PG Writing Group 18/06/12 Social Science South Rm 2204 Monday 12-1pm
Last week in the PG Writing Group we touched on the mistakes that can be made by students during their research program – management mistakes that can impact significantly on progress through candidacy. We also completed Grover’s Stages of Doctoral Study checklist designed to enable students to better monitor, and therefore manage, their progress. What we didn’t discuss was how students manage to manage their studies. How do you find the time to plan an approach like this, let alone carry it out, when you barely have the time in the day to sit down for a tea & TimTam*.
In Monday’s PG Writing session we’ll look over Vitae’s suggested Strategies for Busy Researchers. Prepared by Australia’s very own Hugh Kearns and Maria Gardiner from ThinkWell – also appearing at UWA each year to run some amazing workshops – the booklet outlines 10 strategies for work balance and 10 additional strategies for work-life balance. We’ll focus on the first 10: planning, planning correctly, making time for research, learning how to say NO (harder than it sounds), learning how to delegate (even harder), setting realistic standards (difficult when higher research self selects for perfectionists), writing regularly, avoiding email disruptions, managing paperwork, and dealing with distractions (including the call of the TimTam).
*As many of you who have attended GEO workshops and Wednesday Writing Groups know, milk chocolate TimTams are the Graduate Research School’s biscuit of choice. Going against all the advice that Hugh and Maria provide about good time management, I suggest that you read about TimTam’s and the art of the TimTam Slam on About.com. I’ll bring some along to the session.
Grover, 2007. Successfully Navigating the Stages of Doctoral Study. International Journal of Doctoral Studies. Volume 2.
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