Mindset Striving and failing in public I tried the recommended approach of making a bold claim in public as a way to hold myself accountable, in an attempt to pressure myself into sticking with my goals (for example: I will post here once a week). This strategy has not been hugely successful, as I clearly have
Tech Switching things up Here is the story of me quite unnecessarily changing the switches on my mechanical keyboard and feeling rather excited about it. Which keyboard do you use? I bought a NuPhy Air 75 a few years ago when I started on my PhD. I reasoned that as I would be typing
PhD How do you view the world? It all started with a simple enough sounding question from one of my supervisors, something along the lines of “how do you view the world?”. As it turns out, this wasn’t so simple to answer as whatever responses came to mind were quite clearly wrapped up in layers upon
PhD Passing my Early Progress Review I recently passed an early milestone when my PhD project was approved to continue without any conditions after the Early Progress Review. I had previously been assured by my two supervisors that the project had been progressing appropriately, so I was not overly concerned, but it is still always good
PhD Key Theories Defined Something I’ve been working on is writing my own definitions for four theories central to my PhD project. As these will be shared during my soon-to-begin data collection process, it was deemed necessary to make a public claim to them by first publishing them all to the internet. Without
Tech Buying a new iPhone in China There I was, finally in an Apple store upgrading my 4+ year old iPhone XR to a shiny new 15 Pro Max. Even though this was going to be considerably more than I’d ever spent on a phone, the in-store environment left a lot to be desired. There was
PhD One step forward, two steps back. I've made plenty of progress on my PhD recently, like getting drafts ready of ethical approval forms and research instruments. Why then does it not feel much like progress?
Mindset Perfect or finished. That is the choice. The last month has felt like a struggle to get my routine back on track after being taken down by COVID. Blaming getting ill is not helpful though. Action is the key. First, an example. I have an unreasonable number of blog posts that are 90% finished but which remain
PhD Feeling nervous about presenting my research I found myself feeling strangely nervous as I waited for my turn to present research I did for my Masters two years ago.
PhD Why I moved to Zotero as my reference manager More reliable than Mendeley, infinitely cheaper than EndNote, much more efficient than doing it by hand. Might Zotero be the best reference manager around?
PhD Research notes: a lesson in what *not* to do Learning things through making huge mistakes: an effective but not very pleasant method. Last week I wrote about overcoming a monstrous case of writer's block near the beginning of my Masters. In that article I mentioned that keeping handwritten research notes turned out to be a terrible mistake.
PhD Writer's block How overcoming this hurdle on my Master's helped me reach a new level of productivity that helped get me ready for a PhD. I love learning new things, and am firmly subscribed to the idea of being a lifelong learner. I am fascinated by the process of learning,
PhD Starting my blog So here it is, my first post, the first of many. Taking action feels good. I'll be documenting my journey to a PhD, things I learn along the way, optimisations I've made to my workflow and more. Maybe some of this will be useful to you too.
