work when you aren’t at your best.Sleep Quality and Sleep QuantityQuantity of sleep does matter a lot, and Quality of sleep can be even just as important. The National Institute of Health recommends 8 hours of sleep per night, and recognizes that 40% of adults have work and life schedules which make this difficult. The majority of people believe they can get by on less than average sleep, but the NIH believes only 10% of people are actually fully functional on less than 8 hours of sleep. The NIH has identified many symptoms (beyond normal health risks) caused by chronic lack of sleep which can strongly affect academic performance, including: (a) Reduced creativity and problem-solving skills, (b) Concentration and memory problems, (c) Inability to cope with stress, (d) Reduced immunity causing frequent colds and infections, (e) Fatigue, lethargy and lack of motivation, (f) Moodiness and irritability, (g) Difficulty making decisions. To avoid these symptoms (and especially if you suffer from them), consider working on your sleep quantity, and quality. Tips:If you aren’t sleeping enough your brain is never at 100%. Increasing work hours by cutting sleep hours may seem to increase productivity but rarely does, since a sleep-deprived person produces reads more slowly, absorbs less from reading, and produces fewer words in an hour of writing. Sleep involves alternations between “Deep sleep” and lighter stages of sleep including REM sleep. Being woken during “Deep sleep” is very disruptive and can make you draggy all day, cancelling the effects of rest. The NIH recommends setting your alarm for “a multiple of 90 minutes” since an average sleep cycle takes 90 minutes. Counterintuitively, if you go to bed at midnight, waking at 7:30 AM can make you feel more rested than waking at 8.Naps of 90 to 105 minutes tend to be more restful than 60 or 120 minute naps.A consistent waking time is a big factor in sleep quality, often more important than a consistent bed time. Your body starts preparing to wake up 90 minutes in advance, and waking at an unexpected time can make you hit a “deep sleep” period. Waking at a consistent time avoids this, making you sleep better and feel more rested. Example: Sleeping in until 10:30 most days but getting up at 8 Tues/Thurs for an early class will make you more exhausted than getting up at 8 every day, even if getting up at 8 daily means sleeping fewer hours total during the week.Many people take a long time to actually fall asleep after going to bed, wasting time and reducing the quality of sleep. Steps you can take to make it easier to fall asleep include:Exercise during the day is the #1 factor people report improving sleep quality.Listening to gentle music for 45 minutes before bedtime can make sleep come more quickly, even if you are still working while the music plays.They recommend avoiding blue/white/daylight illumination after dark, by switching from bright white bulbs to yellowish bulbs, and using a program like f.lux (free) which makes your computer monitor tint itself golden after dusk. Another suggestion is a “no electronics” rule for the last hour before bedtime.Large meals and alcohol consumed close to bedtime can decrease sleep quality.Stress and Mental HealthMental health is just as important as physical, and stress, fatigue and depression are just as real as colds and flu. In a profession where you depend upon having your mind functioning at its best, it is always prudent to “Self-Monitor” i.e. observe patterns for your own behavior, to look out for warning signs. Keep an eye out (or even write it down somewhere in a self-monitoring list) to notice how often you feel fatigue, frustration, exhaustion, sadness or despair. We all feel them sometimes, but if they are chronic or constant, you may want to make some changes to your sleep patterns, nutrition, work strategies, or talk to a counselor. If you experience chronic stress or depression, talking to a counselor to get professional advice is every bit as natural and necessary as going to see a doctor if you had chronic pain in your knee. Sometimes a doctor has a very simple solution (different shoes, or a knee brace) and similarly sometimes councilors have very simple solutions (vitamins, a change in lifestyle) which can make a world of difference.Mental health facts:A recent study conducted by University of Chicago confirms that loneliness leads to reduced immune function and increased vulnerability to viruses and infections. Spending fun times with friends a few times a week protects you against losing a week to a cold.“Seasonal Affective Disorder” is a common medical phenomenon in which shortening winter nights cause fatigue, sleepiness and feelings of depression. A substantial percentage of people who move to Chicago from further south are affected by it, so it is prudent to watch yourself carefully in October through December to see if you are being affected. Symptoms identified by the NIH include: drowsiness, irritability, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, difficulty thinking clearly, and increased appetite, especially for sweets. If you feel these symptoms happening, ask about solutions. While recent studies suggest that multivitamins may not have as many health benefits as previously thought, studies show that academics and Chicago residents often benefit from taking Vitamin D, a vitamin produced during exposure to sunlight (which we don’t do enough) which combats stress and depression, especially seasonal affective disorder.Examine your leisure activities and “coping strategies.” Not all leisure activities are equally mentally rejuvenating; some activities are fun and restful while you are doing them, but don’t leave you refreshed and more prepared for work. The NCFDD identifies different activities which are more or less recuperative:Less recuperative leisure activities—less restful than they seem—include surfing the web, watching short media segments on Youtube, “vegging out” with screen media (TV, videogames), Marathoning TV, “gripe sessions,” and heavy drinking.More recuperative leisure activities include enjoying and discussing screen media (TV, videogames) with friends, calling a friend to chat, sharing a meal with friends, pleasure reading, getting a massage, playing with a pet, taking a bath, journaling or writing a blog post, doing a craft project, going out to a play or concert, volunteer work, enjoying music without multitasking, and exercise.Studies presented at the Aspen Institute indicate that fast-paced screen media (TV, games including tablet & smartphone games) with frequent rapid cuts between visuals cause the brain to produce chemicals and neurotransmitters associated with fear, stress and anxiety. Think of the frenetic pace of a music video compared to the longer cuts of Mr, Rodgers’ Neighborhood. Studies also showed that following an hour of frenetic screen media with a half hour of talking to another person (in person or on the phone) canceled this effect and restored the brain to normal non-stressed function. So, if you watch fast-paced TV or play fast-paced games, you may want to ration it, do it with friends, or get together with friends afterward, and avoid doing it right before bedtime.Putting Advice into Practice – You CAN do MORE in LESS TIMEHere is an example of putting some of these suggestions into practice. Here are theoretical daily schedules for two imaginary students, Kat and Robin. Both have the same work, and the same class at 2 PM, but Robin follows the following six principles, and look at the results:Get up at a reliable time and have breakfast to get your brain going at 100%Give your best hours (in the morning) to your most important tasks (research & writing)Save, grading and minor tasks for when you are hungry or tiredGet most groceries delivered, so grocery runs are quickSave time for socializing with friends, and for exercise, and make use of the energy boostAvoid using screen media and snacking during the last half hour before bedtimeKatRobin8 AMWakes up to an alarm groggily, has trouble getting out of bed.Gets up, has a quick breakfast of protein powder mixed in juice.8:30 AMMorning e-mail & FacebookMorning e-mail, urgent e-mail only9 AMStill doing e-mail & FacebookReading & Research, writes 2 pages10 AMGrading & minor tasksReading & Research, writes 2 pages11 AMGrading & minor tasks Hungry; grading & minor tasks12:00 Grading & minor tasksLunch with a friend :-)1:00Hasty lunch aloneA little e-mail & Facebook1:30Travel to classTravel to class2:00CLASSCLASS3:30Grocery store on the way homeGym on the way home4:15Still at the grocery storeShort grocery stop for milk & fruit4:30ReadingEnergized! Races through class reading6:00Same reading dragging on, hungry...Getting hungry, so e-mail & Facebook7:00DinnerDinner8:00TVTV9:00Reading & research, writes 1 pageGrading & minor tasks10:00Reading & research, writes 1 pageGrading & minor tasks11:00Reading & research, writes 1 page30 min email, 30 min leisure readingMidnightLosing steam, snacking, tiredBedtime, falls asleep very quickly :-)1 AMe-mail & Facebook right before bedSLEEP :-)2 AMLying awake in bed :-(SLEEP :-)3 AMFINALLY ASLEEPSLEEP :-)TOTAL WORK3 ? pages of writing, 3 hours of minor tasks, reading for one class.4 pages of writing, 3 hours of minor tasks, class, reading for one class.TOTAL REST1 hour TV, no exercise, no time with friends, 5 hours restless sleep.1 hour TV, lunch with a friend, gym, 30 min leisure reading, 8 hours sleep. ................
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