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Gratitude for experiences brings surprising benefits

On Thanksgiving, many of us take a moment to reflect on what we’re grateful for – and we get rewards for doing so. Feeling gratitude leads to benefits like increased happiness and social cohesion, better health outcomes and even improved sleep quality.

But will you get more of such benefits from that antique sofa you bought or the vacation you took? New research shows that we feel more gratitude for what we’ve done than for what we have – and that kind of gratitude results in more generous behavior toward others.

“Our previous research found that consumers derive more enduring happiness from experiences than from material goods, and our new studies show that experiences generate greater feelings of gratitude, with its resulting benefits,” said Amit Kumar, Ph.D. ’15. Kumar published the study with Thomas Gilovich, interim chair and the Irene Blecker Rosenfeld Professor of Psychology, and Jesse Walker, a graduate student in the field of psychology, in a recent issue of the journal Emotion.

“Think about how you feel when you come home from buying something new,” said Gilovich. “You might say, ‘This new couch is cool,’ but you’re less likely to say, ‘I’m so grateful for that set of shelves.’ But when you come home from a vacation, you are likely to say, ‘I feel so blessed I got to go.’ People say positive things about the stuff they bought, but they don’t usually express gratitude for it – or they don’t express it as often as they do for their experiences.”

In addition to experiments they conducted, the researchers found real-world evidence for this by looking at 1,200 online customer reviews, half for experiential purchases like restaurant meals and hotel stays and half for material purchases like furniture and clothing. Reviewers were more likely to spontaneously mention feeling grateful for experiential purchases than material ones.

“One reason for this increased gratitude,” said Walker, “may be because experiences trigger fewer social comparisons than material possessions. Consequently, experiences are more likely to foster a greater appreciation of one’s own circumstances.” And, the researchers write, “we suspect that people are likely to feel grateful for purchases that connect them to others, enhance their sense of self, and encourage them to appreciate what they’ve purchased for its intrinsic value, not for how it compares with what others have purchased. Experiential purchases do just that.”

The researchers also looked at how gratitude for experiences versus material purchases affected prosocial behavior. In a study involving an economic game, they found that thinking about a meaningful experiential purchase caused participants to behave more generously toward others than when they thought about a material purchase.

The kind of gratitude that participants in the studies felt from experiential purchases was more likely to be “untargeted,” not attributed to someone else’s actions. The researchers suggest that this kind of gratitude for an experience can result in a strong urge to somehow express that feeling in action – such as giving to others, even to anonymous others.

Kumar, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago, says this link between gratitude and altruistic behavior is intriguing, “because it suggests that the benefits of experiential consumption apply not only to the consumers of those purchases themselves, but to others in their orbit as well.”

Gilovich, who is interested in applying insights from modern social psychology to improving peoples’ lives, says this new research shows an approach that governments can take to increase the well-being of their citizens and advance societal good.

“If public policy encouraged people to consume experiences rather than spending money on things, it would increase their gratitude and happiness and make them more generous as well,” he said. Such policies might include funding for public parks, museums and performance spaces.

Organization Tips for Graduate Students

Graduate students—and faculty—often find themselves overwhelmed with tasks. Good time management skills are essential, but succeeding in graduate school requires the ability to organize more than your time.

Being unorganized—not knowing where your stuff is—is a time waster. The unorganized student spends precious time searching for papers, files, notes, wondering which pile to check first. She forgets and misses meetings or arrives late, repeatedly. He finds it hard to focus on the task at hand because his mind is swimming what the details of what must be done next or what should have been done yesterday. An unorganized office or home is a sign of a cluttered mind. Cluttered minds are inefficient for scholarly productivity. So how do you get organized?

1. Set up a Filing System

Go digital when you can, but don’t forget to organize your paper files, too. Don’t skimp on file folders or you’ll find yourself doubling up on files and lose track of your most important papers. Whenever possible, go digital (with a good backup system!). Maintain files for:

  • Research/thesis ideas.
  • Thesis references (probably divided up into additional files for each topic).
  • Exam materials. As you prepare for comps, will have copies of old exams, study materials
  • Professional credentials – vita,  sample cover letter,  research statement etc.
  • Reprints and professional articles, organized by topic.
  • Life (bills,  taxes, etc.).
  • Teaching materials (organized by topic).

3.  Acquire and Use Office Supplies

Though supplies can be expensive, it’s easier to get organized when you’ve got the right tools. Purchase a quality stapler, paper clips, binder clips, stick on notes in several sizes, sticky flags for marking important pages in texts, etc. Go to a supply store and purchase office supplies in bulk to maximize savings and to be sure that you don’t unexpectedly run out of supplies.

4.  Organize Class Materials

Some students use binders to organize class notes, with dividers to separate your notes from assigned readings, handouts, and other materials. Other students keep all of their class materials on their laptop and use software such as OneNote or Evernote to save and index their notes.

5.  Remove Clutter at Home and Organize Your Study Space

Sure you’re desk and study area should be neat. It’s also helpful to keep track of the rest of your home too. Why? School is overwhelming enough without worrying about whether you have clean clothes, differentiating between the cat and dust bunnies, or losing unpaid bills. Set up a command center near the entrance to your home. Have a bowl or spot for you to put your keys and empty your pockets of important materials. Have another spot for your bills. Each day as you open your mail sort it into stuff to throw out and bills and other materials that require action.

Additionally, make sure you have a dedicated space to work in your home. It should be free of distractions, well lit, and have all supplies and files nearby. Even if your living space is small or shared, be sure to designate a portion to your graduate studies.

6.  Create a Schedule for Household Tasks

Set up a schedule for accomplishing household tasks like laundry and cleaning. Break cleaning up into smaller tasks, by room. So you might clean the bathroom on Tuesday and Saturday, clean the bedroom on Wednesday and Sunday, and the living room on Thursday and Monday. Clean the kitchen weekly then spend a few minutes each day on it. Use the timer trick to keep on task while you’re cleaning and show you how much you can do in just a little time. For example, I’m amazed that I can clear out the dishwasher and wipe down the countertops in 4 minutes!

7.  Don’t Forget the To-Do List

Your to-do list is your friend.

These simple tips can make a difference in your life. From my own experience as an academic, I can attest that these simple habits, though challenging to set, make it much easier to make it through the semester and maintain efficiency and productivity.

What I Learned About Surviving Graduate School

One Saturday night a year ago, as I found myself sitting in my apartment writing a draft IRB proposal, I began to reflect on the lifestyle I had chosen. I immediately recalled an episode of The Simpsons in which Bart mocks the plight of young scholars by saying, “Look at me, I’m a grad student! I’m 30 years old and I made $600 last year!” To which Marge replies: “Bart, don’t make fun of grad students. They just made a terrible life choice.”

That episode hit a bit too close to home. It reminded me of many awkward moments—like when an old friend came to town recruiting for his Fortune 500 company and we met up. He just threw down the corporate card and started buying drinks for everyone. And there I was annoyed about the $5 cover. He was eating expensive meals in New York, while I was eating TV dinners.

In spite of all that, I am writing now—in my first position as an assistant professor—to offer a few words of advice on how you can have a successful doctoral experience in the sciences, if you accept a few realities of the graduate-student lifestyle. I was a full-time, fully financed (which is of critical importance unless you are independently wealthy) graduate student. I had a paid position as a teaching assistant, which means, of course, that you do a lot of work without any credit. Here is what I learned.

Remind yourself regularly that there is an end. It is easy to become quickly overwhelmed at the beginning of your graduate career, as everything about it is so different from the undergraduate years. I often felt stressed out. It seemed as if every class session turned into more tasks I had to do, more processes I had to learn, and more mistakes I had made. I had to constantly remind myself that I would get through it all.

Find a way to relax. Flipping out over everything you have to do will not help get any of it done. Organize your thoughts, and roll with the punches. It is no surprise that many graduate students work until late in the night. Make sure to take breaks from the computer, give yourself some “nights off,” and just chill in front of the television. Cook a nice dinner one night, take a long bath, read for fun, paint, listen to music, go skiing, go to a free concert, work out in the campus pool, whatever. The point is to purposely add alone downtime to maintain your mental health. As a wise man once told me, “The sun will rise again in the morning.”

You are not alone, however much it may seem like it. Our work is often solitary. We write our own papers, work on our own research, and some of us even live alone. I know a doctoral student in organic chemistry who actually brought a sleeping bag to his lab and lived there for three days while conducting an experiment. (And it wasn’t even for his own work; it was for his adviser’s.)

But in graduate school, that is by design. We can’t co-write papers for our Ph.D. programs. It has to be our own work. But there is no reason that you can’t share your thoughts and ideas with others in your department.

Research is hard. There is a reason it takes four to six years of full-time graduate work to earn a Ph.D. in the sciences. Learning how to conduct valid research is an arduous process. It took me four months just to think of a dissertation topic for my research. When I polled many professors, they all claimed that was about normal. Learning all of the research methodology is a seemingly endless endeavor. But graduate school is the time to screw up and make mistakes. Simply put: Let yourself be a student.

Play dumb. I mean that in the sense of making the most of the resources around you. Most of your professors are extremely knowledgeable and willing to help. But they will not come to you, so you must go to them. Attend office hours, be an active participant in your courses, and generally just ask for guidance. That does not mean nag. Professors are busy people. But you can tactfully use them, just as they will use you.

Establish a good rapport with your adviser. That may sound obvious, but some students don’t. Your adviser is called an adviser for a reason. You will have questions about your courses, research projects, technical problems, program requirements, research requirements, and faculty lifestyle issues. Ask those questions.

Your adviser will know many of the answers, or at least know whom you can contact for further assistance. A good adviser can help you set milestones throughout your program and make sure you stay on track. Remember: The better you do, the better your adviser looks at the end. He or she wants you to do good work. If you make a name for yourself, you are also making a name for your adviser, and vice versa.

I recommend setting up at least a weekly meeting with your adviser. In addition, attend some nonacademic events together. Go out to lunch, get tickets to a speaker, catch a collegiate sporting event, or even go to happy hour (keeping in mind, if you have a few beers, that your adviser is the one who will ultimately sign off on your degree).

Be passionate about your work. As you refine your topic of research interest, it is important that you select something you are passionate about. Again, that may sound like obvious advice, but I know plenty of graduate students who didn’t, and who floundered as a result.

It is not about what your adviser wants you to do (although the two of you can, and will, often have similar interests). It is what you want to do because you are the one who will be doing all of the work. Selecting a research topic because it’s “popular,” or because you think it will be “easy” or “quick” often ends badly. Dissertations are neither easy nor are they ever completed as quickly as you think.

Find a comfortable place to live. It may not be plush. In fact, it probably won’t be because you’re a graduate student. But it should be a place where you can feel at ease.

I lived in some dumps early on in graduate school, and I reached a point where I didn’t want to live in a dump anymore. I didn’t enjoy feeling bad about coming home every day, and it started to affect my graduate work. I needed a change and found a nice place in graduate housing, where I was surrounded by fellow students. It felt like a community.

With the little money graduate students make, it is important to budget a good amount of it for the best place you can afford to live and write. Finding roommates can often significantly reduce your expenses; just be sure to find someone who understands that you are a full-time graduate student. Our lifestyles can be much different from those working a 9-to-5 job.

Money comes and goes; life experiences stay forever. It can be frustrating to work so hard and have so little to show for it financially. But as the U.S. Marines say, adapt and overcome. Identify your income and remember that no one forced you to become a full-time graduate student. So maybe you can’t afford nice clothes or a good steak. But there are plenty of inexpensive things you can afford. There is nothing wrong with buying moderately priced meals and taking advantage of student discounts.

Focus on the experiences you are having, not on the ones you aren’t able to afford yet. Apply for grant money, seek travel awards for conferences, or even work a part-time job if you want. And if you’re still unsatisfied, it may be time to rethink your academic aspirations.

Graduate School Information Sessions

Think you have what it takes to go to graduate school?

Representatives from the College of Graduate Studies will be hosting three workshops that will cover graduate programs, costs, and the application process. Information presented will help you understand graduate programs across the country.

Student workshops will be held in the RUC Tech Pride Room on Wednesday, October 23 from 3-3:45pm and Thursday, October 24 from 3-3:45pm.

It’s never too early or too late to start thinking about graduate school and this is your opportunity to get all of your questions answered!  If you’re just beginning to think about grad school or you’re just waiting for your acceptance letters to come in, you will be glad you came!

Also, there will be a Tech Employee workshop in the RUC Tech Pride Room on Thursday, October 24 from 11-11:45am.

The Employee session will focus on TTU’s educational benefits for employees and graduate programs with online/flexible schedules.  Lunch will be provided.

Things to Be Aware of

  1. Graduate Assistantships: The sooner you apply, the better your chances are.
  2. Permissible Loads: Full-time and part-time loads are different than they were in your undergraduate program.
  3. Grades: Know what grades are required to avoid dismissal or probation.
  4. Degree Completion Time Limits: Six consecutive years to complete a master’s or specialist in education; eight consecutive years to complete a doctorate.

Other Useful Links:

Application Due Dates and Apply for Graduate School

Graduate Student Handbook

Graduate Student Calendar

Graduate Studies Faculty Contact Info

Tennessee Tech News

Other Student Resources

How to Balance Grad School and Kids

Starting a family during grad school can be tough.

There are lots of reasons not to go to grad school while raising a family—lack of time, money, and job security, for starters. But having a baby in grad school comes with a surprising number of benefits, too. Here are eight ways you can adeptly balance grad school with kids.

1. Take advantage of your flexible schedule

In grad school, it can feel as though everyone is always working. While there are very few places you have to be at particular times, you’ll always have a lot to do. After all, funding for graduate school is often time-limited, and you’ll have significant academic requirements and teaching commitments during your graduate school years. Lots of universities have amazing libraries—many of which are open 24/7—and you may worry that any absence from your library carrel on a Tuesday night at 11 p.m. will negatively affect your productivity.

We are here to tell you that you do not need to stay up into the wee hours of the night to have a successful, productive graduate school career. You can, without apology, take advantage of the flexibility that grad school affords, and plan a schedule that works for you—and for your (growing!) family. As a graduate student, you likely have inked-in commitments for just a few hours a week: classes and talks to attend, teaching time, and office hours. The rest of your time is yours to allocate as you see fit. Perhaps with the exception of any future sabbaticals, you’ll rarely (if ever) have this much flexibility in your career again.

2. Build your time-management skills by using every minute efficiently

Even if you were able to work around the clock, you wouldn’t necessarily produce more. After a certain number of hours, you’d get diminishing returns. As a parent, you couldn’t invest unlimited time even if you wanted to, but take heart—parents quickly learn to be efficient workers.

There are many ways you can allocate your time. Some grad students keep their academic life to a 9-to-5 work day, ensuring that those hours are as productive as possible. Others plan their days around their family needs—for instance, taking time out in the middle of the day for a parent-and-child music hour, and then staying up post-bedtime to finish working. You should do what works best for you, and have faith that you’ll learn to make the most of every working (and every family) moment. In short, you might not be a better student in spite of parenthood—you might learn how to be a top-notch scholar because of it.

3. Make the most of the resources your university offers

Some universities offer child care assistance subsidies. Cornell, for instance, offers student child care grants. A number of schools have onsite child care centers, as well. You can make the most of having nearby, high-quality child care—this is not available everywhere! On-campus centers may even allow you to stop by in the middle of the day to see your child (particularly if you are a nursing mother).

4. Attend academic events when necessary

While graduate school offers more flexibility than any full-time job we’re aware of, it does come with obligations. You’ll need to make arrangements to attend major academic conferences, office hours, and the occasional workshop-led-by-a-famous-scholar-in-your-field. Not only will your attendance at these events serve their intended purpose—i.e., you’ll learn new things and network—but it will also help you feel just as much a part of scholarly enterprise as you ever were.

5. Apply newly acquired decisiveness to your craft

Being a scholar entails doing nuanced interpretive work. (The more you learn, the more you realize you have yet to understand.) That said, some graduate students find themselves in the unenviable position of getting bogged down by details—to the extent that they sometimes can’t see a broader argument. In large ways and small, parenthood is all about seeing the big picture through lots (and lots) of details. (For instance, irritability, a runny nose, and a poor night’s sleep may anticipate illness—and many parents can identify that from even one of those symptoms, all while packing lunches and changing diapers and completing the day-to-day tasks that keep a household running.)

Parenthood also entails making decisions—both large and small—all the time. (Maybe you would opt to keep your child home from school before the fever hits because you know it’s coming. More significantly, you could choose a child care facility after distilling a large number of data points—over the course of an hour-long visit.) In many cases, you’re making choices that may affect your child and family significantly—and you may be doing so with incomplete information and on very little sleep. Parents have to be decisive all the time, and that same decisiveness will benefit the articles, book reviews, syllabi, and ultimate dissertation you will write.

6. Channel your parental confidence

As a parent, you become more competent each day. Whereas at first it might seem overwhelming to take your child to the supermarket—wrangling a diaper bag, change of clothes, and bottles along with an infant and all of your groceries—that formerly mundane activity becomes routine once again. You learn new skills, become more competent, and strengthen your confidence. You may at some point contend with an ER visit, a stressful overseas flight, or any number of challenges associated with having a baby. In learning how to manage these stresses, you’ll demonstrate to yourself how much you are capable of. Your growing competence should be a source of confidence. Channel that in your work! Completing a dissertation is an immensely difficult endeavor. But, as with parenthood, others have done it before you, others will do it after you—and you can do it too.

7. Look forward to your kids being older and more self-sufficient as you build your career

If one of the drawbacks of starting a family during graduate school is that you endure the challenges of early childhood while balancing so much else—well, that’s also one of the benefits. Taking care of a baby is really hard work … no matter when you do it. If you put off starting a family, you may find it increasingly difficult to do so until you become more established in your career. After all, it’s difficult to be on the job market, with all its pressures and uncertainties, while taking care of a baby (and worrying about where you’ll end up living and whether you’ll have continuous health insurance coverage). Once you land a job as a junior-level faculty member, you’ll be very busy finishing your first book, teaching a full course load (likely for the first time), and building your CV for tenure consideration. Only once you have tenure might your schedule ease up.

This is not to say that you can’t or shouldn’t start a family at any time. On the contrary, you should do what feels right to you, whenever it feels right to you—and know that you can always make it work. That said, if you decide to start a family during graduate school, then it’s possible that by the time you go on the job market and launch your career, your child(ren) will be old enough, and self-sufficient enough, to allow you to sleep through the night and get work done in their presence. Graduate school may just be the perfect time for you to start a family.

8. Talk about your work with your kids

Since your kids are definitely going to see you working, tell them about it! They’ll pick up on how hard you work toward your goals and file that away as a model for themselves. Your kids will end up learning a lot about a really interesting topic, and they may acquire your love of learning in the process. Being in a campus environment also affords many opportunities to attend exhibition openings and other interesting events. Your kids will be surrounded by stimulating information and resources—lucky them!

7 Ways for Students to Overcome Writer’s Block

While writer’s block can affect all of us at various times, it is no longer some insurmountable menace that we can’t overcome. Whether you’re worried about what you’re writing, trying too hard to be perfect, or just lose inspiration, rest assured that you’re normal. There are also plenty of ways in which you can overcome your block quickly without getting too stressed. There’s no longer any reason to panic or miss you deadline, as you can just try out the following 7 ways to get over your writer’s block and get back to your craft.

1.     Move Around

Sometimes you get writers block because you just can’t see further. Changing your environment by heading to a coffee shop, a library, or even just another room in your house can provide a fresh perspective.

2.     Find another Outlet

Sometimes you just need to put down the pen and take a break from writing. However, you’ll recover from your block quicker by indulging in another creative outlet.

3.     Make the Most of Online Tools and Resources for Writing and Editing

Online tools for writing and editing can make a huge difference in overcoming your writer’s block. They can spark your inspiration, or at the very least help you sift through what you already have and find something great to work with. The following tools are some of the most useful:

  • Now Novel – this is a great tool for anyone looking to write fiction. This tool keeps your work private but it’s an amazing way for your work to stay organised, and help you develop a writing process.
  • Write my essays – the forums at paper fellows are full of professional and amateurs alike who are able to provide awesome support and advice when you need it.
  • Zen Pen – this tool is awesome if you’re easily distracted. You are provided with a completely plain interface, that’s just a blank page, so you can’t see any external links or procrastinate.
  • Trello – this tool is great for anyone who is more of a visual learner, and would benefit from being able to see their progress so far in order to figure out how to proceed.
  • Dissertation Writing Services – this writing tool is a cool way to find some inspiration and generate some ideas. You’ll be over your writer’s block in no time.
  • Resume Writing Service – when you’re short of ideas, you can head to this site for inspiration and generate some great new threads of writing for ideas.
  • Essay Roo – sometimes you just have to power through your writer’s block, and monitoring your daily word count, by setting and hitting targets is one way of doing that.
  • UK Writings – when you’re writing for academia or for school, you’ll have to spend a lot of time referencing, and this can interrupt your writing flow or process. Using this tool can stop you from suffering from writer’s block if your work is disturbed.

4.     Move Your Body

If you want your brain to be full of energy, you need to work on your body too, and getting some fresh air, moving around, whether it’s yoga, dance, boxing, or hiking, can really clear your head, and help you gain a fresh perspective and point of view.

5.     Start Early

You may need to edit this writing heavily, but starting super early can leave you in a dream-like state where thoughts just spill over from your brain.

6.     Turn Off You Phone

You’ll need to get rid of all distractions, but the easiest one to eliminate is your cell phone.

7.     Always Have a Notepad

Inspiration could hit you anywhere, so make sure you can write them down and get to work when you get home.

Writer’s block can prove to be a massive struggle for anyone trying to hammer out a career, or get through a degree, but following the above tips can help you break through it quickly and effectively.

How to Motivate Yourself: 3 Steps Backed By Science

You make goals… but then you procrastinate.

You write a to-do list… but then you don’t follow through.

And this happens again and again and again. Seriously, what’s the problem?

Why are we so good at thinking of what to do but so terrible at actually doing those things?

The problem is you’re skipping an essential step. Here’s what it is…

The Mistake Every Productivity System Makes

Productivity systems rarely take emotions into account. And feelings are a fundamental and unavoidable part of why humans do what they do.

We can’t ignore our emotions. Because of the way our brains are structured, when thought and feelings compete, feelings almost always win.

And we can’t fight our feelings. Research shows this just makes them stronger.

Via The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking:

So what does the unavoidable power of feelings mean for motivation?

In their book Switch, Chip and Dan Heath say that emotions are an essential part of executing any plan:

We need to think to plan but we need to feel to act.

So if you’ve got the thinking part out of the way – how do you rile up those emotions and get things done? Here are three steps:

1) Get Positive

When do we procrastinate the most? When we’re in a bad mood.

Via Temptation: Finding Self-Control in an Age of Excess:

Meanwhile, research shows happiness increases productivity and makes you more successful.

What does the military teach recruits in order to mentally toughen them up? No, it’s not hand-to-hand combat.

It’s optimism. So how do you get optimistic if you’re not feeling it?

Monitor the progress you’re making and celebrate it. Harvard’s Teresa Amabile‘s research found that nothing is more motivating than progress.

Via The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work:

(More on how to get happier here.)

Okay, so negativity isn’t making you procrastinate and holding you back. But what’s going to drive you forward?

2) Get Rewarded

Rewards feel good. Penalties feel bad. And that’s why they both can work well for motivating you.

Research shows that rewards are responsible for three-quarters of why you do things.

Via The 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People:

So treat yourself whenever you complete something on your to-do list.(Yes, this is how you train a dog but it will work for you too.)

Having trouble finding a reward awesome enough to get you off your butt? Try a “commitment device” instead:

Give your friend $100. If you get a task done by 5PM, you get your $100 back. If you don’t complete it, you lose the $100.

Your to-do list just got very emotional.

(More on how to stop procrastinating here.)

So you’re feeling positive and there are rewards (or penalties) in place. What else do you need? How about nagging, compliments and guilt?

3) Get Peer Pressure

Research shows peer pressure helps kids more than it hurts them.

(And face it, you’re still a big kid, you just have to pretend to be an adult most of the time — and it’s exhausting.)

Surround yourself with people you want to be and it’s far less taxing to do what you should be doing.

Via Charles Duhigg’s excellent book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business:

The Longevity Project, which studied over 1000 people from youth to death had this to say:

And the research on friendship confirms this. From my interview with Carlin Flora, author of Friendfluence:

(More on the science of friendship here.)

So we’ve got all three methods going for us. How do we wrap this all together and get started?

Sum Up

Got today’s to-do list? Great. That means the most rational thing to do now isstop being rational. Get those emotions going:

  1. Get Positive
  2. Get Rewarded
  3. Get Peer Pressure

You can do this. In fact, believing you can do this is actually the first step.

What’s one of the main things that stops people from becoming happier? Happiness isn’t part of how they see themselves so it’s harder to change.

Think of yourself as a motivated, productive person. Research shows how people feel about themselves has a huge effect on success.

Via The 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People:

Still unsure if you’ll be able to beat the procrastination demon? Then skip right to #3, peer pressure.

Forward this post to at least two friends and start holding each other accountable.

Now you’ve got something outside of yourself that’s watching and motivating you. And everything is easier — and more fun — with friends.

Saddle Up!

Getting started is often the hardest part.

How befitting a Texan author, a post entitled Saddle Up? Lone Star aside, some of my most valuable life lessons have been learned outside of the classroom and, in hindsight, are applicable to important academic, professional, and personal areas of life (which as we know often overlap).

Riding horses was a hobby that I enjoyed. In fact, over the course of my late teens and early twenties, I rode almost every day. It was my passion; it even weighted heavily in many significant life decisions I made during this time. I loved horses who were easy to ride and the ones who were tough to ride even more. I delighted in riding the horses who taught me lessons and the green ones who had so much to learn.

I loved riding … but truth be told, I didn’t always revel in the process of everything that I had to do before the ride. Some days gathering the motivation to go to the barn and saddle up was tough. I really had to remind myself of my core motivations when it was 15 degrees in the Kentucky winter and I needed to be riding a colt. Honestly, however, it wasn’t the act of riding that I wasn’t looking forward to: instead it was finding the initial motivation to saddle the horse.

Recently, while considering a writing deadline and contemplating procrastination, I had an epiphany. It wasn’t writing I was dreading; like saddling, what I was truly avoiding was the initial act of actually sitting down to write. That meant putting the comfortable, fun and easy aside. The path of least resistance is alluring: however, it’s probably not the path that will lead to timely and successful completion of a graduate degree. Just the idea of approaching some tasks can feel overwhelming and be a source of apprehension. Even if you know that once you’ve started it won’t be that bad, it’s important to remember that in confronting the uncomfortable we grow.

Here are some ways to get past the anxiety of “saddling up”:

Set goals. Succeeding in graduate school requires daily commitment and effort. That fact alone can cause anxiety. However, literally knowing that I would not be sitting at my desk for the rest of eternity helps me to get started. If I approach writing from the angle that I am trying to accomplish this section of the lit review, or set up this paper, or even organize priorities (!) you are closer to achieving that task than when you began. Setting goals is a great first step towards achieving them.

Be realistic about the amount of time that you actually have each day. Let’s be real: most of us don’t have four to five hours every day to devote to writing. Setting realistic goals will help you approach the task and keep your mind off the clock. Also, allot appropriate time to deadlines and large projects. Two hours on a Sunday afternoon is simply not enough time to write a ten page paper and give it your best. (See the point below about starting early.)

Plan breaks. Get to know yourself. When do you start to crack? Personally, I like to read in small chunks and then get up and take a walk or do a household chore. I don’t always check the clock, since I know when I’m starting to lose focus. There’s a lot of discussion and much founded in science about about how breaks, especially spent in nature, improve health and make us more creative. Giving myself permission to step away for a few moments takes away the anxiety of feeling like I’m diving into a bottomless sea.

Eat the frog. Mark Twain is credited with the quote: Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day. Like saddling a horse (and ab workouts, and cleaning the bathroom), when a task isn’t my favorite, I seek opportunities to avoid it. However, by approaching what it is that you don’t want to confront, you’ll be able to accomplish the task and move forward onto things you’d rather be doing.

Start early. Over the course of my time as a student, I’ve come to learn that much of my anxiety about getting started occurs when I’ve put something too big off for too long. I pay the cost of stress physically, mentally, and emotionally. Make a dedication to working on graduate school every day. It should be a daily commitment, just like sleeping eight hours and drinking plenty of water. Make a to do list, then an action program. Doing so can reduce the anxiety of approaching your tasks.

Take time to take care of yourself, your surroundings, and your relationships. This comes back to good time management. Make sure that you take time to tidy your desk area, take care of a few key household chores, and spend some time with your loved ones. Taking care of these things will help to ease your mind about setting aside several hours to devote to your writing responsibilities, which will diminish the anxiety of getting started.

On a Saturday afternoon when it’s sunny and 72 degrees, it can be quite hard to say no to social invitations, sit at your desk closed off from the rest of the world, and settle into several hours of writing or studying. Once you’re there, however, with every keystroke you’re moving towards your goals and just maybe things aren’t as painful as they seemed. Grad school is a short term sacrifice for long term gain! I’ve learned that acknowledging a source of discomfort takes away its power. Knowing that I dread the initial “saddling up” helps me to confront the chore of it and take action steps towards my purpose.

First-year Fears

The transition to graduate school is an exciting time in the life of a first-year graduate student, but it can also be a terrifying experience.  As a first-year graduate student, I will admit that the first couple of weeks of my graduate career were extremely overwhelming.  I found myself in an unfamiliar city surrounded by students who seemed to be more comfortable in this environment than I would ever be.  Many students already held advanced degrees, while I was making the transition straight from undergraduate.  Doubts arose and I asked myself the most daunting question that a graduate student can pose: “Do I really belong here?” Amidst the panic and feelings of discouragement, I hadn’t noticed that I had fallen victim to a prevalent phenomenon known as the “Impostor Syndrome.”

The Impostor Syndrome is characterized by feelings of inferiority that may be coupled with the idea that you are a “fake” or that everything you have accomplished thus far can be attributed to luck or any external factors not related to your own abilities.  These feelings can be quite debilitating and may interfere with your school work.  However, as graduate students we need to keep one important idea in mind: These feelings are absolutely unfounded.

So how can we overcome these feelings?  Well, one of the answers is in the question.  It is important to realize that you are not alone.  Other students have undoubtedly been through a similar experience.  Graduate students belong to a unique community, and it’s important to reach out to the other members of the community.  So talk with your fellow peers about their experiences as graduate students.  You may find that they share or have shared the same concerns as you, and they can help you find ways to resolve them.

It is also important to realize that none of us are perfect.  Most of us will encounter a moment in which we may start to question our competence.  At this point, it’s important to take a step back and recognize how far you have come.  This will give you a different perspective and will help you to realize how much you already know.  Keep in mind your moments of success and the steps you took to achieve this success.  At the same time, it is beneficial to identify potential areas of improvement.  Categorizing your weaknesses is a key step in working past these barriers in order to grow as a person and as a student.

Finally, take care to remember that you do belong.  You were accepted because your professors were impressed by you and believed that you would succeed in your program.  We are all talented and bright intellectuals that have the potential to make an impact in our respective fields.  When you are struggling with negative feelings, do not quit.  Be persistent in your efforts to overcome these feelings.  Have confidence in yourself and believe that you can accomplish great things – a positive attitude will yield a world of possibilities.

10 Surprising Time Management Strategies To Help You Graduate

If I Had Known Just Half Of These Time Management Strategies I Could Have Graduated a Year Sooner

I made the same mistake as most of my peers in graduate school: I was an overachiever.

While I did not realize this at the time, being an overachiever led to poor time management and reduced productivity. 

I set very ambitious goals, and when I did not meet my deadlines, I drove myself harder. I worked longer hours, sometimes to the point of complete exhaustion.

By my third year I had experienced several episodes of burnout.

I constantly felt guilty about not living up to my supervisor’s expectations, and I started to lose motivation.

I considered quitting graduate school because I did not see a way of out the dark tunnel I was in. 

I decided to stay in my program and I got my Ph.D, but the long hours at work impacted both my mental and physical health.

In retrospect, I realize that, if I had simplified my life (instead of trying to do too much at once), it could have been a more fun, relaxed, and probably shorter journey. 

Due to scheduling conflicts in my last year, I only had 20 days between my final committee meeting and my thesis defense.

This intense time-line forced me to change how I structured my days, because my old work habits did not work anymore.

I had to put my thesis writing on fast-track, so I did just the opposite of what I had done before: I slowed down, and I stopped trying to do everything perfectly.  

The surprising result was that I felt more focused and I made tangible progress every day.

Most importantly, I finished my thesis on time. 

The following time management strategies will help you to achieve your goals without having to give up sleep, meals or your social life.

 

  1. Give yourself permission to make mistakes

Yep, you read that correctly.

Perfectionism will kill your creativity and productivity.

Unfortunately, as adults we are too scared to take action because we dread making mistakes.

Do you remember being a kid and just having fun in the mud without worrying about getting dirty?

In a famous team-building game called the marshmallow challenge (where the aim is to build the tallest structure with a marshmallow on top), kindergartners consistently outperform business students in building taller and more interesting structures.

The reason is that kids are not afraid of making mistakes  – they are focused on having fun and they take action.

During the time-crunch of my last semester, I had to throw out perfectionism and just write.

As expected, I had to edit my first draft several times, but I met my graduation deadline and I authored three first-author publications.

After months of struggling, I overcame writer’s block by giving myself permission to put words on the paper, even if my sentences did not come out perfectly the first time. 

  1. Write in short sprints

I used to think it was great to have long stretches of time to write, and I set aside entire afternoons to work on progress reports or powerpoint presentations.

I did not have this luxury anymore in my last semester.

I had to improve my time management strategies, because in addition to writing my thesis, I was also running experiments.

To graduate on time I knew that I had to make progress every day.

Sometimes I only had 20 minutes between experimental timepoints, and during that period. I shut off my email and cell phone and started writing.

It is amazing how much you can accomplish in a short time when you are focused and uninterrupted.

In just 20 minutes, I was able to write an entire page of my thesis or review a whole journal article – tasks that would have taken me an hour or longer before.

Even if you have the luxury of long stretches of time, I encourage you to try “writing sprints” of 10-30 minutes each.

Focus on putting your ideas on paper, and do not worry about making mistakes. 

Some students find it helpful to do their writing sprints first thing in the morning, before they get interrupted or need to start putting out fires.

Make sure your phone and email are turned off, so you can put your attention fully on writing for just 10-30 minutes.

  1. Make a small spiral notebook your closest friend

Our minds are never at rest.

You might have noticed that ideas and errands pop into your head when you try to write.

Our natural urge is to act upon these chores right away.

The problem is that if you interrupt your writing to send an email or make a call, you will lose your train of thought – sometimes for the rest of the day.

If you try to resist the urge to act upon these to-do’s, the urge will just become stronger.

Your mind will not leave you alone until you do something about it.

But that does not mean that you have to send that email right away or make that phone call.

Why not capture the idea in a small spiral notebook that is always sitting next to you?

Instead of acting on urgent to-do’s right away, tuck them away safely in your little notebook, and attend to them after you have finished writing.

Surprisingly, most of your chores will not seem so urgent by the time you finish writing.

However, they will at least be out of your head and collected in one place, so you will feel on top of everything you need to attend to.

  1. Don’t get email and social media out of the way

Do you automatically check your email as soon as you turn on your computer?

When you begin your day by reading messages, you are prioritizing other people’s requests before taking action towards your long-term goals.

Responding to emails can distract you from your priorities and interfere with your concentration for the rest of the day.

To make consistent progress, begin your day by doing the highest priority task, especially one that you have been putting off for a while.

Finish this task in the morning when your concentration is at its peak. 

I used to think that I was productive by getting email out of the way first thing in the morning, and right after lunch.

Overall I probably spent 30-60 minutes a day reading and answering everyone’s emails.

Once I had to get my thesis done in 20 days, I only checked my email once a day in the late afternoon.

It only took 15 minutes a day to answer the most important emails!

This time management strategy saved me at least 30 minutes a day, and helped me to focus better early in the morning.

  1. Stop trying to please your supervisor

There is a big difference between being productive, and bending over backwards just to please your supervisor.

Focus on the end result they desire, not on trying to please him or her.

For example, if your supervisor asks you to complete a task, it is more important that the assignment is done well, rather than quickly just to show that you are diligent (unless there is urgency).

Some supervisors have not done hands-on research for a while, or perhaps they are not an expert in your particular topic.

If this is the case, they may not have a good idea of how long an assignment will take.

Be sure to communicate clearly any unreasonable expectations or unexpected challenges, so you can get your work done.

When you focus on “looking smart”, rather than learning, you might not reach out for help when you need to and end up working longer hours or make unnecessary mistakes.

In the long run, you will end up frustrated and resentful, and perhaps not learn as much as you could have, if you had asked for help when you needed it.

  1. Guilt-trip? Don’t buy the ticket

Most of my clients reach out to me because they want to be more productive.

There simply isn’t enough time in the day for them to get everything done.

When I ask my clients to describe their days, they list several commitments (social or family obligations) that they don’t want to do.  

“Why do you do it?,” I usually ask.

They hesitate, and give an answer that is some version of “I feel obligated to bring a dish to this potluck party…” or “I really need to babysit my friend’s daughter this weekend…..”

Why would someone do something that they don’t want to do?

To summarize, they feel guilty disappointing their friends or family members.

In reality, a potluck party will survive without your special dish, and your friend can find another babysitter occasionally.

You don’t need to isolate yourself from your friends and stop volunteering, but to lessen your load during crunch time you might need to defer or completely eliminate some commitments.

If you feel guilty, think about what you would tell your best friend.

Would you understand if he or she had to turn down an invitation to a potluck or babysitting to finish their thesis?

  1. Use worrying to your advantage

Did you ever have a well-meaning friend tell you to stop worrying?

It is usually not very helpful advice.

When you worry, there is a reason for it.

Your body and mind are telling you that there is an important issue that you need to attend to.

Worrying by running catastrophic scenarios through your head is not productive, but you can turn worrying into productive energy.

The biggest worries that graduate students have is that they will never graduate, or that they will be the last one in their class to graduate. 

What is your body telling you when you have this fear?

Perhaps you have a gut feeling that your project is dead-end, or that you are falling behind on your timeline, or maybe that it is time to have the “talk” with your supervisor (i.e. what you need to do to graduate).

When you catch yourself worrying, do something about it. 

According to Edward Hallowell, author of the book “Worry” , the best medicine for worrying is to “worry with someone else.”

Start by talking with a close friend, or perhaps someone in your field who can give you technical advice if your project is stuck.

Once you identify the exact cause of your worrying, make a plan to either get your research back on track or to talk to your supervisor about next steps. 

Either way, use the “worry signal” from your body to take action towards your long-term goals.

  1. Get an accountability buddy

Few things motivate us more than hard deadlines.

The problem is that there are few deadlines in graduate school and most of them are so far in the future (6-12 months), that it is tough to get motivated today.

An accountability buddy is someone who helps you to stay on track.

It is useful if the person is an expert in your field, but they don’t have to be.

Close friends who are non-judgmental can be very supportive and give you encouragement when you get stuck.

It is also important that the person is unbiased – they should not be affected at all by your graduation date.

Their primary role is to listen, so you can “think out loud” and actually solve most of your problems on your own.

For this reason spouses or significant others are probably not the best accountability buddies.

If your supervisor is available and willing to meet with you regularly, you can use those meetings to discuss the big picture and progress on milestones, not just the nitty-gritty details of your research.

  1. Celebrate every day

We are so experienced at beating ourselves up, and feeling like failures if we don’t get through our to-do list or if we fall behind on our milestones.

How do you feel when you beat yourself up?

Do you feel depressed and unmotivated?

These feelings will certainly not make you productive – in fact they will rob you of your self-confidence and make you even less productive.

Beating yourself up leads to a vicious cycle of low productivity, followed by loss of self-esteem, which can eventually lead to complete loss of motivation and possibly even quitting graduate school.

If you find that beating yourself up leads to better performance, you can continue.

But if you are looking for an alternative solution that will help you to reach your goals sooner, listen to some advice from Oprah Winfrey who was born into poverty and is now worth nearly 3 billion dollars:

“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.”

The next time you don’t get through your to-do list, you can either beat yourself up and feel like a failure, or you can treat yourself to a little treat (exercise, walk, dinner with friends), to celebrate what you have done.

You are still hanging on there, working in the trenches, putting in the long hours to get your thesis done, and that’s enough reason celebrate.

It is your choice. 

I can tell you from personal experience that you will reach your goals a lot faster if you acknowledge yourself every baby step, so why not start today?

  1. Procrastinate wisely

This is my favorite time management tip.

We all procrastinate, so we might as well procrastinate wisely.

It is so easy to keep yourself busy – there are tons of emails in your inbox, infinite number of social media messages to respond to, a home that probably needs cleaning, and friends and family members asking you to do favors.

No matter how many hours you work, you will probably not be able to get through all your to-do’s. If somehow you do get through everything, most likely new to-do’s will pop-up.

To-do lists remind me of seven-headed dragons.

No matter how many heads you chop off, new ones will grow back instantly.

If you focus on getting through a to-do list and pleasing everyone, you will end up frustrated, not get everything (or anything) done, and you will certainly not please the people who are counting on you.

Give yourself a little room to breathe. 

Let go of some of the projects that have been weighing down on you.

If a goal is not supporting you, your mission, or your loved ones, you are doing yourself and the world a big disservice by sinking time into it.

Make this the year when you focus on the most important goals and people in your life.

Everything else will take care of itself and you will feel a lot better too.

 

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