A Dissertation Tale - Part 4b: Getting Ready for Day One, Class One

TL;DR: Finishing off the prepping section before your first class broken into two posts. For digital file organization, see the prior post. Here, we're focusing on the physical working environment.

Setting the Stage for Focus

Once you're digitally organized, it's time to organize your physical workspace (i.e., your working environment). Before we get into this, I recognize you may not have access to a dedicated, private workspace. The good news here is some tactics will allow you to focus no matter where you must work.  

Let's first address those that have a dedicated space to work. It's a great resource, and I'm elated for you. Since you have it, you'll need to design the room for focus. 

Here's what I mean specifically, you want to embrace a few fundamental tenets:

• Prime the environment for focus

• Reduce distractions

• Maintain consistency in surroundings

• Marie Kondo that clutter

• If living with others, use a "do not disturb" sign on your door

• Inspire yourself

• Include motivational quotes or visualizations.

• Consider hanging a vision board.

• Utilize the senses from an environmental perspective (think lighting, ambient music, a mini fridge, and an absence of distracting odors).

• Track your progress (courtesy of Kanban) 

• Utilize task listing.

• Visualize your work in progress (WIPs).

Focus Priming

Your brain thrives on environmental cues to trigger focus, which means we can hack this fact to make ourselves more focused and productive. Everyone is different, so I acknowledge that one person's focal aid may be another's distraction. Again, you design your space in a way that works for your mind, and don't be timid in trying new techniques as you go; you might learn something about yourself along the way.  

Just as specific cues can trigger focus, others can pull focus, so consider your phone an amusement-park-sized distraction device. My most productive days were those where I forgot my phone at home. This occurrence is why one of the points under priming for focus is to remove distractions. In the book Atomic Habits, eliminating distractions is a form of creating friction around undesirable habits. The more work you have to do to be distracted, the less likely you will choose the fun thing over the work needing to be done. Please make no mistake, when you're 2 hours in on what was supposed to be a 15-minute TikTok break (raises hand here), it is a distraction.  

Another trick of the focus trade is to maintain consistency in your cues. Theoretically, the more you use the same signals, the quicker and longer they work for you. Along the same line of thought, clutter can work against you pending on your personality. 

Consensus is out, yet, on tidiness improving productivity overall. One study showed that messy desks might be indicative of creativity. As such, I let you draw the line on this one. My default mode is more like Wasabi from Big Hero 6; if everything has a place, I don't need to think about where it is, allowing me to focus on the task at hand, but again, that is my thing.

The last point concerns if you live with others; you may want to put an indicator on your door (if you have a door) or a red light near your work area that asks your loved ones to leave for your work. (Though I doubt your pets will abide by this request.)

Average time to recover from broken focus!

Imagine the timer to the left counting down to the moment you can expect to be refocused. Tick, tock, tick, tock…Ugh!

Researchers from the University of California found that, on average, it took 23 minutes to refocus after a distraction! That can add up quickly.

Address your bodily needs before sitting down to work

As a quick tangent here, thinking of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs…

The base layers of the hierarchy concern external needs (outside of purely cognitive needs) and become increasingly internal as you ascend the ranks. You cannot focus on higher-level needs like learning (self-actualization), much less writing, until your physiological needs are met. 

The moral of the story is this, before you get going on that discussion response explaining the impact of robber barons in the early American Industrial Age (apologies for anyone experiencing flashbacks from that prompt, I'm right there with you), ask yourself what physical needs must be addressed before you can go into a state of flow, as coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi? Consider this checklist to take care of your needs and optimize your focus:

• Are you hungry, thirsty, itchy, or scratchy?  

• Do you need a bio break?

• Would a ten-minute meditation temporarily relieve those pressing worries?

• Is a quick workspace pick-up needed to be able to focus on your work?  

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled program.

Quick Optional Task: Envision Your Ideal Space

Sit and think about it for a minute; what spaces were you the most productive in? Close your eyes and go back to those moments. Then write it down and pull references from a site like Pinterest to inform your spacial redesign.

• What was around you?

• What was the sound like?  

• Where was your phone?

• What inspired you?  

• Was there a specific piece of art or a quote in the area?

• How about the lighting? Was it well-lit? Dimly lit?

• Did you have food or drink nearby?  

Once you've visualized your ideal workspace, allocate time to declutter and design your workspace. 

Then set the mood (work mood) before jumping into your tasking for the day.

Inspire Yourself

The reality is you're pursuing something HARD. It's not for the faint of heart, but even the most resolute sometimes need to amp themselves up to move past the motivational slumps in the journey. Sometimes this could be a favorite song, walking, or looking at a visual aid to remind you why you chose this path. 

Cue the (BA BA DA DAAA) Vision Board. What pretzel is a vision board? A vision board is a manifestation tool that allows you to see your goals by creating a collage (either physically or photoshop-py) of images that are symbolic of the accomplishments you're looking to reach. Seeing these goals daily before you get going allows your subconscious to guide your ongoing decision-making by keeping the goals in your field of view. Do you NEED to do this before the first class? Not my call; you decide what's important here. All I'm doing is giving you tools to consider to be successful.

Visualize Your Progress

This nugget of awesome comes from a flavor of Agile Project Management called Kanban. We'll go deep into this process in the Project Management Techniques for Dissertating Scholars post, but a sneak peek may be helpful for now. Kanban has four guiding principles to make workflows run smoothly, one of which is to "visualize the process." Seeing how much you're accomplishing furthers your level of motivation. Motivation doesn't just happen. You must get going before you feel the drive for your undertaking, which is why a personal motto of mine is:

If this quote inspires you, keep it and say it to yourself on the tough days. If not, no worries; find a quote that works for you. There were days when I wanted to wrap my arm in tattoos of motivational quotes, like a shield of armor. Granted, that's not socially acceptable in most places, and it was a more transient whim. The desire dissipated as I got back on track, but it's a lovely visual all the same.

The Kanban board works as a task visualization tool; I'll use the Kanban section of the professional strategy board I designed for my professional development/workflow as an example:

The Kanban board section of my Professional Development Board.

There are four categories in this board; consider this a basic version of the Kanban as most times, you'll see 3-4 swim lanes (the columns) of progress labeled similarly to what is in the example. Lately, I've been referring to the "Done" column as the "TA-DA!" column as a reminder to celebrate the small victory.  

Tasks or things you must do are written on sticky notes and placed on the leftmost "TO DO" swim lane. When you begin working on something (which is called a pull or a commitment), you move the sticky task note over to the "DOING" swim lane; once built and quality control/assurance (QC/QA) commences, the sticky note or card moves over again into the "REVIEW" swim lane, and finally, once polished and considered 'good to go,' it moves again into the "DONE" swim lane. If you start a Kanban for yourself, an important note is to limit the number of tasks you're working on at any one time (this is another guiding principle, but we'll revisit this in the post, as mentioned above).

These recommendations seek to help you create a space designed to bring out your best work due to improved focus, but what if you don't have a personal dedicated, private workspace? Fortunately, these principles can be applied differently to achieve similar benefits. Let's talk about how to "flow on the go."

Flow on the Go

For those that do not have a space, a few key investments might be needed to "flow on the go," including tools that can assimilate the tenets without altering an area that is not your own (I've found people don't appreciate you moving their things around). To reduce distractions on campus, see if you can book a study room or find a library space available regularly.

If you're able and willing to spend a little money, invest in a pair of noise-canceling headphones and find a focus playlist on YouTube. Lately, I've been favoring MusicLab. I play the same track every time I work, so I'm not thinking about what I'm listening to. It acts as an auditory cue to get to work.

For visual cues, utilize your laptop background. Can you have a quote or vision board as your background? You bet you can! Consider your laptop your surrogate "home space" in these circumstances and make it work for you.

Last note: if there are no good options on campus and no private spaces at home, a co-working space membership might be an ideal alternative, but this assumes you have reliable transportation to get there and back when you need to use it.

By this point, if you have used some of the tricks and techniques in the 4a and 4b posts, you should be in a better state to start strong, beginning with your first class.  

The day has arrived!

Fast forward to your first class. If online and the course has a synchronous component, you must log in to a specific video conferencing platform. If in person, you're walking in the classroom doors and finding a seat. At this moment, you will likely meet the other members of your cohort.  

What is a cohort? 

Excellent question! On the Doctoral level (in most cases though some programs do not employ a cohort system), you'll be placed in a numbered cohort or group of students starting their journey simultaneously. Why does this matter? As you progress through your courses, there will be intermittent or continuous attrition drop-off, meaning that your group will get smaller and smaller until you are dissertating exclusively with your committee as a class of one. In my case, our group, Cohort 17, started as a group of twelve, and by the time the Comprehensive Exams (Comps for short) were completed, only two of us remained on the original timeline. Be ready for the shakeout classes! You may hear echoes from students ahead of you concerning the demanding courses in the pipeline. I call these shakeout classes. In one such course, we lost six colleagues for varied reasons or half of our starting group.

Whatever class begins your adventure, get to know your professor and peers; take note of the expectations; ask for developmental, constructive feedback; and devote yourself to identifying your research interests. One of the best tips I received from a professor was to use every assignment you can as a test run of your dissertation to narrow your focus from a wide array of topics to the one knowledge gap you seek to fill (Thank you, Dr. Dool!) Heeding this suggestion saved me two semesters of work. I completed my degree within three years in what was, on average, a four-year program. Trust the professors who are genuinely interested in your success; they are helping for all the right reasons and are a blessing in this journey.  

In the next post, I'll reminisce on my first class and impart what I learned from the experience. Til' next time! 

A Dissertation Tale - Part 4a: Getting Ready for Day One, Class One

You should be readying yourself for your first class at this stage in your journey. You may have an orientation to attend before, and we'll get to that, but this post aims to set you up for success leading up to your first classroom experience.

TL;DR: Prepping for success before your first class. This topic is broken into two posts. Check the headers for areas that may serve you, and return for the second half.

To recap the series of events that have landed you here, you have been accepted into a program (woot!) that you committed to (put a ring or at least a non-refundable deposit on it) and have confirmed your enrollment. Yay! Now you need to get acclimated, organized, and prepared to rock this thing (insert a The Mask scene leading to a musical number of epic-ness).  

There's a lot to do to be ready and less time to do it. You'll need to familiarize yourself with the following:

• College-provided digital environments such as the emailing system and class learning management system (LMS) such as D2L/Brightspace, Canvas, Blackboard, Sakai, etc.

• Lay off the land (i.e., the campus) to locate your classes and student resources.

• Digital textbook system (if the college uses one), to opt-in or opt-out (pending on if you prefer to buy your books independently or not).

• Student Handbook (I recognize the likelihood that you read this might be marginal; I get it. As the nerd who read it, I know there's some useful information in there. Think of this as good practice for all those academic articles you will be immersed in soon).

• Offices and contacts for each office you may need to engage with (realistically, you could tackle this on an as-needed basis, so there is no rush here).

No doubt, in the weeks leading up to your first class, you'll start receiving emails from the school concerning events, expectations, bookstore advertisements, and the like. Learn how to access everything, bookmark essential sites, and check your email regularly.  

Getting Organized 

Next, you'll need to organize yourself both digitally and physically. Now you might be thinking, "Dr. G., with all due respect, I'm good here. I know what to do and am ready to rock and roll (insert air guitar)." To which I would say, "That's awesome! I'm not suggesting you disrupt a system that has gotten to this point if it works well, BUT if your master's or bachelor's degree (if going directly to Ph.D. and passing GO) process got a little 'nutty' towards the end, this post might be worth your perusal. You have my full support to do as you see fit."   

The digital organization includes storage systems for your computer and email files. You should be able to quickly access and know where any one file you need is (Trust me when I say this becomes a critical point come dissertation time. You'll have so many articles backlogged and citations to track that it becomes an insurmountable obstacle if you're not organized. So, with that in mind, it's best to build a system that works now that becomes second nature by the time you begin dissertating, which leads me to file naming and folder organization.

Exciting, right? If saving time and reducing stress is your jam, I've got a sweet, juicy information download for you (Pardon the pun).

Folder Organization for Doctoral Awesomeness:

Folder systems are whatever you make them to be. Accordingly, I am recommending the method that worked for me, BUT I strongly advise that you tailor this to a system that works for you and borrow whatever tactics make sense. (There's no sense in using a system you loathe because, eventually, you'll stop using it.)

Start by making your parent folder and call it whatever makes sense to you. You can call it "Doctor_Degree" or "School_Work" or something else entirely. E.g., I called mine the name of the school, degree, and the word "work" after it, using underscores instead of spaces (you'll see why this is important when we talk about file naming). Again, make this your own. Then open that puppy up. It's time to design the next layer of subfolders.  

Let's add a "Classes" or "ClassWork" folder. All documents associated with a class will unsurprisingly go into its associated course folder as a new subfolder. Make a folder for each course (you can do this as you start each class, there's no need to make them all right now) using the course number or name of the class.  

For example, if your first class is called PHD1001: Intro to Doctoral Research, you could label your folder "PHD1001" or "IntroToDoctoralResearch." I recommend using the course codes because they are consistent and, in most cases, already in numerical, sequential order, allowing the folders to be chronological when you open your "Classes" folder automatically.  

You may also want to add a folder in your parent folder for other aspects of your education, such as:

• Events

• Colleague defenses (Note: Your program might encourage you to watch your peers during the big moments in their dissertations. If this is the case, ATTEND AS MANY AS YOUR SCHEDULE ALLOWS. Why? Great question! You'll have a VERY clear picture of what you're in for and get a feel for the dos and don'ts concerning defenses. I'll revisit this point when discussing the dissertation process later.)

• Financial Aid or Bills

• Clubs or Honors Chapters

• A good ole miscellaneous folder (for the times there's not a clear home for a file)

• Enrollment resources

• Research resources (applicable to more than one class so they get a special home)

The last level of folders concerns the organization of each class. In this case, you have a couple of options here, and again, whichever makes sense for you is advisable. One option is to sort the class by each week of the term OR use the deliverable method. In case this is a new term, a deliverable (in the realm of project management) is the thing (technical term) you deliver (submit) to satisfy the terms of your original client contract (what we often call the Statement or Scope of Work, aka the SOW, in case you're interested).  

When applying this to your classes, the deliverable would be the assignments you have due to satisfy the expectations of the course (i.e., earn a passing grade). The nice thing is you will have a clear idea of what you must do by the end of the term by reviewing the class syllabus. In either case, I advise also making a Class Resources" file for all the documents that outline the course or have information that applies to more than one assignment. The goal here is to be able to access any needed file within five mouse clicks. 

You do want to go subfolder crazy, as that takes a lot of time, but scrolling through unsorted files is not ideal either. Use the same approach when organizing your emails; you'll be smooth sailing regarding your organizational prowess. Now that we're folder ready, let's talk about file naming conventions.

File Naming Conventions for Doctoral Awesomeness:

If this seems irrelevant to you or you have your naming convention system in a state that works well, please skip this section.  

File naming is important because, ultimately, it either helps or hinders the searchability of your files and determines the likelihood that your files will remain intact (i.e., not corrupt) due to the presence of bad characters (not be confused with the Tasmanian Devil here, he's not bad, just chaotic neutral). If this is your first time hearing this, it might be worth sticking around to prevent a file-related disaster during crunch time. I take a page (literally, ba-dum-ch!) from Harvard's guidelines. By using a consistent method, you intuitively know what premutation of characters to enter to find your file using a search quickly. With every file name should be a string (ah, coding humor) of information that tells you:

• What course is the file associated with

• What the file is

• When it was created (i.e., the date in YYYYMMDD format)

• What version number of the file is (This number is for you. Your professor will not ask or care which version you give them. If you recall, your latest version is V05; you know not to bother opening V04 as things have changed since then, but now you can go back to older versions if you need to by versioning your files and saving changes as new versions.)

Special notes:

(1) For the love of all that is good in the universe, do not EVER name something "final." The minute you do, a change will present itself, and you'll end up with files like these:

(2) For images, I also like to include the pixel dimensions to quickly determine if an image will work when placed in specific locations without trial and error. E.g. for a MacBook 13" background image, add "_2560_1600".  

One last note before moving on from here, let's talk "spec. chars." or fully referred to as special characters. 

These little balls of fun can cause many issues opening your files because some computer systems cannot handle them. Without going ultimately down the rabbit hole (as I am NOT a programmer but am learning a language. Consequently, I ask for a bit of grace here if my metaphors are not perfect), your file names represent an identifier that is equated to a location or a bit on your storage drive be it an old school hard drive or its newer cousin the solid-state drive. Because the location is rooted in a code (like directions on a map telling the processor to "go here"), special characters can confuse the function of locating and opening the file.  

With that said, here is the spec. chars. you need to avoid along with using a space in file names:

~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) ` ; : < > ? . , [ ] { } ' " |

Citation Magic

We've covered folder and file organization, but what if I told you there is a handy and free tool you can use to collect, organize, and format your citations? Magical, amirite? This tool will save you a lot of grief, and again I recommend it only because it helped me, and I'm hoping it helps you. It's called Zotero, and it is magical (really) for researchers. A colleague recommended it to me (Thank you, Bill!), and it improved my research life.

From class one, you must write and SOURCE your research, most likely a la APA7 or MLA, which requires a Liam-Neeson-like-particular-set-of-skills to execute it correctly. This tool allows you to input manually or, in some cases, scrape a website's metadata to autofill your citations in the correct formatting, saving you valuable time. Now it's not to say you won't need to check the citations before you submit to ensure everything is as it should be; you still need to check yourself (as the great Ice Cube said). As part of your prep. work, I recommend you download it or another version of the same type of automagical tool (TBF, there are others like Mendeley, Citavi, etc., but I don't have any experience with them.). Alright, let's move on to your environmental surroundings.

This point is an excellent opportunity to take some time to get your digital space ready to go. In the next part (4b), we'll finish preparing by discussing the physical workspace prepping you can do to fuel your focus! Til' next time!