The (K)night Rider

Shifting to night study and the motivation. Plus, the Music Highlight

Photo by Gery Wibowo on Unsplash

A huge thank you!

First of all, a MILLION BILLION BAZILLION thanks to everyone who has supported my book launch! To those of you who posted it on social media, recommnded it or even bought it (WOW!) - thnak you thank you with all my heart!

If you do decided to get it, I will be very happy to get snapshots of your entries if you feel comfortable sharing - and then we can get the discussion rolling.

I will be sharing mine too!

And now, on to today’s topic!

Very often, I speak with my own students or other PhD researchers about the times of day we work on our studies.

Discussions usually revolve around these questions:

• What time do you work best?

• What time do you study?

A few months ago, I created two polls on here. Regarding the poll if people work in slots they plan or whenever they find the time, the results were 50-50. The second poll asked people whether they are a morning or night person, and the early birds were the sweeeping majority!

In discussions with my students, a lot of them are parents, or work overtime or until late, or take care of their homes and ailing parents, and their pets - and they also mostly need to study at night. Up until three years ago, I could also do work whenever I had free time and I usually pre-planned all my empty slots to work on my PhD. Ever since my dad’s health adventure, night times have become a constant for me too - it is nice and quiet and I have a nice and really bright night light that makes it cosy. I get all my stuff out to study and I get going!

Or do I?

• What happens if we are working the whole day, and the last thing we have the energy to do is study or work on a paper or presentation?

• What do we do after a full day of taking care of our home, parents, children, pets - when we are just plain exhausted?

• What do we do if deadlines are looming and we need to finish things - and we just cannot?

Here are some tips that I will split into two categories:

The mini-productivity, motivational list

• Lower the bar. Tell yourself, I’ll work for just 10 minutes. We might last longer, we might not. Ten minutes are better than nothing! And we end up not exhausting ourselves in the evening.

• Identify the smallest possible task: rename files, read one paragraph, format one reference, or listen to a podcast or article (some sites offer the audio and there are also tools that can read them for you) while making dinner.

• Keep a next step note at the end of every session so you never have to decide where to begin.

Some take-it-easy tips

• We should first of all remember that rest is productive and an exhausted brain rarely produces its best work.

• Prioritize recovery first: a short walk, a shower, a cup of tea, or simply sitting quietly for 15 minutes can make a surprising difference. I like watching cooking and gardening videos on YouTube! Changing our scenery can help us a great deal, even in the evening.

• Give yourself permission to do some short external tasks instead of demanding creative work from ourselves. Examples include organizing notes, proofreading, updating references, or replying to emails; things taht do not require too much mental capacity.

• Ask where we can reduce our mental load. Can one household task wait until tomorrow?

I will never advocate staying up super late or going on with three hours of sleep every day, which can be very harmful in the long run. There are too many people out there on social media pushing this type of lifestyle, and people can get sick real soon and really seriously too.

Naps! The best, if we can have them. If not possible, even lying down for ten minutes can make a world of difference.

Do you have any more tips?

The Music Highlight

Who can ever forget this intro? The music, the voice-over, and David Hasselhoff, aka Michael Knight! : )