Simplifying and Not Trying to Achieve Everything at Once

Simplifying and Not Trying to Achieve Everything at Once

From Hacking Academia by Michael

May 10, 2025 · 7 min · Season 2 · Episode 26

About this episode

This episode discusses the importance of focusing on manageable tasks in research to reduce stress and improve productivity.

When is having a good awareness of the "big picture" in a PhD or general research not helpful? When you need to focus in on the "little picture", to preserve your sanity, lower your sky high stress levels, and make some concrete, tangible progress forwards. When things get tough in research, researchers, including PhD students, can have a (natural) tendency to try to focus on trying to achieve too many things at once, with the natural result of achieving nothing at all, and getting ever mor...

People in this episode

Host: Michael

Topics covered

  • PhD research
  • stress management
  • focus
  • productivity
  • mental health

Keywords

  • PhD
  • research
  • stress
  • productivity
  • mental health
  • focus
  • progress

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