Every little step

Even something little can help - plus, the Music Highlight

Photo by Lindsay Henwood on Unsplash

We have talked about productivity many times on this Substack - and we endorse healthy productivity here : )

We go through our PhD planning our time, making to-do lists, fighting against deadlines. Some days work out well, some not so much due to various reasons.

A lot of PhDs told me this very important tip: on the days you can’t, or don’t feel like it, or something blocks you from doing a good chunk of work, do something even very small if possible. What could every little step be?

• Reading a page or two of an article or chapter of a book.

It gives us the beginning of the gist of the article or chapter, and who knows? We might keep going, we might not, but that’s okay. At least we will know what it is about next time we pick it up!

• Taking a few notes.

Taking a few notes even just bullet points can be really helpful - about something we have read or thought about.

Sometimes it’s not about producing perfectly polished writing, but about leaving notes for your future self. A sentence, a question, a highlighted quote. These are small anchors you can return to.

• Listening to a short podcast.

Even listening to a brief podcast connected to our research can help, teach us something new or give us a new idea about our research.

• Opening our document and rereading what we wrote last time.

No pressure to edit or add anything. Often, this is the gentle push that leads to a sentence… and sometimes another. And another! Or maybe not. Maybe we can see how well we write last time, refresh our memory about the pioints we added, or plainly see what needs to be improved.

• Adding a single reference.

One citation, one PDF renamed properly, one article added to our reference manager, if we use one (I do everything manually : ) It may sound small, but it reduces future work a little bit - and that matters more than we think!

The Music Highlight

I dare you not to sing along to this tremendous hit!