Self care in grad school: TIME BOUNDARIES

Most recounts of self-care focus on recharging, after the day. It's about bringing back loss after spending time and energy as a currency throughout the day. With my goal of being intentional this year as well (yes, my WORD OF THE YEAR), I also thought about the flip side: intentional spending.

Here are 3 ways I've been trying out to protect time + energy boundaries

[FIRST] Say no to projects that don't align with training goals

• I make this decision based on whether a project aligns with (1) my research interests and (2) my training skills

• Starting out grad school meant my research interests were BROAD so for the first couple of years I focussed on taking on projects that helped me develop training skills (e.g., types of stats, techniques, etc.)

• Now comes the hard part. Once you've figured out your ultimate goals, make sure you're staying true to these goals by taking on projects that fit these goals.

• Remember, saying yes to something (especially something you don't really care about) implicitly means saying no to something else (which could've been THE thing you actually care about). You only 24h to your day.

• As you get into upper years of grad school, develop the skill of asserting your time boundaries. [I say you but honestly this is a long internal monologue to myself, I need to set these time boundaries too] .

[SECOND] Automate + script anything and all things

• Love coding/ scripting? This is right up your alley. Definitely automate as much of your data analysis as possible because friend, you are human, and humans make mistakes, especially humans who don't get enough sleep. Don't play yourself by analyzing ALL your data and realizing that in step 1 you entered 22 instead of 2 in a parameter and have to do it ALL over again

• Automation doesn't only mean coding though! There are websites out there (like IFTTT) that take the coding out of making "If This, Then [do] That" sequences. Definitely try email templates for responding to students as a TA (consider: "read the syllabus" templates + instructions of where to find it; create a template for everything you have to write more than 3 times).

• Automate your citations and references omg please: I wrote a blog post here about using the FREE MENDELEY PROGRAM available out there, and it's something I wish I could have sent to my past self. I mourn all the hours, perhaps days, I've spent on citations and references, it makes me cry.

• Automate your LIFE THINGS: consider meal prep (don't have to decide meals every day or wait in lines to buy meals AND save money); having a capsule wardrobe (minimize the number of decisions you have to make in a day to prevent decision fatigue)

[THIRD] Document your project decisions and details

• Make sure you document ALL your decisions and rationales (so you don't come back to them 2 years later because Reviewer 2 is like Why Did You Do It Like This). Human memory is fallible and even though you think you'll remember it, you'll forget at least one (1) detail

• DOCUMENT ALL THE RESOURCES YOU USED so you can come back to them if you need to check something. There's nothing as painful as having to regoogle a resource/FAQ/how-to and it's no longer showing up in your google search

• Documenting dates + project details also gives you an approximate but tangible look-back on how realistically (and painfully) L O N G projects can actually take, so you can use these more realistic estimates for future planning.

• Why I do it: It's my long term memory outside of my real long term memory. External storage. Searchable (CTRL+F) long term memory is fantastic, trust me.

• How I do it: ongoing Google Doc (dearly nicknamed Research Journal, total # of pages = 180, and I started in MSc2)

Word of the Year: ✨Intention✨

I know, we're more than halfway through January 2020 already so this is KINDA LATE.

ANNOUNCING THIS YEAR'S WORD OF THE YEAR!

This year's word is intention.

I spent too much of last year automatically whizzing through things and not really remembering or being aware of a lot of things I was doing. I think if I continue this for too long, life will just whizz by me without me even noticing.

MY INTENTIONAL GOALS FOR THE YEAR

[1] Intentional Spending

The Problem: I've spent way too much just casually scrolling Amazon or Chapters or Yesstyle. Too much money was spent unplanned because of email offers I got in my inbox, leading to very scary credit card bills oops.

My spending intentions: My goal is to spend money in a more efficient way so I'm putting the money towards things I want (saving up for emergency fund, down payment, etc.) and the things I actually enjoy (e.g., trips to visit my bf, good food and fun experiences).

How I'm going to do it:

• Journalling about all purchases that are not part of the planned budget & reflecting on whether it should be something I should add to my planned budget as a valuable expense OR whether I should recognize how I'm feeling/ what I'm doing/ where I am before I purchase the thing to see whether there are patterns that lead me to automatically spend

• Biweekly check-ins on budget. I bank with 2 different banks and the statements are off sync so I get new statements to download/ enter in my budget every 2 weeks so it works perfectly :) It used to be monthly but I realized that was a long time.

• GROCERY LISTS: I create grocery lists every week from the Food Basics flyers I get to my email. This helps me because too often I walk into the grocery store and just pile on whatever I feel like and it exceeds my budget. Having some sort of guideline helps me focus on making sure I get those Food Groups For My Brain Noodle Fuel first before packing in those treats

[2] Intentional Eating

The Problem: I eat when I'm bored. I eat when I'm stressed. I eat when I don't know what to do with myself. I eat when I'm sad. These are all unhealthy reasons for eating that don't get at what I'm trying to solve (e.g., boredom, stress, etc.)

My eating intentions: I think TOO OFTEN in the past I have tried to go on a restrictive diet as a way of "controlling" these urges but I think that's actually building INTO this habit of eating as a reward or eating as a vice to be allowed if I'm stressed. I intend to make sure I'm eating the planned meals a day and also when I'm hungry, but to distinguish that from eating as a coping mechanism for negative emotions.

How I'm going to do it:

• If I'm eating outside of my planned times or meals, to check in on whether I'm eating because I'm hungry, or eating as a coping mechanism. If I'm eating because I'm sad or stressed or bored, I now have a list of alternate self-care activities to do instead. I might blog about this more in the future, but I realized that my coping strategies are usually based on 2 senses: EATING (taste) and WATCHING TV/YOUTUBE/SHOWS (visual), and that I forget about the calming activities I can do for TACTILE (shower, bath, stretch), AUDITORY (music), and SMELL (bath bombs, candles, baking).

• Track my eating on cronometer 1x/ week. I settled on 1x a week because I don't want to overfocus on numbers every day, but I do notice that with grad school and life getting busy, that I forget that my brain needs nutrients and don't eat enough vegetables. Not having enough nutrients contributes to some of this tiredness too so knowing what kind of nutrients I need to eat more of (LOL usually vegetables or fruits tbh for them vitamins) allows me to more consciously plan and budget them into my next grocery list

• Take on a not-restrictive stance. I think this is what distinguishes this from a diet. If I have a dessert and it actively makes me happy and I didn't choose to just eat it because I was unhappy and needed to fill the void, that's an experience I am enjoying and that is adding to my life.

[3] Intentional Time Use

The Problem: I say yes to a million things and feel overwhelmed and stressed, which I cope by procrastinating (watching tv) or eating, which takes up more of my budget which gets me more stressed about money so I take on more things to afford my #Lifestyle, which in turn means I am MORE OVERWHELMED. (Are you stressed reading this yet).

My time intentions: Really setting up time boundaries and being intentional about what I say yes to. Saying yes to one thing means saying no to other things (we all only have 24h). And I want to make sure that I'm saying yes to the things that align with my goals and values and no to the things that don't energize me.

How I'm going to do it:

• I use calendar blocking to block out my time and learn how long it really takes me to complete things so that in the future, I can plan accordingly.

• I also track my time by the hour to see what mostly takes up up my time. For each hour, I track what I spent most of that hour on, and how energized I felt that hour from that activity: energized (+), neutral ( ø ), and depleting (-). It helps me make sure that I say yes to more things that are energizing, and also to make sure that if there are depleting things I have to do, that I schedule enough buffer around it so I don't burn out.

• I spend up to 30 minutes each day clearing out all emails to be added as tasks to my calendar. I decline anything that doesn't fit into my schedule over the next 2 weeks.

• I do a weekly journal reflection on how I spend my time and whether they align with my goals this year. I reflect on what's working each week that I should celebrate, what's not working that I should abandon, and what I really wish I had spent time on so I make time the next week for these things.

THOSE ARE THE MAIN THREE THINGS!

I'll check back in throughout the year and see how things are going :)

Want to learn more?

• Jenna Kutcher's podcast on the "not-to-do-list"

• Amy Landino's youtube video about how she uses calendar blocking

• Placeholder for how I personally calendar block + integrate with excel + todoist

• Placeholder for post I wanted to write about time boundaries

Please never manually cite things again, friend

I just wanna say, this is not sponsored in any way. The only reason I’m writing this is that this changed my life entirely and improved my quality of life by at least several measurable points.

For this blog post, I’m going to pretend I’m writing a paper about eggs.

Things to download

• The Mendeley library manager

• The chrome (or browser add-on) to add as you browser

• The word plug-in

I’m going to talk about it in chronological order, i.e. THE JOURNEY OF WRITING A PAPER.

The Reading Phase

You’re writing a paper and you need to collect sources to cite as evidence right? This is where the plug-in comes in. Once you find the source that you’re looking for, you can click on the extension, add the source to your library.

Note: I usually actually don’t check off the box for downloading the pdf, just because I cycle through a lot of papers.

Voila! It's been added. Everything in one place, taking only a few clicks.

Managing your references in the library

Make sure you don’t do a dumb, hit sync so all of the papers you’ve added so far are added! I make this mistake about 1 every 6 times I use this LOOL

How to make sure your citations are ready for use

• Once added, your journal articles and pdfs can all be found on this desktop reference library manager

• It auto-fills a lot of the information needed for citations and references, but give it a quick human lookover to make sure it's right.

• PROTIP: Click on DOI lookup and it will update the entry with updated, accurate information! I still give this a quick glance just in case but it's almost always been right. ( My only issue so far that I've had to fix is converting ALL CAPS NAMES into Normal Caps Names)

If you don’t or can’t install the word plug-in, you can also just insert your bibliography from here. Just select all the papers you want to add to your references/ bibliography, copy and paste into word.

Mine defaults to pasting in APA format (because Mendeley is managed by Elsevier, the psychology/medical journal article company).

But, I don’t do it like this anymore because there’s an EVEN BETTER WAY.

The Word Plug-in

This part I didn’t learn until I was in PhD1 and I almost cried when someone taught me this.

How to add in-text references

• Under the "references" tab, select “insert citation”, or use the ALT+M shortcut because you’re probably trying to type seamlessly as you’re writing your paragraph

• Type the names you remember (can be first or last!) and year of publication

• Click on the right one and the in-text citation will be included!

How to add the bibliography / references

• Under "References", click "Insert Bibliography"

• That's literally it! It will insert the bibliography/ references for all of the in-text citations you've already added in the body of the text.

• If you add/ remove to your paragraphs, simply just click "refresh" (also under the "References" tab) and everything will be updated.

• Mine is by default set to APA citations, but you can change the citation mode under style.

TA-DA!

I hope this saves y'all time when you write from here on out. Writing is never fun but man, this is much more fun when you don't have to be frustrated about citing things.