Your relationship with time in graduate school will determine whether you achieve more rather than less, so have a respectful attitude towards time. Don’t let time get away from you and don’t take time for granted.

The audio version of this post:

Let me clarify that.

Thinking of graduate school as a long time to get things done is a mistake you need to avoid from the start. Think of it as a very short time to achieve many things.

Five years is not long if you want to achieve more rather than less

Five years is really not that long if you are ambitious. In the first two years, you are probably in classes and/or teaching.

You join a research group but you are probably not producing much until you are a more senior graduate student. It does take some time to get the hang of a new field.

Once you do start to get the hang of it, though, do not act like you have a lot of time to push that paper out. You have very little time.

So get to it, get it done, and start entering the wrapping-up phase of graduate school. The good news is you will actually get more done this way. Not less.

By mentally limiting the time of your Ph.D. and thinking of it as a very finite, short amount of time, you will achieve more.

Having a thoughtful relationship with time in graduate school helped me. I worked on a particle astrophysics research project in graduate school. I ended up going to Antarctica and back, working on hardware, simulation, and analysis, publishing multiple papers, and having the experience of a lifetime – all within five years. Check out one of my YouTube videos from graduate school below!

When you give yourself forever to write all those papers, they don’t get written. So, the first step to finishing your Ph.D. is acting like you have very little time to accomplish a lot and then, every day, accomplishing something.

Small things count. Learn or do something every day. And keep good notes. I recommend always having LaTeX (or the editor of your choice) open and typing up short reports of what you have done each day. This will make putting your thesis together later so much easier.

More on finishing graduate school in a timely manner

How to actually finish your PhD in a timely manner

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