Six project-management tips for your PhD

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Project Management for PhD's

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Project management is a vastly transferrable and highly sought-after skillset that can open doors to careers in almost any field. The ability to effectively manage projects is a huge asset in today’s competitive job market, which graduate researchers are in a prime position to practice and refine during their candidature. The movement into and out of academia as a career path is also a lot more fluid these days, with industry, government or project management experience informing research, policy and practice and vice versa.

This session will encourage participants to think more broadly about the sorts of career paths they might seek, and also to view the skills they learn in doing a PhD in a different light. In this seminar you will hear from four speakers with PhDs who have extensive experience working both within and outside of academia. They will share their experiences of managing projects in professional contexts ranging from small NGOs to international consultancies.

Panellists will discuss what ‘projects’ are, what skills and tools may be used in managing projects, and how to learn, apply and communicate this experience to potential employers. This seminar is relevant to graduate researchers at all stages of candidature.

Presented by the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education (MCSHE)

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Six simple tips to help ensure progress during your Ph.D. studies.

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Six project-management tips for your PhD

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Submitted by Angel J Santiago-Lopez on 28 January 2019 - 2:36pm

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This article was originally published in  Nature . You can read the full lenght English version there. You can read the full lenght Spanish version by clicking on ESPAÑOL at the top right of your screen.

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12 Expert Tips for Organizing Your PhD Research work

Revolutionize Your Research Workflow with These Expert Organization Tips

Dr. Sowndarya Somasundaram

The journey of pursuing a PhD can be an exciting and rewarding experience, but it can also be overwhelming at times. One of the keys to completing the PhD degree successfully is being organized and managing your time effectively.

Organizing PhD work can be a challenging task, but with proper plan and execution, one can effectively manage their time and progress. In this article, iLovePhD presented twelve practical tips and strategies to help you stay organized and productive during your PhD journey.

Whether you’re just starting or in the middle of your PhD journey, these tips will help you stay on track and make the most out of your time as a research scholar.

Tips to Revolutionize Your PhD Research Workflow

1. set clear goals.

The first step in organizing your PhD work is to set clear goals for yourself. Define the objectives of your research. Develop a clear and realistic plan for your PhD work, including milestones and deadlines for each task.

2. Develop a research plan

Once you have set your goals, develop a research plan that outlines the steps you need to take to achieve them. Your research plan should include the research questions you want to answer, the methods you will use to collect data, and the analysis techniques you will use to draw conclusions.

3. Create a schedule

Create a schedule that outlines the tasks you need to complete each week and the deadlines for completing them. Make sure you allocate enough time for each task and don’t forget to include time for reviewing and revising your work.

4. Use a project management tool

Consider using a project management tool like Trello, Asana, or Notion to help you organize your tasks, set deadlines, and to help you to stay on track.

5. Prioritize your tasks

Prioritize your work based on the importance and urgency of each task. This will help you to focus on the most critical work first.

Also Read: Suffering PhD Scholars in Academia

6. Break down large tasks into smaller ones

Divide large tasks into smaller, more manageable tasks. This will help you to work more efficiently and achieve progress more quickly.

7. Manage your time effectively

Manage your time effectively by allocating specific time slots for each task. Avoid multitasking, which can reduce your productivity and increase your stress levels.

8. Stay organized

Keep your work organized by using folders, files, and notes. This will help you to easily find and access your work and prevent you from losing important documents. Use tools like Zotero or Mendeley to manage your references.

9. Communicate with your supervisor

Regular communication with your supervisor is crucial for staying on track with your PhD work. Schedule regular meetings with your supervisor to discuss your progress, get feedback, and ask for help if needed.

10. Seek support

Seek support from your peers, and other professionals when necessary. This can help you to overcome challenges and move forward in your research

11. Stay motivated

Stay motivated by setting realistic goals for yourself and celebrating your achievements.

12. Take breaks

Taking regular breaks is important to avoid burnout and stay focused. Make sure to schedule time for self-care. Engage in activities that you enjoy to maintain your mental health and well-being.

Organizing your PhD work is essential to ensure that you can work efficiently and effectively toward your research goals. It is an ongoing process, and you may need to adjust your plan as you go along.

50 Tips to Oranize PhD Research Work

  • Develop a system for managing your data.
  • Use a literature review matrix to stay organized.
  • Prioritize self-care to avoid burnout.
  • Use a task management tool to stay on top of deadlines.
  • Keep a research journal to track progress and ideas.
  • Stay organized by using folders and labels.
  • Create a clear and concise research plan.
  • Break larger tasks into smaller, manageable ones.
  • Use a citation management tool to keep track of sources.
  • Take breaks to avoid fatigue and maintain focus.
  • Back up your data regularly.
  • Use templates for reports and presentations to save time.
  • Stay on top of emails and communication.
  • Use an agenda or planner to schedule meetings and deadlines.
  • Collaborate with others to share ideas and resources.
  • Use software tools to help automate repetitive tasks.
  • Take advantage of library resources and research guides.
  • Use charts and graphs to visualize data.
  • Use cloud-based storage to access your work from anywhere.
  • Stay organized by color-coding notes and files.
  • Use checklists to ensure you complete all necessary tasks.
  • Make time for exercise and other forms of self-care.
  • Keep track of important dates and events.
  • Break down complex information into easy-to-understand summaries.
  • Use mind-mapping software to brainstorm ideas.
  • Take notes during meetings and discussions.
  • Create a filing system for physical documents.
  • Use an annotation tool to mark up documents.
  • Set aside designated time for writing.
  • Prioritize your most important tasks first.
  • Use keywords to organize your literature reviews.
  • Stay focused by eliminating distractions.
  • Use a backup system to protect your work.
  • Use templates to maintain consistent formatting.
  • Utilize peer feedback to improve your work.
  • Stay up-to-date on research trends and developments.
  • Use time blocking to schedule your day.
  • Maintain a consistent schedule to establish a routine.
  • Use a timer to help with time management.
  • Stay organized by using bookmarks and tags.
  • Make use of keyboard shortcuts to save time.
  • Take breaks to stretch and move your body.
  • Stay hydrated and well-rested for optimal productivity.
  • Use online forums to connect with other researchers.
  • Take care of your mental health to stay focused and motivated.
  • Keep your workspace clean and clutter-free.
  • Use a dictation tool to speed up your writing.
  • Create a backup plan in case of unexpected issues.
  • Use technology to stay organized on the go.
  • Celebrate your progress and accomplishments along the way!

By implementing the tips discussed in this article, you can establish a structured approach to your work that will help you stay focused and motivated. Be flexible and keep working towards your goals, and you will be on your way to completing your PhD successfully.

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iLovePhD is a research education website to know updated research-related information. It helps researchers to find top journals for publishing research articles and get an easy manual for research tools. The main aim of this website is to help Ph.D. scholars who are working in various domains to get more valuable ideas to carry out their research. Learn the current groundbreaking research activities around the world, love the process of getting a Ph.D.

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4 Essential Project Management Skills for PhD Students

' src=

Earning a Ph.D. requires you to complete years of coursework, perform laboratory studies, publish your work , and attend conferences . Time management, therefore, is a difficult but necessary aspect of this undertaking. In this article, we want to share important project management tips that can help you as you complete your Ph.D.

The Need for Project Management Skills

Dr. Fiona Saunders, Head of Education at Manchester Metropolitan University’s School of Engineering, says Ph.D. students can sometimes find themselves “lost in a fog.” This means that they have difficulty setting a plan and staying organized while taking on big projects.

But how does a student learn these skills? Angel Santiago-Lopez, a Ph.D. candidate in bioengineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta), feels that a Ph.D. program should include some aspect of project management instruction . This instruction would teach students how to develop project topics, organize project goals, and build schedules.

Important Project Management Skills

Define your project.

It is very important that you clearly define the project and its different parts. Do not simply say that you want to do a study of bioethics in the 21 st century. Instead, define your project as something new that will contribute to important work being done in the field.

Time Management

Time management is vital. Deadlines are an important structuring tool for any project. There are many ways that you can structure your timeline.

  • First, have an end goal. This is the final deadline for your project. You can look at this as the day when you want to turn in a completed, revised project to your professor.
  • Second, you can make deadlines for individual parts of the project. For example, if it is an article that you hope to publish, you can set deadlines for each section of the article.
  • Lastly, make study goals. Set a daily or weekly schedule for doing research and completing parts of your study.

Fortunately, there are many tools that you can use. For example, flow charts and Gantt graphs are a good visual representation of a project management plan. Also, there is an abundance of project management software that can help you set up and execute a project management plan.

Use Checkpoints

Checkpoints are an important way to see if you are making progress and keeping to your schedule. Also, these checkpoints will keep you motivated to continue working towards your goals.

A few examples of checkpoints are:

  • Meetings with professors
  • Meetings with fellow students
  • Completing individual sections of the project
  • Personal deadlines for completing research

Checkpoints can also help you prepare for the unexpected. A checkpoint gives you time to reassess your progress and fix any errors that might have been made.

Define Success

Everyone wants to do “good work.” But, what does that mean? You need to set a clear definition of success in order to monitor the quality of your project. For example, your project should introduce a new idea. Or, it should solve a longstanding problem in your field. Regardless of the end goal, the project should be new and interesting while introducing new ideas on a topic.

Using Project Management Skills in Any Career

Project management is a vital tool for many career paths. At its core, project management involves an aptitude in creativity and problem-solving. Project management in the sciences is extremely important. From grants to personal projects, these skills will help you manage projects of any scale and scope . This is even more important as many Ph.D. graduates are pursuing careers beyond academia.

What are your experiences with project management? How have you used these skills in your academic work? Please share with us in the comments.

' src=

I’m agree with authors,because time management is one of the most difficult things that you face in work study. Samely, using schedules does easier and efficient your research works. Lastly, if you have your goals clearly, you¨ll get success in appropieted time.

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six project management tips for your phd

154. How to Plan Your PhD w/ Hugh Kearns

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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A PhD Plan sounds like an oxymoron, but charting a path to graduation is one of the most important things you can do as a graduate student.

This week, we talk with Hugh Kearns of Thinkwell about why PhD planning is so challenging for students, and learn about some tools that can keep your research on track.

Uncharted Territory

We start the conversation by trying to understand why planning is so difficult and so rare for PhDs.

“They’ve never done a PhD so they don’t know what’s coming,” Kearns observes. “And your previous education doesn’t prepare for research.”

He continues, “Research by its nature is uncertain. Things go wrong. And then what happens is people think that ‘Because I don’t know, we just won’t plan anything! We’ll see what happens.'”

But just because you’ve never done a PhD before, and no one has pursued your particular branch of research, that doesn’t mean you can’t plan ahead.

In fact, there are already tools and strategies, adapted from project management in the business world, that will help you set some guide rails around your winding path to a PhD.

Getting Your PhD Plan Backward

Traditional ‘forward’ planning works great for a well-worn process, like building a house. Builders know from experience that you can’t build the walls until you’ve poured the foundation, and you can’t paint until the drywall is installed.

Each of those activities has a reasonably predictable timeline, so you can plan the construction of a home week by week until it’s finished.

But a PhD isn’t quite at prescriptive. Sure, you know you need to do a literature review, but how long does that take? And how long will experiments take?

The fact is, they’ll take as much time as you give them. There’s no definitive ‘finish line’ for a literature review the way there is for a construction project. You just need to decide how long you’re willing to give the review, and stop when it’s ‘good enough.’

That’s why Kearns recommends ‘backward planning’ for PhDs. You start with an end date in mind (usually when the funding runs out) and work back from there.

His book, Planning Your PhD: All the tools and advice you need to finish your PhD in three years , lays out the steps in detail, and provides some worksheets you can use to create a multi-year Thesis Plan .

In fact, he offers those worksheets for free on the website!

Drilling into Detail

With your Thesis Plan in place, you can begin the process of adding more and more detail to the events closest in time.

This ‘rolling plan’ recognizes that you don’t know what you might be doing on Tuesday March 25 at 3PM three years from now, but you CAN decide on some goals over the next six months.

And don’t stress out if those goals shift, or you don’t quite manage to meet them. If you revisit your plan on a regular schedule, you can adjust and adapt.

If you never set the goal, or never look back at what you planned, you’re guaranteed to drift as the months and years pass by.

Kearns shares some other tools, like his ‘To Day’ list that works in conjunction with your ‘To Do’ list to put a time component on your tasks. That way, you slowly make progress toward your goals, rather than watching your list grow more and more unmanageable.

The Paradox of Choice

Finally, we talk about the surprising fact having more options usually means you are less happy and get less done. Weird, right?

It’s the ‘paradox of choice,’ described by Barry Schwartz in his 2004 book of the same name, and this TED Talk .

For graduate students, that manifests as a list of things you need to get done: pour a gel, set up those reactions, manage the lab animals, read three papers, write a section of a review, respond to your PI’s email, and on and on.

And what happens when you have all those things you COULD be doing? You get overwhelmed and go scroll through Instagram instead.

Kearns recommends that you identify ‘The Next Thing’ (or TNT) and work on that. The smaller you make that task, the better!

We’ve learned over the years that PhD students don’t understand the meaning of the word “small”. Because they’ll say, “OK, I know what the task is: I’ll finish my literature review”. But this is still way too big. So now we use the word micro-task. For example, some micro-tasks are: * Add two paragraphs to the discussion section * Add the new data to Table 1 * Read my supervisor’s comments on my draft Planning Your PhD, by Hugh Kearns and Maria Gardiner

Keeping ‘The Next Thing’ manageable prevents your brain from shutting down and giving up.

And if you stack up enough ‘The Next Things’, day after day and week after week, you’ll soon be making measurable progress on your PhD!

six project management tips for your phd

One thought to “154. How to Plan Your PhD w/ Hugh Kearns”

There’s so many people that I’ve already approached and address the subject, and while it’s still needs to be addressed and is of great value to younger grad students… There’s something that I have experienced two times in my graduate student career, that I’ve yet to hear any academic institution discuss… What happens, when you are left alone when your advisor dies, and/or commits suicide? I realize this is a very small population of the onions that you speak to, but to those of us that I’ve gone through this, it is absolutely devastating. I’m the first person from my family to go to college, let alone grad school. Trying to finish my PhD was absolutely, not supported the least. When my advisor died it just sent things out of control. So, how do you propose to integrate maybe even in a small portion… However uncomfortable it may be, if a student is to be in such a situation where their advisor dies, And they are not receiving any support by their department which leaves them in even greater shock.. And perhaps I need them selves in limbo for years. This is what happened to me. But I had extenuating circumstances. I fought as hard as I could, While escaping a very unsafe home situation… Essentially, how do you bring up these topics for students for the worst possible case scenario for when things go wrong? Hopefully, they never do reach a point Were you have to learn that your advisor died or that you were advisor completed suicide in one of the parking garages is in your university. If you happen to plan your research out, let’s say perfectly; you have five research papers and you were on track to graduate and you were ready to give your defense And anticipated your graduation to be the next upcoming semester. You did everything right. Your plan worked. You follow the rules. What advice for students would you suggest, to prevent them from essentially falling apart completely? Because at the end of the day they put their entire lives into what they are doing here to finish up and move on with their lives. They put relationships and marriages and children on hold… So what happens when a disaster strikes? I think that should be a topic you might want to touch on in the future. Like I said, might be a small demographic, but I lost 1 advisor suddenly, An excellent professor to suicide, a remarkable and rising star an excellent lab-mate to suicide as well. I think that if we can integrate mental health and just kind of trickle it into conversations more, and dedicate more time to Just discussing it, and just discussing that mental health is as important as physical health… mental health won’t be as stigmatized as it unfortunately still is at this very day. Overall, I’m happy about the topic of this episode and this podcast in general. However, I think there are modern in inclusive pathways and things that Students really need help with especially regarding mental health and support… Especially when the loss of a lame or a advisor or a loved one… If any of this occurs, and they feel like they cannot reach out, that can be detrimental to your perfect research plan. So at the end of the day, your research plan could mean absolutely nothing. You have to essentially plan for the worst. Sounds sounds like a very pessimistic thing, I understand. But having gone through this myself, I don’t want anybody to ever experience what I have. We can only start making these extreme cases easier to deal with by Integrating it in our discussions. After all, it is quite relatable to your planning of your research and your PhD career. Because when your world gets turned upside down, your “plan” Could be dead or worthless. So where do you go from there? Just trying to provide a thought on my own take Hope it helps thanks for the podcast.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02504-9

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged. You can get in touch with the editor at [email protected].

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IMAGES

  1. Six Sigma In Project Management Explained

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  2. Six project-management tips for your PhD

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  3. 6 project management tips for success

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COMMENTS

  1. Six project-management tips for your PhD

    Six project-management tips for your PhD. Use strategies from the private sector to better manage your graduate project. One way to help manage your PhD is to create a list of specific outcomes ...

  2. Six project-management tips for your PhD

    Six project-management tips for your PhD Nature. 2019 Sep;573(7772):153. doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-07860-6. Author

  3. Six project-management tips for your PhD

    Six project-management tips for your PhD Santiago-Lopez, Angel; Abstract. Use strategies from the private sector to better manage your graduate project. Publication: Nature. Pub Date: January 2019 DOI: 10.1038/d41586-018-07860-6 Bibcode: 2019Natur.573..153S ...

  4. How agile project management can work for your research

    Six project-management tips for your PhD. Some preliminary applications in our research group (for example, writing a manuscript and building a simulation code) have already highlighted the ...

  5. Six project-management tips for your PhD

    Use strategies from the private sector to better manage your graduate project. Skip to search form Skip to main content Skip to account menu ... @article{SantiagoLopez2019SixPT, title={Six project-management tips for your PhD}, author={Angel Santiago-Lopez}, journal={Nature}, year={2019}, volume={573}, pages={153 - 153}, url={https://api ...

  6. Project Management for PhD's

    Project Management for PhD's. Tuesday 17 Sep 2019 2pm - 3:30pm. Book now. Harold White Theatre 757 Swanston Street (Stop 1) Map. Project management is a vastly transferrable and highly sought-after skillset that can open doors to careers in almost any field. The ability to effectively manage projects is a huge asset in today's competitive job ...

  7. Meyer Lab · Six project-management tips for your PhD

    /Team Research Publications Protocols/Links 04 January 2019 Six project-management tips for your PhD - Six simple tips to help ensure progress during your Ph.D. studies.

  8. Six project-management tips for your PhD

    Six project-management tips for your PhD. Angel Santiago-Lopez () . Nature, 2019, vol. 573, issue 7772, 153-153 . Abstract: Use strategies from the private sector to better manage your graduate project. Keywords: Careers; Lab life (search for similar items in EconPapers) Date: 2019 References: Add references at CitEc Citations: Track citations by RSS feed ...

  9. PDF CAREERS COLUMN PhD project tips

    should carry a course on project management. I am a PhD candidate in bioengineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and, during my studies, I have developed project-management skills that might help others pursuing a PhD. Here are six pieces of advice that helped me. The strategies below follow a common idea: define the ...

  10. Six project-management tips for your PhD

    Six project-management tips for your PhD. Author(s): Angel Santiago-Lopez. Publication date (Electronic): January 4 2019 . Journal: Nature. Publisher: Springer Nature. Read this article at. ScienceOpen Publisher Further versions . open (via free pdf) Powered by .

  11. Twenty things I wish I'd known when I started my PhD

    20. Enjoy your PhD! It can be tough, and there will be days when you wish you had a 'normal' job, but PhDs are full of wonderful experiences and give you the opportunity to work on something ...

  12. Six project-management tips for your PhD.

    Europe PMC is an archive of life sciences journal literature. Six project-management tips for your PhD.

  13. Six project-management tips for your PhD

    Mentoring, professional development, and outreach to succeed in grad school and beyond

  14. How to Manage a Research Project in Graduate School

    3.To plan ahead. Planning your research project step-by-step allows you to find the right strategy to tackle each project and anticipate incoming challenges for each experiment. 4. To manage changes. When performing a research project, it's possible that your research plan has to change.

  15. 12 Expert Tips for Organizing Your PhD Research work

    Set clear goals. The first step in organizing your PhD work is to set clear goals for yourself. Define the objectives of your research. Develop a clear and realistic plan for your PhD work, including milestones and deadlines for each task. 2. Develop a research plan. outlines the steps you need to take to achieve them.

  16. Six project-management tips for your PhD : r/GradSchool

    Part of the learning process is just the vernacular. It's how industry talks. But it's also helpful to provide structure, identify critical path, define "what does done look like", keep your stakeholders apprised of progress and risks, detail workstreams and timelines, etc. I agree that all of the labs I worked in during grad school (4), would ...

  17. 4 Essential Project Management Skills for PhD Students

    Also, these checkpoints will keep you motivated to continue working towards your goals. A few examples of checkpoints are: Meetings with professors. Meetings with fellow students. Completing individual sections of the project. Personal deadlines for completing research. Checkpoints can also help you prepare for the unexpected.

  18. 154. How to Plan Your PhD w/ Hugh Kearns

    Uncharted Territory. We start the conversation by trying to understand why planning is so difficult and so rare for PhDs. "They've never done a PhD so they don't know what's coming," Kearns observes. "And your previous education doesn't prepare for research.". He continues, "Research by its nature is uncertain. Things go wrong.

  19. Through the Blood, Sweat and Years

    Six project-management tips for your PhD. Use strategies from the private sector to better manage your graduate project. Angel Santiago-Lopez; Career Column 4 Jan 2019 Nature

  20. Six project-management tips for your PhD

    Corrections. All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:573:y:2019:i:7772:d:10.1038_d41586-018-07860-6.See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.. If you have authored this item and are not yet registered ...

  21. How to defend a PhD remotely

    Six project-management tips for your PhD Make science PhDs more than just a training path for academia What not to do in graduate school Subjects. Careers; Peer review; Conferences and meetings ...

  22. Three tips to achieve academic success

    Six project-management tips for your PhD Being a PhD student shouldn't be bad for your health Work-life balance: Break or burn out How agile project management can work for your research ...