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news

Catch Up, 8th December 2014

Hello! How are you doing? This is the last catch up post for this year, although on 31st December I plan to share a “year in review” post that will summarise what I’ve done this year, some of the most-read posts I’ve written and other projects I’ve been involved with. And on the 1st of January I currently plan to talk about my goals and big projects for the year ahead!

The last few weeks have been good, a mix of working from home – which is lovely because I get to play with my daughter more – and workshops in Sheffield. I’m at Liverpool for most of this week, and starting to plan ahead for January’s workshops. I’ve also been doing a fair bit of writing too!

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viva

Common Qs About The Viva: How Can I Avoid Nerves?

It would be very easy for me to say that PhD candidates shouldn’t worry about being nervous. After all, I’ve finished my PhD, and any negative things I remember about the experience are in the past. I’ve also got several years of experience of talking to candidates and graduates: I can’t say “don’t worry” except in a reassuring I-know-you-won’t-believe-me way. If you are prone to nerves, there is very little I can do in a piece of writing to help you avoid nerves entirely.

But perhaps I can share some things with you that could minimise their impact. I’ll do my best.

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Uncategorized

The PhD and The Last Of Us

In summer 2013, parenthood was rapidly approaching. My wife was only a few months away from giving birth to our daughter, we had moved house and were trying to get what decorating and DIY we could done. I was delivering as many workshops as possible in order to take several months off when we had the baby, and wondering what was going to happen…

…and I bought a PS3.

When it came out the latest game was The Last Of Us. I’ve played some great games since I got a PS3 – and back when I had a PS2 – but The Last Of Us is just something else. I don’t know if I will ever play a game so rewarding, so challenging, so emotionally satisfying as The Last Of Us. The emotional themes, the scary creatures, the inter-character dynamics and the wonderfully overgrown landscapes just put it way ahead of the pack for me.

Hang on a minute, thinks the reader, isn’t this a blog that is normally to do with PhDs and vivas and things like that? It is, and here’s where I’m going with this train of thought: there is no video game that sums up the PhD experience better than The Last Of Us.

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creative thinking

Creative Thinking Tuesday, 2nd December 2014

There are lots of tools and tips and techniques for creativity. There are many helpful things that you can have in your environment and behaviours that could aid you. In these posts so far I’ve shared a few things that I find really helpful, and if you look online there are many posts like these. In today’s post, I want to share four sayings or quotes that have shaped how I think about creative thinking.

Sturgeon’s Law

“90% of everything is crud.” First coined by sci-fi author Theodore Sturgeon, this was used in specific response to criticisms of science fiction. You might think that this is a really unhelpful quote to keep in mind, but actually I find that it keeps me motivated: if 90% of everything is rubbish then one has to work hard to find innovative ideas. It sets a personal expectation for creative work. I don’t think it means that one has to reduce the number of ideas one has, and aim just try to have good ideas. Far from it actually…

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news viva

Viva Survivors Podcast: Past, Present, Future

In case you didn’t already know – like I don’t talk about it enough – I produce the Viva Survivors Podcast. It’s an ongoing project of interviews with PhD graduates about “their research, their viva, and life after the PhD.” It came out of a desire to share the stories of what the viva was like for people; I had an idea that the horror stories that everyone seems to know about were, for the most part, myths – I wanted to share real stories. I was, and still am, delivering viva preparation workshops, and I thought as well that by learning more about what people had done to prepare for their vivas I would be able to help PhD candidates more.

I also thought it might be a lot of fun to do! And as time went on I realised what a tremendous learning experience it was for me too.

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viva

Common Qs About The Viva: Can I Make Notes?

Common questions I get asked during viva preparation workshops often relate to what candidates can or cannot do during a viva. Can candidates take time to think? (yes!) Can they call friends for advice? (no!!) Can they record their viva? (tricky one; ask your graduate school for guidance) Probably the most common question of this type is candidates asking if it is OK to make notes during the viva.

I not only think it is OK – I think it’s almost essential that candidates make notes as they go through the viva.

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Categories
work

Making the Viva Survivors Podcast

I’ve been producing the Viva Survivors Podcast for around two and a half years now, and every now and then I get asked questions about how I do it and how everything works. One side of it is the interviewees and their stories, and I ask (a lot!) for volunteers to come and share their stories. Then there is the nuts and bolts of how I produce episodes. Podcasting is often seen as a useful means to communicate research and ideas about doing research, so I thought I would take an opportunity to talk about the tools and services that I use. Hopefully this is helpful to someone reading!

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creative thinking

Creative Thinking Tuesday, 25th November 2014

In previous posts in this little series I’ve thought about tools and inspiration. I think that these are pretty important, and I love it when I come across new sources of both. I think that there is something really great about finding things that support creativity and creative thinking – but at the same time, I think it’s also really useful to look at what things might hinder creative thinking. No sense in putting your foot down on the accelerator while the brake is on!

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news

Catch Up, 24th November 2014

Is it that time already? Seems like only yesterday that I was writing one of these posts, where does the time go… It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, delivering more than a few workshops and keeping a few plates spinning. I was very happy to facilitate on a KESS Grad School recently; I’ve been involved with the programme for a number of years now, and it’s great that that’s continued on. Long train journeys to get to south Wales though, but perfect for lots of reading!

On This Blog

Almost two weeks ago I shared a favourite idea generation process of mine, which resulted in me coming up with some more Christmas presents for my wife! I reviewed The Path Of A Doer, and answered a common question about the viva (“what’s the worst question they can ask?“), before sharing a series of posts that started with me thinking about to do lists. I shared some experiments that I’ve run on myself to try to find things that work for me. In fact this week I’m doing another, capturing things in three columns on a big sheet of paper. Column headings are Tasks, Short and Emails (Short is for the little tasks that are not urgent but need doing at some point OR need doing soon but are not important). It’s just another little test to see what works. What works for you?

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series

To-Do Lists: Odds and Ends

So far this week I’ve shared some thoughts on to do lists, why they didn’t work for me, some experiments that did work for me and how I have tried to keep organised. Today’s post is a sort of collection of related points and ideas. As you can probably tell, I’m still thinking my way through a lot of things like this. Experiments to see what works for me are the key – so I have to keep experimenting and finding what is effective.

Effective and Efficient

I like Tim Ferriss‘ distinction between actions and behaviours that are effective and those that are efficient. The definitions of these – as he gives them – are totally objective, but their applications to individual circumstances could be subjective. Effective actions are actions that deliver results for a goal better than other actions that are aiming at that goal (and the award for bad paraphrasing goes to…); efficient actions are just that, they do things well – but crucially with no thought as to whether or not the actions need to be done at all.

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