In this episode, you get to hear a live coaching session with Laura! Laura is a part time PhD student who has tried every planning and task management tool possible! She shares that she finds it stressful to even think about planning and is worried about how to manage the last couple of years of her research. I coach her as I would in a private coaching session and we reach some great insights about how Laura is already planning way more than she gives herself credit for and how she can keep developing her skills. Perfect for anyone who has ever been self critical, worried about planning or fed up of never finding the perfect system!
Vikki: Hello and welcome to episode 27 of the PhD Life Coach. And this is going to be another of my special episodes where I have somebody on to be coached. So today I have Laura with me who has volunteered to be coached around a challenge that she's experiencing at the moment. So hi, Laura, how are you doing?
Laura: Hi, yeah, no, I'm really good. It's really exciting, uh, to be doing this today.
Vikki: It's amazing to have you here. So tell everyone a little bit about who you are, where you're at in your PhD journey.
Laura: So yeah, so I'm a part time PhD student, so I'm in my fourth year. So that's like year two in equivalent full time years. I am in information studies. So, researching kind of how people use and experience information and I'm looking at it in the context of running as a sport and in my day job, I work part time as a librarian at a university.
Vikki: Amazing. So good. I have a lot of part time students that listen to the podcast and who are part of my membership program and do one on one coaching with me. And often they feel like they're experiencing very different challenges. And one of the things that I think is so useful is regardless of whether when people listening, whether you're part time or full time, I think the things that part time students learn how to do are obviously useful for other part time students, but can be really useful for full time students as well, because you've almost got a more extreme version of this really long, drawn out project, which feels like that as full time, so even more so as part time. So, tell me a little bit about what is feeling challenging at the moment.
Laura: I think it's very much, you know, four years of doing it, and for me, that feeling very much kind of like we've kind of crossing over that halfway point now, and yeah, you know, maybe a little bit of pressure around how much there's going to be left to do, but it is also very much that maintaining that momentum and that energy, you know. I've been doing this since 2020, we're now 2024 and that seems to be kind of rapidly moving on, but I feel like I've still got a really long way left to go. Um, and how do I, how do I keep myself, I mean, I love my research. I love my topic and you know, sometimes I can't imagine not having this in my life, but at the same time, it's like gotta keep, gotta keep going.
Vikki: Perfect. So tell me more about how you're experiencing the momentum at the moment. Is that, does it ebb and flow? Is it always low and you're having to kick yourself into it? Does it come in spurts? How do you experience it?
Laura: I think, I, I mean, so I had a really difficult year last year. I broke my ankle partway through the year, which, as someone who's researching running, was, you know, an even more incredibly difficult setback. And I got COVID, I just felt like it was like a real struggle of a year to keep going. So I do kind of feel like I'm coming into this, this second half of this new academic year with a bit more of like a renewed, like, finding my energy again but it's very much trying to get into that rhythm of, you know, balancing going to work, doing the PhD, how everything kind of slots together. And I think that can be, that can be really difficult. And if, you know, I've come home after a, a really long week at work and it's like right time to sit down and try and get myself back into this headspace of doing my research.
Vikki: So I think one of the things that's really interesting when we're thinking about Finding things sort of difficult, looking kind of over a long period of time, sort of, oh, I need to keep momentum going. We could either focus on how you can look at that sort of timescale, the kind of now till the end of your PhD timescale, and think about that in a slightly different way than you are at the moment. Because I think sometimes when we tell ourselves, Oh my God, I've got to keep momentum for all this time. That can be an exhausting thought in itself. So we could think about that side of things. Alternatively, what can be useful is to actually draw the focus a bit closer to where we are and sort of almost train, train ourselves the right word, not sure, but to kind of encourage ourselves to think about how we can maintain momentum over a week or a month as our key focus with the belief that as long as we keep doing that, the rest will come together. So which feels like it might be more useful avenue for you to explore, do you think?
Laura: Hmm, yeah, because I, yeah, because I tend to, I say if I was to really reflect on my working kind of habits, I'm much a get a burst of like, so I'm so hyper focused on this and it's all I can think about it's all I'm going to do. And then I kind of feel a bit burnt out and I can't, I'm like, I'm going to have to like, lie down for a week and I've drained myself of all my energy. So I'd say I don't, in the short kind of term, I don't work in a very sustainable way. But thinking about the big goals to me is quite often quite overwhelming and stressful, so I do, I'm, I, I'm good at thinking, okay, what am I going to do this week?
Vikki: Okay.
Laura: But I don't necessarily, you know, I'm not always very good at thinking, or what, what, what might I be working on in six months time. And how do I get to that point? If, does that make sense?
Vikki: Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. And again, I think it leaves us in a place where there's a couple of different things that we could think about. We could think about how you could look after yourself to work in a bit more of a sustainable way day to day, which might then help you feel like it's going to be easier to keep that going in the long term, or we could address the bit that feels a bit overwhelming and actually dive into how could you spend a small amount of time thinking about that longer term picture in a way that doesn't feel stressful and overwhelming or at least where we can handle and regulate that stress and overwhelm.
Laura: Yeah. And that kind of, I suppose that kind of feels like a good thing to do because sometimes I wonder if the reason why I get into these, like, okay, right, all, all I'm going to do every night this week until like 11 o'clock at night is... all the words are going to pour out of me and I'm going to be so in the zone. And sometimes I think that comes from a place of, of panic. Like, oh, don't feel like I've made much progress for a while and now I'm going to go into like super, super panic writing mode and churn out a load of stuff.
Vikki: But if you're not quite sure what direction you're going in and where you want to be at certain times, then that can be challenging, right? Because you're putting in all this effort, but you don't know whether it's going in the right direction at the pace you want it to be.
Laura: Possibly, yes. But yeah, if, if someone said to me, right, sit down and, plan out what you want to be working on and when for the rest of 2024, I would probably like freeze up and go, Oh no, no, no, no, no.
Vikki: Okay. Well that sounds, if you're willing, then that sounds, and I don't think we do a full year. If a full year feels like it would be a freeze, then one thing that can be really useful to do with that, and we'll think a bit more about why you feel like this, but one thing that can be really useful is to find a period of time that is beyond what you feel comfortable planning for easily, regularly, but is not as far as like completely panic inducing. And I think this is really useful for people because I think people often struggle to have these broader, perspectives. And often I find it's because people think that they need to know more detail than they actually do and so we avoid thinking about it at all. And so I think if we can go through some of that, then I think that will be really useful for people listening who are trying to do these sorts of longer term planning as well. So tell me what is it about planning ahead that feels stressful for looking further ahead than that?
Laura: I think it's that indecisiveness and how do I, how do I know what I'm supposed to be doing in the future? Because I do, I even, you know, I just feel like sometimes I feel like I just about know what I'm doing now. So it is that, you know, the committing to the abstractness of and the potential. I don't. Yeah. It's I know some people seem to find it almost quite comforting to have things planned out, but I do not. And I think it probably must really frustrate my supervisors as well actually. And it's like, you know, what's Thinking about the bigger picture, um, and me being like, Oh, I'm, I'm not a planner.
Vikki: Well, one thing I will reassure you and everybody with, and I do workshops on this is we are never responsible for other people's thoughts and feelings. So you show up how you want to show up and how you are with your supervisors. And then your supervisors are grownups who are allowed to have whatever thoughts and feelings they have. And everybody, in my experience, everybody stops acting quite so weird if we just accept that people will think and feel what they think and feel, and it's not our responsibility to micromanage it. Um, so, we'll leave your supervisor's frustrations over there. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, who knows. Your responsibility is for you to think about how you want to show up, okay?
Laura: Exactly, exactly.
Vikki: So, a question. Is it the idea of making a longer term plan? So that period of time where you're actually thinking about it and planning it that feels difficult, or is it the notion of having a longer term plan? So if your fairy godmother could come down and just say, here's your plan for the next six months. It's all stuff you really like and want to do. I'm magic. So I've taken into account absolutely everything you want, but it's realistic as well. Um, do you like the idea of having it or is there a challenge with that as well?
Laura: Oh, what a, what a question. I think part of me does like the idea of, you know, the magic plan just appears for you. I think part of me would then be kind of like, but what if, what if it doesn't go to plan?
Vikki: What would you like about it? So it's okay if you're having different sides of the coin, how you're feeling about it, and we'll explore both. But let's start with what would feel good about having a three month plan or a six month plan?
Laura: The security of, like, here's a mapped out kind of direction that we can, we can kind of follow to help us feel less chaotic all the time.
Vikki: Why do you think it would reduce the chaotic feeling?
Laura: Because a lot less energy would like, and like mental energy would constantly be used. . Trying to work out, okay, where are we again? What are we doing right now? What, what should I be doing today? What's my priority today? I think I, I, you know, when you, especially when you're part time and you know, you've got one day a week that is your, your day to sit down. And, you know, you're not working, that's your PhD day and then you find yourself thinking, okay, well, what, what should I be doing today? You know, if I could be like, okay, it's, this is, this is the plan says we're doing this today. Let's just try and do this.
Vikki: And how do you think that would affect your productivity and how you feel about your work?
Laura: Again, it's, I suppose it's sometimes, you know, is there an element of needing that yeah that mental flexibility to be able to be like, sometimes I'm a bit like, well, what do I feel able to be doing right now? It's almost like needing like a little menu of these are the things that need to be done. Which one do I have the right brain space for right now? Cause of course you don't always, you know, you might be like, okay, I need to I should be writing, like, this findings chapter but actually, you know, there's stuff going on that means I, I don't feel I can get into it right now. It's, yeah, it's really, it's the, particularly kind of being in a, a bit of a writing. stage right now, although the way my, the way we've kind of structured my PhD is that I've done some data collection over the last year, I've spent the last few months doing analysis and writing it all up. And now I need to start moving back into another phase of data collection, which I think is not always how lots of not, not, it's not kind of the typical way you see PhD kind of timelines.
Vikki: So you're sort of switching between some different things at the moment.
Laura: Yeah, which was a deliberate strategy that we thought about that would be useful to help me with this issue of you know, the, I like novelty, I like to have fun new things to be thinking about. So that was a, a good strategy that me and my supervisors talked about. And I was like, actually, I think doing it like this would be much better for how my brain works than spending two years gathering a load of data and then having to sit down And all I've got left to do is write about it.
Vikki: And that's something that's going to be different between different individuals, right? Because I coach people where their dream is just to have one thing that they can just immerse themselves in and do that. And the task switching between things, they find really difficult. Whereas other people, I'm a bit more like you, other people like to have a few different things.Um, what I want to notice though, is that you have said that you don't like and find it very difficult to plan for the future. But this bit of what project sits where and therefore what activities you're going, that sounds like you've been planning for the future.
Laura: It's like, yeah, I've been planning for the future, but I've not been committed. Yeah, it's, I've not been, I suppose it's all. Yeah, it's. It's funny that isn't it actually, but yeah, the idea that do actually have actually been doing the planning. I just don't recognize it as planning, because it's maybe it's not what what I think other people think planning looks like. It's not in a Gantt chart. It's not in a big thing on the wall. It's not in like a anything it's just all in my head.
Vikki: And this is so interesting. I want all of you listening to think about this in your own lives is often we have these pictures of ourselves, right? As to what person we are and what we do and what we don't do. You know, for a long time, I had a belief that I was someone who over committed and then didn't finish things. And that used to really hold me back because I really, really believed this and it almost made it true because when I believed I was somebody who overcommitted and then didn't finish things, I had, I, there was no real incentive to not overcommit because it's, oh, that's what I do. And it took quite a bit of coaching for me to be like, Yeah, I overcommit, and there's some things I don't finish, but there's a lot of things I've finished. There's a lot of things I have done successfully. And so this image of myself as being someone who didn't finish things was not only not helpful, it just wasn't true. And so I think recognizing that in some ways you are someone who plans for the future and who plans for the future with their own preferences in mind. So it's not that you've planned out a way of doing studies that's just the most efficient or whatever. You've planned out a broad structure, even if it's not written down in a Gantt chart or anything, but you've planned out a broad structure that takes into account what needs to be done and what might work for you. How does it help to think that you are already doing this a bit?
Laura: It, it, that's such, yeah, to have that kind of reflected back to me as yeah, the, the idea that. You know, I'm not just aimlessly wandering through a PhD. I have really thought about, you know, made those decisions around when to do particular things, and where we are going to go with it next. I think part of my, part of my big like kind of block on this is often to do with the fact that I'm the type of person who will be like, Oh, a shiny new, like productivity tool. Oh, a new notebook, a new diary. I'm going to use this diary. This is going to be the system for me now. And I find it really hard to pick a system and stick to it because I kind of forget to use it.
Laura: And so I've done all the different, you know, the, the websites with all the little to do doing done boards on the calendars, the spreadsheets, the bullet journals, I have literally tried every single system out there and I'll get all like super excited about it for like a week and I'll put all the stuff in it and I'll set it all up. And then I'll just completely forget to look at it. So I find planning stressful because I find it hard to. follow through with whatever, you know, with that system for planning things out.
Vikki: If anyone's watching this on YouTube, so if you're on podcasts, just so you know, I post all of these on YouTube as well. Um, it's exactly the same. It's not like fancy YouTube videos, but if you prefer that format, you can just do it. Anybody watching on YouTube will see that I was grinning all the way through Laura's saying that then. And that was not because I was laughing at you, Laura. That was because I was empathizing with you so hard. In fact, I think my fourth ever podcast episode. It was called Why You Don't Need Another Planner. So if you haven't listened to that one yet, I would highly recommend you go back to that. Uh, exactly the same. And so many people experience this and we can think about why that really isn't a problem and it isn't, but we can also think about why we choose to do it. And we're going to go that way first. So why do you want to find the system that works?
Laura: Because, well, so yeah, like, if, it's like, you know, I, you know, you can't, can't hold everything in your head when it comes to all the things that need to be done and when they need to be done by. I mean, I can try and hold them all in my head and, you know, you get told, don't you, like planning, having, you know, all the tasks mapped out and the deadlines and when you're going to do them by and keeping track of it all. But, you know, you get told that's a really important part of project management skills. And part of me still, um, maybe, yeah, that idea that surely there's gotta be, like, the perfect solution out there, I just haven't found it yet. Um, I know, I do know that that is probably not actually true.
Vikki: Possibly not. How would you feel if you had the perfect system? What things would you say to yourself, and what emotions would you experience?
Laura: You know, I just, I don't, I don't actually know the answer to that question. Like, because part of me does recognise that I don't, there isn't a perfect system out there for me, so I do find it quite hard to imagine.
Vikki: But what thought and feeling are you chasing? Because when we're looking for a new solution for something, we're essentially chasing a thought and feeling combination.
Laura: Reassurance that I'm doing it right.
Vikki: If you had the perfect system, you'd tell yourself you're doing it right, and you'd feel reassured.
Laura: Yeah, I'd be like, I feel so secure that, I'm, I'm doing everything I should be doing right now at the right time. That kind of relief that you're not going to drop any of all the things you're juggling.
Vikki: I'm not going to drop any balls. And this is really interesting and it might sound to listeners like we've slightly gone off on a tangent away from planning. But one of the things that I've found with myself and with clients is that is that one of the biggest barriers to planning can be this belief that we won't follow through on our plan anyway and therefore it's a waste of time and it's a bit of a painful waste of time because we're going to beat ourselves up for not following through on our plan as well. So understanding this stuff is a really important step to feeling willing and able to plan so that that doesn't feel quite such a threatening thing to do. So I want you to notice that what you really want isn't the perfect notion template that's going to automate all your everything's or the perfect the perfect daily planner that's got gold edges. This is back from the days when I fell for all this stuff. I still do to some extent. You know, whether it's old school, whether it's the perfect technical solution, it's not the solution that we're looking for. It's that we want to feel secure and we want us to feel reassured and we want to believe that we're on top of things and we're doing the right things. But anyone who's familiar with the self coaching model that I teach knows that the system we're using is just a circumstance. Yeah, it's just a fact. I have a Notion template. I have an Excel file. I have a diary system. I have a bullet journal, whatever it is. And the rest of it comes from our thoughts. And so we don't actually need a new system in order to feel more reassured and more secure. We just need to change the things that we're saying to ourselves all the time. Because it's when we're telling ourselves, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't even, you know, I never plan ahead. I just wing it and work hard and burn out and all of these things. When we tell ourselves all of this stuff, that's what makes us feel insecure. That's what makes us feel like we're not in control of this last period of our PhD, is all these things we tell ourselves. Okay. So before we get into the practicalities of actually how we can plan, tell me things that you already believe about yourself that make you feel reassured or secure. So we're not going to, I'm the most organized person in the world, because that's, that's not helpful. Things you already believe that make you feel secure?
Laura: Like, you know, I know that I'm good at getting things done when they need to get done.
Vikki: Perfect. I'm good at getting things done when they need to get done. Perfect. What else?
Laura: I think I actually quite, I enjoy the, the, the sense of achievement of finishing off a piece of work that, you know, has been hanging over me. And then, you know, all of, and you think, you think you're never going to get it done. But I really, you know, I, I enjoy that sense of like achievement and those little moments of, and I'm good at recording those little moments.
Vikki: Okay. Amazing. Because lots of people aren't. So that's a real strength.
Laura: I don't have to do lists, but I am good at two. I am good at things. I've done lists. I love that.
Vikki: In fact, I have a whole episode about done lists as well. So if anybody's interested in that, it's called why you shouldn't have a to do list. Um, so yes, that can be enormously important because so many people rush from what I need to do next, but as soon as it's done, it's forgotten and they're on to the next thing. So that's a huge strength. So you're someone who gets stuff done and you're somebody who gives themselves credit and sort of recognizes those achievements of getting stuff done.
Laura: Yeah, I like little milestones and I do, I, you know, I think I am good at recognizing the, you know, the fact that PhD, it's not all about the end result. It's about everything you do along the way.
Vikki: So you're someone who has milestones?
Laura: Yes, I suppose I am. I suppose I am.
Vikki: You're starting to sound a lot like somebody who plans a little bit more than they give themselves credit for. Because you can't achieve a milestone if you haven't got a milestone.
Laura: That's very true, isn't it? I'm a I'm a, I'm a planner that can't recognize the fact that they plan ahead.
Vikki: Who at the moment doesn't believe that or doesn't spend time thinking those thoughts? It's not that you can't. At the moment, you don't spend time thinking about the times that you have planned.
Laura: Um, and don't, I think, yeah, well, you know, those, if you, you know, to ask me What are you very good at believing about yourself that is a very negative, self limiting belief? It probably would be , you know, I'm terrible at planning. I'm disorganized, I'm chaotic. I, you know, and I probably do limit myself with, with that a lot 'cause I can't stick to a system.
Vikki: I mean, I don't think the problem here is the, you can't stick to a system. I think the problem here is that you're telling yourself you should be able to stick to a system perfectly.
Laura: Yeah. And I think. That, someone, I had that given to me as a piece of advice once from someone else, um, who was trying to give me some support with getting, you know, getting, getting into good like habits in the PhD, and their advice was, Just pick a system and stick to it, and all will be well.
Vikki: Yeah, that's not what, that's not exactly what I'm saying. I, I sort of agree with that. Yeah. Rather than the kind of pursuit of the perfect system. I don't think there's actually anything wrong with switching systems. I mean, switching systems every couple of weeks and spending lots of time researching the perfect system and watching YouTube videos about how to do the perfect system and spending lots of money on planners you never use, yeah, that's probably not ideal. But switching up how you do it every now and again, not a problem, not a big deal.
Laura: Or if you're like, if your system just kind of fizzles out, or morphs into something different, then maybe that's okay? Like, yeah, I think maybe I, you know, given myself a lot of, a lot of, of pressure to be like, be like the perfect, like, super organized phD student, because you kind of need to be super organized when you're working in such limited blocks of time. And yeah, that probably is a bit of a barrier to how I think about what planning is and whether I'm good at it and things like that.
Vikki: Cause I think one of the biggest issues for want of a better word is the belief that if the planning system fizzles out, to use your phrase there, that the A, that that's a big problem and B, that that means you need a different system. I have stuck to, and I'm going to tell you in a minute what my definition of stuck to is, because it is definitely not the same as what most people's is at the moment. I have stuck to the same planning system now for probably 18 months, something like that, which for me is revolutionary. This is, you know, my previous best was about two weeks, genuinely two, three weeks. And the reason I've stuck to it this time, it's because I have completely changed my definition of what sticking to it means, okay? And when it fizzles out, I don't take that as a sign that this is the wrong system. I just notice that it's fizzled out and start doing it again.
Laura: Yes, rather than thinking, oh, it fizzled out, therefore it can't have been working. Yes. I need to invent a whole brand new process for doing it.
Vikki: Because when it fizzles out, the habit can be to make that mean something about the tool that you're using, i. e. that it's the wrong system, you haven't come up with the right way of doing it, or that it says something about you. That you can never stick to a system and that you are somehow flawed. Often, we make it mean both, which makes it a whole heap of fun. We have both the wrong system and the wrong brain and we're screwed and we'll never succeed.
Laura: Yeah, that sounds so familiar. Like, it's me. I, um, I am not good enough to, you know, To do this planning, why, why am I not good enough to be a planner? And I think maybe one of the, I suppose one of the big fears might be that, you know, I'll get towards the real end of the PhD and find myself in a place where I'm thinking, Oh, if only you'd stuck to, if only you'd put more effort into following that Gantt chart, we might not be in a in a, in a mess right now. And of course, I don't know I'm going to be in a mess in like a year or so's time, but I have that fear that I might be, and it could be my fault for not planning well enough.
Vikki: Do you know the best thing about that fear though? That fear is a fear of a thought that you might have in the future. You can decide that you're just not going to think that thought, or you're just not going to believe and give it lots of airtime. You can decide that no matter what happens between now and then, you're not going to spend lots of time telling yourself you should have done it differently, and you're going to choose instead to focus on things that are also true. That you've made progress that you've got through, you've got stuff done, et cetera, et cetera, you know, you've already said you're good at recognizing the things you've achieved. You can decide I'm just not going to, if my big fear is that I'm going to tell myself I should have sorted this out earlier, I could just not do that. And of course it will still come up. I'm not saying we can't just, that we can just delete these thoughts from our heads, but we can decide. One of the phrases I really like, that I use with myself a lot is the, We don't speak about ourselves like that. And I have to remind myself of that. I'm going to do a podcast episode. In fact, by the time this one comes out, it will have already come out. So check it out, guys. It's great. I haven't recorded it yet, but I'm sure it will be. About the things that I'm still doing wrong in inverted commas and how I've learned to be okay with it. And so I do still have these beating up thoughts that come up in my head. You should have done this. You should be further along. You should be more on top of this, dah, dah, dah. But I'm also increasingly better at reminding myself we don't, we don't talk to ourselves like that. We don't have to think those thoughts and if we can build that into a planning system where it doesn't matter if we stick to this plan perfectly or not. The point is that we make a plan from good intentions. We attempt to stick to the plan for good intentions. And when we notice it's not quite what we thought it was going to be, or we're not quite doing the things we thought we can be. We can either realign or compassionately nudge ourselves back, but that none of these things mean it was a big mistake or a waste of time or a huge failure. It just means we need to realign ourselves back to what we were talking about and what we were doing and that that's okay, because that readjustment is part of the planning process.
Laura: Yeah. And kind of, you know, when you asked What are you good at? And again, I do think I am actually very good at responding to, to those difficult moments. Probably partly thanks to my kind of professional background and the amount of kind of reflective practice we do in teaching and in librarianship and things like that. I do feel I've got this really good skill of being a very reflective and reflexive practitioner, which I think of as a strength in other respects with the PhD, but perhaps I've never really thought about how it can be a strength when it comes to, when plans don't go to plan.
Vikki: So tell me just briefly what you mean by reflective in this context.
Laura: Um, so it's like, taking those moments to think, okay, what, what's been going on, what's happened, how did that make me feel, what could I do differently. So when we're teaching in my job, you know, if we've done a teaching session, it might not be a formal thing of, you know, sitting down and writing about it, but generally always taking those, you know, those moments to think, how did that go? What didn't work? What am I going to do differently next year when I teach this particular workshop or this particular class?
Vikki: It's almost like you're planning.
Laura: It's almost like you're planning, isn't it?
Vikki: Yeah, I'm terrible at planning. I'm really good at reflective practice. I think about what I've been doing and I work out what I need to do next. But yeah, terrible at planning. Awful.
Laura: Awful at planning, good at, good at thinking back on how things have gone.
Vikki: Thinking about how it's gone and deciding what you're going to do differently next time is literally planning. So you are telling me at the moment that you have an overarching structure for your PhD where you know roughly when you'll be data collecting and what bits you'll be writing up during that and things. And you have well developed skills at being able to think about how things are going and decide how to do them differently next time.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. I'm guessing my, uh, my actual problem is just, not, um, not being able to recognize a lot of this.
Vikki: It's what happens is people think that someone who is good at planning makes a plan, does the plan, And then makes another plan. And that it's this very linear, I decide it all in advance, I just implement it exactly how I intended, and then I do it again. And people have this perspective, but that is not how planning goes for anybody. There are people who are much more highly structured. I get that. It used to, I was head of education in my old role, and so I'd oversee all the modules in my school. And it would baffle me sometimes where people were like, but I'm teaching this in six months, Vikki. I needed to know this two months ago, cause it's all planned out. I'm like, how is it all planned out eight months before you start? I don't understand. So some people are much more highly structured in how far ahead they do these things and stuff. But no one just plans it out, does it exactly as they say, and then goes on to the next one. It's an unrealistic level of perfection that we're asking of ourselves. When we can see that the process of planning helps us to make some decisions now rather than later. And then we get to kind of work through the plan and some bits of it we will do and other bits that we don't do, and then we can readjust. And if we see that readjustment as an intrinsic part of the planning process, then suddenly we haven't failed at our plan. We're just assessing where we are, we're retweaking and going again. And that doesn't mean, you know, I was the queen of remaking my revision timetables because I'd color coded them and then I hadn't stuck to it or whatever. It doesn't mean just cramming, cram more in. It, readjusting can be going. Oh, I'm planning too much, aren't I? I'm not actually putting a realistic amount of stuff in here. Um, I need to get rid of some of this or I need to postpone some of this or whatever it can be that. It can be noticing You know, you are constantly telling yourself. You need to start work at 7 30 a. m You never do so How about we just tell ourselves we're gonna start working at 8 and then we are sticking to what we wanted to do Let's not give ourselves sticks that we just never ever stick to So that readjustment is part of the planning process, whether that's a sort of three, six month planning process, or whether it's a what we do this week process, readjusting is part of it.
Laura: Yeah, it really is, isn't it? That kind of, and yeah, I would say, you know, I'm, probably a good strength of mine, that reflection and on the flip side, not be afraid to deviate from what I thought I should be doing, because something is telling me that that's not the right thing to be doing right now.
Vikki: You get to be reflective then and think about, do I like this thing that's telling me to deviate? Because sometimes our brains tell us to deviate because it feels hard, or, you know, we can't be bothered at the moment, or it sounds boring, or we don't think we're good enough, or those things. So sometimes we hear those gut feelings and we can listen and go, You know, I don't like those reasons for deviating from the plan. We need to just stick to the plan. Or we listen to them and go, they're actually telling us, you know what, you put too much in this section of time. Or, you know what, I'm not actually interested in that study we designed. I don't know how we ended up over there, but it's not what I want to be doing and so we readjust. And so, When we can take some of the emotion away where we're not telling ourselves that readjusting means that we're big failures and our plan was a failure and we're rubbish and our system's wrong. We just tell ourselves that, okay, that's interesting. I'm deviating from this a bit. I wonder why that is. Is this actually the wrong route? Have I set it up in a way that doesn't work for me? Or do I actually need to develop my, my sort of skills in doing the thing I intended to do a little bit more? And we can have a mixture of those things, yeah? We can, we can have a mixture of It's partly sometimes I just fap about on my phone when I should be starting work, and I just need to get on with it. But other times, if it's something that I'm constantly setting myself up for fail because I never do it, well, let's just I obviously don't want to right now, so let's just not plan it.
Laura: You know, it's so interesting to hear somebody talk about Like planning as something that has that ongoing kind of reflection and questioning. What's going on here is, you know, rather than what you often hear when you go on course, you know, you get sent on all the courses, you know, project management courses and time management courses and it's all, you know, it is all very structured and if you do this, this, this and this, you'll get to the end. And I don't think, I, now when I think about it, I don't think I've heard as much kind of emphasis on That, you know, that importance of like reflection and thinking almost, you know, you know, on a regular basis, what's going on here? Does this, is this working? Do I need to change something? And I quite like thinking about planning from that perspective now.
Vikki: Why does that feel better?
Laura: Cause it, it kind of makes me think I can be in control of everything in a way that feels very comfortable and like natural to how I go, how my brain works and how I, how I approach things rather than planning being something that It's like something I've got to learn, like this brand new skill that I don't already have.
Vikki: Yeah. I want to take you back. You said that if you had the right system, you would think, I'm doing it right. I'm doing what I should be doing. And I think what you just described, It's essentially you telling yourself that. that actually if I see planning more as a reflective process, more as something where I am going to wander off, but then I'll nudge myself back, or I'll choose a different way, or whatever it is, then I can be telling myself, I'm doing this right because I'm adjusting my plan. I'm sticking to the bits that I really want to and the bits that are really important. And I'm recognizing that some weeks are going to be different to others and some days are going to be different to others. But on the whole I'm, I'm doing this and, and that's so powerful because then if you want to be feeling secure and reassured, you can make yourself feel secure and reassured by knowing that you've got this iterative, messy sometimes, but ultimately kind of well intentioned system, where we, we figure it out.
Laura: Yes. Yes. That's like, I do actually, just from having this, this conversation, I'm like, yeah, actually, like, maybe I do have a lot more control of this big unwieldy PhD thing than perhaps I give myself credit for sometimes.
Vikki: You've done four years. You've done four years alongside another job and got yourself here as somebody who believed, you know, through all of that, believing that you couldn't do planning. But somehow getting here, so you were doing planning and you did all these things. And I just want you to think how much easier the rest of this could feel if you know that it's not reliant on you finding the perfect system and beating yourself into doing it perfectly. So I had a meeting yesterday with some people who were interested in doing my group program, which is called being your own best boss and we're going to cover loads of this stuff. And I was talking then about my experience with role based time blocking, which is one of the tools that I recommend. And I was explaining to them, you know, I stick to role based time blocking probably between 50 and 70 percent of what I intend each week, something like that. Um, you know, in better, in inverted commas, weeks, maybe a bit more than that, but there's always bits I shift and not for good reasons. There's always bits I shift because I've been procrastinating or bits because I'm tireder than I thought I would be, and I'm not managing it or whatever. But I've got enormously better at not beating myself up about that. And that makes it so much easier to then just tweak stuff. To then just go, Oh, look, today's felt a bit rubbish. And when I look at it, I didn't stick to any of the things that I put in it. Okay, well, what can I do in this next hour that'll make me feel like I've finished intentionally? And let's just have a look at tomorrow and see, am I being realistic or not? Because what I used to do, right, was just shove more in. It's like, well, I've been rubbish today, so tomorrow I need to do all of today's and all of tomorrow's, so let's just wedge it all in. Whereas now I'm so much better at being like, you know what, that's okay, you know, today went great. Things feel better when I do the things I intend, so let's just try that tomorrow. Let's see what barriers we can overcome. Do that tomorrow. And the response from the people in the group was like, Oh my God, you only stick to it 60 percent or whatever. I was like, yeah, but you teach this stuff. And I'm like, yeah, we know. And I teach it from that place of not doing it perfectly. And they were like, I think I could do this. I'm like, yeah, you definitely could. I think it makes so much difference to know that just because you're not doing it perfectly doesn't mean that it's not a good system. It's not that it's not a system you can make work and you're not someone who can keep this all on track.
Laura: Yeah. And that's a really, really helpful, a really helpful reminder. Like, like you said. Before it's, you know, it's not necessarily the system doesn't work and you don't need to just completely get rid of that system just because you haven't been following it as you planned it out or as, as you said you were going to do, but kind of acknowledging that, you know, life gets in the way, you're not always going to remember or, you know, whatever happens. But the system can still be a useful system to come back to. So I think there's actually a system that I was kind of using and I haven't, I haven't opened the notebook for like a week, but I can kind of recognize that it does actually really work for me when I, when I need it to.
Vikki: Absolutely. I want to pick up one thing you said. You said when life gets in the way and things, one thing that's really important with this is we're, we're super compassionate to the fact that things aren't going to go perfectly, but we also take responsibility for them. So life doesn't happen to you. You make decisions. Okay. So things happen and then you make the decision that I'm going to deal with that instead of the thing I intended. Okay? And that's not to, like, blame or anything like that, but the more we can recognize that even interruptions are decisions we make, because we decide whether we're going to engage with them or not. Even emergencies are, you know, there are people who would hear that a family member are in hospital and would continue working because that's the decision they make. Other people would go immediately, no questions asked. It's all just decisions we make. And so what we can then do is decide which of the decisions that we stand by, which of the decisions, actually, that was an interruption that was absolutely appropriate for me to drop what was on my plan and go do it. Actually, that was an interruption that just felt a lot easier to deal with than the thing I intended to do. So, yeah, next time I might need to think about that differently. So we just take that little bit of control, um, of it. The other thing I'd say, or two things, so one is I tend to have the same core system for deciding what I'm doing each quarter, what I'm doing each month, each week, and the same core system for how I manage what tasks I have, but I tweak Exactly how I'm doing it that week. And what I found enormously useful about that is I'm not reinventing. I'm not wasting time learning a whole brand new system. I'm not sort of having to move across all the tasks that I put in a Kanban board last week, but now we're going to be in an Excel file or whatever, um, but I do give myself little, Oh, Is it useful for me to put it on little post it notes?
So I just have the one thing I'm doing now. This is what I'm experimenting with at the moment. Or would it be useful to take things that were in my electronic diary and put them into my bullet journal instead? Oh, do you know what I mean? These things. So I have these kinds of, I have cores and then I twiddle around the edges and that really helps because I'm not reinventing, I'm just slightly going, okay, would this help? I think this might help. This might make it feel easier. And that, that can be a really sort of positive thing, because I'm not wasting loads of time, but I am constantly just trying to iterate a little bit to make it feel nicer and easier to, to stick with. The final thing, as your like, reflective homework, is you've mentioned a couple of things where you have strengths in other areas of your life that you haven't really thought about. So the reflective practice is one example that you haven't really thought about applying to planning. I'd really encourage you to spend a little bit of time thinking about some of those other strengths. And this is true for all PhD students, but particularly for part time PhD students who've got this whole other bit of their life where often, you know, they're quite experienced, they're quite senior, and all of those things. Have a think about whether there's anything you do in your library life, in your teaching life, that you can take and apply over here. So have a ponder about what other skills you have in your librarian world that actually could be deployed over here really effectively.
Laura: Yes, I like that. I like the sound of that. Some reflective, reflective homework.
Vikki: Perfect. So what do you think you'll take from this session?
Laura: I think the thing that's really kind of like light bulb moment almost is that idea of kind of planning is not necessarily like you say that fixed, like here's my plan and I'm going to do my very best to stick to it. And obviously, you know, whereas planning can be more of a, an iterative ongoing, like, you know, if you're always sitting down and thinking right, what do I want to achieve in this little block of time, that's still, that's still doing.Having the intention of planning something. I think if you use the word, kind of, the intention of it, I think that's something that's really important to actually recognise. You know, not just drifting through a PhD and just seeing what happens. There is a lot of intention there with what I want to achieve. I just haven't thought about it as, well actually this does make you somebody that is doing planning work and actually potentially being quite good at it.
Vikki: Perfect. What a lovely thing to take. One thing I always encourage people after coaching sessions like this is definitely spend some time writing down some of the thoughts you've had during the session. Obviously you're going to get this recording of it too, so you'll be able to go back and listen to yourself anyway, but also have a think about what's one thing you could do today. that helps sort of move you forward from where you're at. Okay. So thinking of a sort of something that you can immediately act on, um, can be really useful too.I'm sure for lots of people listening, this will have been super useful. So thank you so much for coming on and being open and honest and willing to share all of these things. People really benefit from hearing other people getting coached. Everybody watching or listening, I want you to have a think, what are you going to take away from this? What are you going to do differently because of the stuff that we've talked about today? And if you're interested in being coached in the future on the podcast, do just drop me a message and let me know. I'm going to make this an ongoing series. So thank you everybody for listening and I will see you next week.