PhD Productivity Isn’t Real

I’m 3 months into my PhD.

I’ve watched maybe every YouTube video on how to be productive as a PhD student. Luckily, there’s only like 8 videos.

A lot of them share advice that’s akin to treating a PhD like a 9-5 job. The problem is, a PhD is not a 9-5 job.

The difference between PhD’s and 9-5s.

As someone who’s only worked a 9-5 for a short amount of time, I might be slightly misinformed. But my experience of 9-5 work is working through a set number of tasks. It’s very output-focused, production-based.

You have deliverables to complete and are generally expected to work the hours you’re set. Of course studies show that most people only work 3 out of the 8 hours a day, but I digress.

In a PhD, you have one main output: a 100,000 word report.

This report is due within the next 3-4 years. Within those years, you will work on various projects and put them together to build a collection of research that fits into that report, known as a thesis.

These projects may have their own internal deliverables and elements of this echo a 9-5 loosely. But unlike a 9-5, the nature of the tasks you do rely more on your ability to think rather than your ability to produce.

There are 2 kinds of tasks: thinking and producing

9-5s consist more of producing tasks and PhD’s are reliant on thinking tasks. After all, you’re becoming a Doctor of Philosophy, which literally is the study of thinking.

Producing tasks tend to require brute force to get through them. Either through time or effort or shared labour. Thinking tasks don’t have a set time. You can solve problems in 5 minutes or 5 hours. The problem gets solved in either outcome.

Thinking tasks are hard to measure through time investment. They are also energy intensive on our bodies, which is why rest is so important as a PhD student. We need our brains to be in top shape to be able to complete these thinking tasks.

Things like coming up with project ideas, linking our projects to different domains, and reading a wide range of literature. The ability to problem solve relies greatly on our thinking capacity.

The distinction between thinking and producing tasks means that you can’t apply the rules of productivity in a producing role (9-5) to a thinking role (PhD). Even industries like secondary school or undergrad follow more of a producing approach.

So how do PhD student’s remain productive?

I prioritise rest and slow working.

  • I take a lot of breaks. Thinking is energy intensive. After doing a lot of thinking I tend to go on a walk or change tasks.
  • I don’t measure my working output by hours. There are days where I work 2-3 hours and days where I work more, or less. Thinking tasks aren’t bound by time. It’s not worth pushing more to work more hours when it doesn’t always translate to more output.
  • I experiment a lot. I trial working in different environments such as the library, cafes, the train, or remotely. Changes in scenery help a lot. I also trial analog working vs digital working.
  • I focus a lot less on trying to be a productive PhD student. In my head, a productive PhD student wouldn’t spend all their time figuring out how to be productive through cough watching YT videos about it cough. They would simply get the work done and improve their habits overtime. This applies to all forms of productivity.

I won’t lie to you – I prefer my working patterns as a PhD student over undergrad lifestyle.

As a PhD student, I get a good amount of work done without it being tied solely to my time investment. This was always a big goal for me post undergrad. I hated being in fields or environments where the quality of my work was solely dependent on whether I could sink 40+ hours into it.

A lot of coding courseworks felt like a competition of who had the most unhealthy working patterns such that they could keep sinking hours and hours into their work to get a 1st class. That was never going to be my reality, and I pride myself in never letting all-nighters be something I engage in.

I like knowing that I can get good work done in my own time. It’s freeing. Many people got me mad scared for the stresses of workload during a PhD. But honestly speaking, I’ve not had that yet.

Maybe it will hit me later. But even then, I still feel it’s a lot more manageable than what people told me.

Anyways,

PhD productivity isn’t real because it’s not the same as productivity described in 9-5s or student life. PhD’s are quite unique as they fit loosely in a 9-5 but also have the benefits of being a qualification that you get as a student.

They are a very thinking-based kind of qualification and there’s not much else like it. It makes sense that it’s rules of productivity won’t be the same as others.

The main idea is, to take your time and improve gradually. Don’t sink everything into being a productive PhD student. Allow yourself to be inefficient and eventually you will improve with time.

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