PhD Work

I have a friend who is about to give up on his phd.

His main problem is that he has wasted a lot of time, has been less organized, and failed to get in the required number of hours in everyday.

He has been having trouble reading and understanding papers.

As I look to him, I fear that this might be a problem facing almost every Phd candidate simply because the type of work done in a PhD degree is totally different from the type of work required for any other job.

The differences in PhD work versus other Jobs/degrees

1) No boss and no proper guidance, no one tell you what to do. For some lucky students, this may not be the case.

2) Lots of unstructured time. There is no start and end time for PhD research, you could be working in the day or at night, the work hours are simply too flexible. This flexibility allows PhD students to procrastinate. The thinking everyday becomes that if I don't work in the morning, then i'll cover up for it in the night. For most students the most productive time then becomes 2-4 am which really isn't the best time for work. This would eventually trouble you mentally and there is high probability for crashing and burning

3) Most of the work is not repetitive and requires a lot of thinking. Course work is too an extent repetitive, same theory but different problems but the application is too quite an extent repetitive. The amount of time actually learning something is actually very little, most of it is repetition. Jobs are even more repetitious and new learning is sparse. Doing repetitious work and thinking are different types of work which should be handled differently. You simply cannot read equations and expect your brain to understand these equations if your brain is tired. Hence keep your brain fresh and if it tires then do not proceed until you somehow make it fresh again.

4) Another problem with PhD work is that it is a lonely undertaking, you are the only one traveling the road. You will meet people who have similar research topics as you but yours would be unique. Try and go to conferences and give talks. This would help.

5) If your supervisor is unresponsive, has no time, cannot guide you, then don't just sit on your ass, this must be an excellent learning opportunity and become active and systematic.

6) Organization and learning is important. Learn as much as possible. The race should be implement and learn. You cannot just skim through research papers and expect to come up with excellent stuff or implementations. Implement stuff but make sure that what you are implementing is well researched and rigorous, without rigor it wouldn't have much meaning.

7) Get up as early as possible, mornings are the best for work, evenings are for resting and hanging out with people. Try and get in the lab as early as possible and try and leave as early as possible if you've completed your days work.

How to Work, Eat and Shit

Like any other organism, we consume and then we defecate.

Probably the same analogy applies to out thinking as well

Let's compare defecation with the process of working or producing something. Defection takes a small time and the process is intense.

Why not we start working in that fashion.

An interesting article was written by a writer who only had limited free access to public type writers in the library. He was only allowed to use type writers for 30 minutes at a time and had to wait for his next turn. In between the interval, the writer would read and study in the library and plan and think about what he was going to do next.

Maybe that is the way for us to work as well

A researcher's work process could be divided into two

• Defecation: Coding, Generating Results, Writing Papers
• Consumption: Reading and Learning new things.

(inspired by Terence Tao)

High intensity time should be used up for producing work.

Low intensity work should be spent on reading.

What foods to eat

Assume that you are a hunter gatherer.

Heavy foods tend to make you sleepy.

Light foods will make you less sleepy.

Rest in a hunter gatherer situation revolved around hunting. Before a hunt, you are active and hungry. After a hunt, you are less active and less hungry.

Ten Lessons I wish I had been Taught

http://www.ams.org/notices/199701/comm-rota.pdf

A Panoramic View of Mathematics

Excellent lecture on Research by Professor Michael Atiyah

http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/753316

Rules of Thumb

Never use Internet in the day till you have completed 4 hours of work

Constant Clock Watching

Turn off that goddamn clock on your PC. It's effect is deleterious as it continuously tells you how much time is left in the day, or if its lunch time or not. For some odd reason we are fixated with the clock. No matter where you go, there is some sort of clock.

Have you noticed that if you keep on watching time then it somehow slows down, whereas if you avoid watching a clock then hours will pass you by and you wouldn't even notice it. Stop time watching so that you could indulge in that exquisite state of flow. Hours of work will pass you by and you wouldn't even notice it. And I promise that it would be the same amount of work done if you had constantly been watching the clock.

Here are some instructions on how to achieve a state of flow:

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Clutter-free environment
• Concentration

1. 1
   Make it easy to lose track of time.
   
   People in a state of flow tend to lose track of time when fully focused on the task at hand. Something that prevents focus and getting into a state of flow is constant clock-watching. Make sure you block off a good amount of time to allow yourself to slip into this blissful state of flow. If you're really worried about getting carried away and missing an appointment or something, setting a timer can help.
2. 2
   Bump up the level of challenge:
   
   Flow typically happens when engaging in an interesting activity or challenging type of work - but also something that matches your skill level. If you're trying to get in the zone, but it's a mundane task, try to make this boring activity more interesting by thinking of new ways to challenge yourself, like setting a time limit for simple chores.
3. 3
   Improve your skill level:
   
   In contrast, if a task is too challenging, you will probably be way too anxious to get into a state of flow. You may need to break it down into smaller and more manageable chunks or improve your skill level if possible. Also, make sure you're giving yourself enough time to complete the task.
4. 4
   Get rid of distractions:
   
   Ensuring that there are minimal distractions in your immediate surroundings will make flow much more likely to happen. If there is clutter, get rid of it. Go to a quiet space where no noises or people will distract you and break your concentration. You don't want anything competing for your attention while you work on the task at hand.
5. 5
   Minimize negativity and self-consciousness:
   
   When people are in flow, there is no self-consciousness. Negativity and flow don't mix. Again, you're so focused, there's just no room for it! So try your very best not to think about what others are going to think or that it's not perfect. If you're really a worrier or someone who constantly edits, tell yourself you'll worry about the details later. If you start to feel negative, try to reorient yourself into thinking more positively.
6. 6
   Have clearly defined goals:
   
   When people are in a state of flow, they typically are very aware of their goal - their eye is on the ball. Think about the musician's goal to play a song well or an athlete to win a game. Having clearly defined goals will help you assess the kind of progress you're making. It is positively reinforcing to know you're on the right track and help keep you in that state of flow.

Subtractive Time Management

Writing things down is the best way to Forget them

I have recently been following a notion of subtractive time management.

What I have figured is, that our minds are always populated by distractions. Browsing the internet for some quirky question that comes across your mind, checking you stocks, checking the news, etc etc. I once read that the easiest way to forget something was to write it down, rather than to keep in your head.

So from now on, my time management methods will be subtractive.

If you come across anything that is distracting, then write the fucking thing down. Once written down, you can forget about it, and come back and have a look at it once you have free time.

 This way your brain would be focused and less bothered about the distractions.

On the other hand, don't write things down that you are working on, or that you will be working on. Work things should be kept in your head, because if they are written down, then they might as well be forgotten because the urgency to do those things will be gone, since you will now have the chance to come back and have a look at your "to do" list later on. And that "later on" never arrives, those things will be written there for ages, simply because there is no urgency left. You will never forget what you just wrote down.

Hence, the empirical conclusion so far, don't write important things down, keep those in your head!! And write all the diverging thoughts down so that they could be tackled later on.

Will this work? May be.

Subtractive is the way to go. I have gained some new found respect for the subtractive method. It appears that its a good way to handle issues and simplify things. Remove the clutter.

Calvin Newport and Heavy Work Loads

Calvin Newport wrote about how to study if you are studying medicine where the work load is way heavier than any engineering discipline. He writes about the schedule of an A-grade student in medicine who wakes up at 6 in the morning and works two 3-hour stretches every day. Each 3-hour session is broken down into three 50-minute sessions with 10 minute breaks. A long relaxing gap after 3 hours includes lunch and may be a nap. 

Waking up really early might be a key. You need to get rid of your work as early as possible when there is little distraction.

Read Original Article: (LINK)

The Plight of the Pre-Med

Of all Study Hack readers, pre-meds are among the most skeptical. They tell me that although they like my philosophy of doing a small number of things well, this is impossible forthem. Their course load is too demanding. Filling most waking hours with work is unavoidable.

Then there’s Nathan.

Nathan is pre-med at the University of Texas at Austin, where he’s currently tackling the weed out courses that give this major its bad reputation. Here’s what makes Nathan interesting to me: he finishes his work by 5:30 pm every weekday.

In fact, he doesn’t just finish it, hedominates it.

“On the last chemistry test, the average score was a 57,” he told me recently. “I made a 98…My professors are fascinated by me.”

Naturally, I asked him to share a typical day’s schedule:

• 6:00 to 6:30: Breakfast/Shower
• 6:30 to 9:30: Study
• 9:30 to 10:20: Class
• 10:30 to 11:30: Study
• 11:30 to 12:30: Lunch
• 12:30 to 1:30: Class
• 1:30 to 2:30: Class
• 2:30 to 5:30: Study
• 5:30 to 11:00: Chill by meeting girls, explore the rolling hills and lakes of Austin, listen to live music, etc.

Here are two things I noticed about Nathan:

First, he’s not necessarily working less than his peers. His schedule includes 40 hours of studying per week, which is about right for his course load. He simply consolidates this work better.

“But he wakes up at 6,” you might complain, “I could never do that.”

Nathan’s out chasing girls before most students have even started their work for the day. Fair trade, if you ask me.

The second thing I noticed is that he’s obsessive about focus. He doesn’t just “study,” he works on the 7th floor of the engineering library: one of the most isolated spots on campus (see the above image). He works in 50 minutes chunks, and does 10 minutes of calisthenics, right there on the library floor, between every chunk. In three hours of this focused studying, he probably accomplishes more work than most pre-meds do in ten.

I don’t claim that Nathan represents a specific system that all pre-med students should follow. To me, he’s just a nice example of a more fundamental observation: the happiest students are those who take control of their academic experience, molding it to fit their own ideal of a life well-lived.

Divide your Work into Three SLOTS

I am going to follow a simple system for managing my work.

My work will be divided into three slots

1. Writing
2. Coding
3. Reading (research papers+books) and learning

How a Busy Harvard Professor finds time to Write

How a Busy Harvard Professor Finds Time to Write
by Patricia Flynn Weitzman, Ph.D.

Most people facing the challenge of writing a dissertation have, at one point or another, despairingly thought, "How the heck will I keep up as an academic, if just getting my dissertation written feels so tough?"

Indeed, an academic career requires the constant juggling of writing responsibilities with teaching, committee work, mentoring, and a personal life. Such a juggling act can be tricky to say the least, but there are those who pull it off quite successfully.

Take, for example, Dr. Hannah Riley Bowles, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Bowles has published widely in premier academic journals, and she won the Kennedy School's 2003 Manuel Carballo Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Dr. Bowles currently serves as the faculty director of Women & Power, the Kennedy School's executive program for women leaders. In addition to her myriad professional accomplishments, Dr. Bowles is also the mother of an almost 3-year-old daughter, so she is very adept at the complex balancing routine required to be a successful academic and an involved parent.

Who better then to pose the question of how to keep up with academic writing responsibilities than someone like Dr. Bowles? Here's a summary of our conversation:

1) How do you manage to be so productive? 
Discipline is most important. I look for chunks of time for writing. After I get off the phone with you, I go directly to a meeting. Scheduling things this way allowed me to spend this morning working on only one thing.

2) Do you have a writing schedule?
Yes, but it changes from day-to-day.

3) Where do you do your writing, in your office or your home?
Either place. I carry my laptop with me wherever I go so if my daughter is napping for 20 minutes, I write.

4) So you do your writing on the fly?
No, you really can't do good writing on the fly. But if you don't do some things on the fly, you'll never have a chance to write. You have to schedule your writing time.

5) How do you balance writing with teaching?
The hardest part in balancing writing and teaching is saying no to students. I really care about my students; I've been engaged and available to them. But you really need to make sure you say no to certain things-- and sometimes they're the things that are the most fun part of the job-- in order to discipline yourself so that you get the other stuff done.

I think that's very important for an ABD student. There are a lot of things you can do as an ABD: you can go to seminars, you can teach in classes, there are a million things you can do with that unstructured time. But you need to impose structure on your time. You need to impose structure on unstructured days.

For example, these are the tasks I'm going to accomplish today, these are the tasks I'm going to accomplish in this three-hour period, etc. That's what I mean by discipline. I really am quite disciplined. I remember some of my friends in graduate school. They needed to be writing at their desks, they needed to have their teacup right there, but life really doesn't allow for that.

6) How do you keep yourself in a disciplined place? If you feel yourself drifting away from that discipline, how do you bring yourself back? 

Self talk, like "You're screwing up, get back to work!" [Laughter].

7) Do family obligations ever interrupt your writing time?
Yes, and then I lose writing time. I'll try to wake up early to cover it. My ideal would be to wake up at 4am each morning and write for 3 or 4 hours before my daughter gets up. But that assumes you have a daughter who goes to bed at a reasonable hour [laughter].

8) What do you think about this concept of work/life balance?
It's a profound question. I think the person who views work/life balance in terms of happiness, and the person who views it in terms of meaningfulness; well, they are two very different things.

If you are really working, and trying to be an engaged mom, it's very messy and exhausting. But if it's really about feeling like you've got meaning in your life, well throw out some sleep and physical comfort, and throw in a bit of stress-- but you feel it's meaningful, so ultimately your cup runneth over. I don't know if you call that balanced, but you can be fulfilled in multiple dimensions of your person.

9) What advice would you give to academics early in their career about productivity?
I think the critical thing is that you schedule large blocks of time to write. Your days can get eaten up. You need to schedule large blocks of time, but at the same time, if you have a half hour here and there, you need to take advantage of it.

Focus is also really important for people starting out. You want to do good stuff that takes thought and time. You can get pulled into too many directions. You need to pick a few things that you really care about, and dig into them. There's the good advice that you need to pick a research stream, and not just be writing a paper.

10) Do you schedule "think" time? 
You have to. You need to say this morning is about X. If you find yourself frittering away time with lots of meetings, you're not going to go anywhere. Sometimes I think really hard about something, very focused, for about 45 minutes, and then I'll need to take a break. If I've thought myself into a corner, then I'll take a break. I think you need to be very self aware, though, and know if you're work-avoiding when you take a break.

11) How much do you think your dissertation prepared you for your academic career? 
Oh, very much so. It's fundamental. Of course, I had a lot more to learn, but my dissertation was basic to the research I'm doing now. I think people who don't write dissertations that become the basis for their future research, that's a tough way to start. You have to build off of your dissertation. You're really working on creating a foundation for what you ultimately want to do.

---

So, take heart ABD students, you're in very good company. Even a Harvard professor can find it challenging to attend to her writing! It's also nice to get confirmation from Dr. Bowles that the simple strategies of discipline, focus, structure, and scheduling really do work. Moreover, the way that Dr. Bowles survives the stresses of working motherhood by connecting to its meaningfulness might also have use for ABD students. When the going gets tough, you might try following her lead.

For example, remind yourself of the value that completing your PhD will have, not only to you personally, but to the many others who will benefit from your expertise and guidance. Search for what there is to be grateful for in this whole ABD experience. (Surely you are learning and growing a lot.)

Maybe even picture your joy on being awarded your diploma, hurrah! Take a moment to bask in all those happy, appreciative feelings and images. Then roll up your sleeves and get back to work. It's worth it!