The journey toward acquiring a doctoral degree is extremely rewarding, yet, it is perhaps one of the most challenging of all academic journeys. Every young PhD student begins this journey with a lot of enthusiasm and curiosity, harboring a dream of contributing to science and society through a dedicated work plan for PhD. However, on this long journey as a student pursues their PhD, work-life balance goes haywire.
On striving to achieve a PhD work-life balance, students often find themselves perplexed. Eventually the stressors of the PhD workload may create a dent in their dreams as the rough edges of the journey become apparent. Many students take a long time to acknowledge these ‘expectation v/s reality’ issues, and this in turn leads to anxiety, affecting their productivity as well as well-being.
Despite having a work plan for PhD research, it is hard for students, at least in the initial stages, to reconcile with the fact that their work plan for PhD is never as fool proof as the one they envisioned on paper. Experiments may fail, results aren’t always ‘perfect’, and timelines can go haywire if standardization protocols get prolonged. Even after acknowledging these issues, there is the constant pressure of meeting mentor expectations, which can hamper the students’ lifestyle and overall PhD work-life balance. It may lead to long work hours, including night shifts and working over weekends.
For students living away from their home country, maintaining a PhD work-life balance comes with an added challenge of acclimatizing to new cultures. At times, these challenges even adversely affect their mental health giving rise to anxiety issues, burnout, or even imposter syndrome, all of which can hamper their work plan for PhD research and, in turn, their productivity. Although mental health issues are undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges faced by PhD students during their doctoral journey, the impact of poor mental health is unfortunately a largely overlooked topic in academia.1
While the need of striking a PhD work-life balance is understood by most students, implementing it can be tough, largely due to the limited availability of resources that can guide students toward creating and maintaining an effective work plan for PhD research.
The work plan for PhD varies for each student as it’s tailored to their needs. So, creating a standard schedule sample to manage PhD workload is not advisable. However, here are some tips and advice for PhD students to make this process of creating an optimal PhD student lifestyle for themselves easier and more enjoyable.2,3
1. Manage time effectively
To understand how to achieve a PhD work-life balance, students need to consciously identify the time and energy leakages occurring throughout the day. This will help them in identifying the patterns in which they are spending time. Tasks requiring similar mental capabilities can be grouped together during the day, thereby minimizing decision fatigue. Similarly, initiating collaborations and rejecting additional responsibilities can save a considerable amount of time leading to an improved execution of the PhD work plan.
2. Establish a routine
The doctoral journey is a bumpy ride with unpredictable twists and turns. This is the main cause of anxiety in many students since, as human beings, we are wired to function optimally within a regulated and controlled system. While factors such as the PhD workload and work hours cannot be optimized beyond a certain point, the time outside the lab can be managed with more ease. By dedicating sufficient time toward household chores and unwinding activities, and creating a PhD work-life balance, students can develop a sense of security through a sustainable and predictable daily routine. Having a work plan for PhD is good but having a leisure plan is better to help you maintain a healthy PhD student lifestyle that can, in turn, boost productivity at work.
3. Invest in mental and physical well-being
To get the right work plan for PhD, research, identify, acknowledge, and then tackle the stressors that hamper physical and mental well-being. Engaging in physical exercises, thought-journaling, and (if needed) seeking advice from a therapist, preferably someone experienced in advising PhD students, can be some ways to achieve a lifestyle based on PhD work-life balance.
4. Indulge in a hobby
The anxiety of managing the PhD workload can be balanced by pursuing a hobby where the mind is free to explore without any limitations. This can, in turn, lead to enhanced creativity and innovation in ideas at work and help achieve a sustainable PhD work-life balance. An improved PhD student lifestyle can help one flourish.
5. Connect regularly with friends and family
It is impossible for friends and family members to empathize completely with the problems faced during the doctoral journey, especially if they do not share the same love for research. But it is essential to connect with them regularly, as they can provide an objective and impartial lens to work-related problems. This can help in resolving the problems altogether or make the problems seem totally insignificant. Either way, it can help tackle the anxiety associated with failures in executing the work plan for PhD research.
By now it may be clear that in the journey of attaining the right PhD work-life balance, students should make a series of conscious choices and lifestyle changes that need to be made every single day. Exercising these choices is not an easy task, but can be extremely rewarding in terms of reducing anxiety and burnout-related issues, as well as to improve productivity and well-being in the long run.
References
- Mental health of graduate students sorely overlooked. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01751-z.
- Bartlett, M. J., Arslan, F. N., Bankston, A. & Sarabipour, S. Ten simple rules to improve academic work–life balance. PLOS Comput. Biol. 17, e1009124 (2021).
- Self-care for the scientist. https://www.apa.org https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2015/09/matters.
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