The Not So Calm Before the Storm

It's Bank Holiday Monday and thanks to the quirks of universities I get Bank Holiday Tuesday off tomorrow! So it's time for a breather and to take stock before work creeps in once more. However, I must say I will be using my day off extra time to practice, practice and practice some more my first conference presentation (which I find really hard to do in work) and my lines a fast approaching performance of the Accrington Pals. Overall, it's a bit of a weird time for me at the moment as it feels like I'm waiting for all sorts of things to happen. I'll be leaving for a conference in 2 weeks time, then in the coming months I've got a 2 week industrial placement to organise, end of year paper work to do, another conference to attend and, on a more fun note, a play to get ready for. However, beyond all that there's something else on the horizon, my Final Year. 

It's strange, you'd think that this far in to a PhD Final Year wouldn't seem like such a big deal and to be honest I would rather like to leave and get a real job in a year and a bit's time. But that's precisely the difficultly! I quite like it being a year and a bit away! It's quite scary that very soon I won't have the cosy 'year and a...' in front of the measurement of the time I have left. In Final Year I'll need to write a thesis, finish up with all my experiments (which will involve starting some new ones) and apply for jobs; so it feels like the time I'm in now is the calm, or rather not so calm before the storm. A time to present my work, write and re-work a paper or two and have everything ready to help me gather momentum to burst into the Final Year with a great start.

Don’t get me wrong there are some awesome things to look forward in Final Year. Firstly, being able to have a beautifully bound thesis with my name on it (I’m so going hardback), although I have to write what goes inside it first. Also, I’ll be less than a year from hopefully having a job with employment rights and a pension (whooooo!), but on the down side I have to actually get offered a job in the first place. And that’s when I get stuck, I’m very much looking forward to the after the PhD, but the journey to get there could be very.... interesting.

What I need are goals, little things I can give myself a gold star for completing. That way I should hopefully properly manage my time, keep an eye on what I need to do and be able to focus on what I have accomplished rather than what is left to do. So my plan is to have set up lots and lots to-do lists in Excel. In the past I could never really get on with to-do lists reaching beyond what I wanted to do each day, but now that I have more to think about than experiments I need to have a clear handle on what I need to be doing and when it needs to be done by so it seems like to-do lists are the way to go. The good news is that I've found that, for some reason, using colour coded deadlines in an Excel spreadsheet helps me cut through the clutter and clearly see what I need to be doing and when I need to be doing it by (and setting them up is the perfect form of procrastination).

So as time ticks on, hopefully I'll be able to stay focused by being a to-do list queen. But, if you have any good organisational techniques and useful programs you use please share them in the comments! I'm sure that I and everyone else reading would find it very helpful (and a good excuse to procrastinate some more).