Time management!



I'm trying to keep calm and carry on, but ...

These last three weeks have been pure madness. And the next month and a half will be just as bad. I really need to learn better time management skills. Or I need to implement what I already now! I used to be so good at planning and organising my time and sticking to it. When I was doing my undergraduate studies in early childhood, I was studying 75%, working 120%, taking piano lessons and working towards a piano exam, which was no easy task, I was also playing the tuba in a local brass band and singing in a choir or two. Plus, I was going to the gym and doing a little socialising. Not too much, but enough. And I did very well in my studies. Granted, I was on the verge of exhaustion and doing the zombie thing at work, but I managed my time very well. I remember planning the week ahead, writing down every task I needed to do, organising everything to the smallest detail. Because that is what I needed to do to make it through. And it worked.

Things are different now! Obviously, I am not comparing a bachelor study to a PhD. It is not comparable. But in theory, I have all the time in the world but still I keep getting into trouble with not having enough time before deadlines. Maybe it is because I have all the time in the world. It seems I am very good at wasting time. Well, as I have been tutoring and doing some research assistant work, I don’t actually have all the time in the world, but almost. Maybe I'm just tired now and in need of a rant. Because I'm not complaining. Believe me, I'm not complaining at all. This may be the most difficult and stressful thing I have ever done in my life, moving to another hemisphere and doing a PhD, but it is fantastic. I have not been as happy as I am now, ever! Or at least not often before. This is such a dream come true for me. But, it is difficult. And I need to get a grip on this time management thing so that I'm not stressed out all the time.

There are several websites and information out there on how to manage your time better. I know most of this already. My problem is not lack of knowledge, it is lack of implementation. But I guess the fact that I’m ranting about this here means that I’m ready to implement some good, old habits. I’ll let you know how I go on with that next week.

Now, what is it that is keeping me so busy these weeks? Obviously, it is my research proposal. I was also working on my ethics approval which I submitted a couple of weeks ago. I can happily report that my research has almost been approved, I just need to do a couple of changes to my application, send it to the contact person at the ethics committee and that’s it. Hopefully! My methodology section of my proposal is almost done. It needs some tweaking and stuff like that, but the basics are there. Now I need to put everything together and produce the whole proposal. I have a deadline next Wednesday to send that off to my supervisors. And time is getting sparse. My confirmation hearing, or whatever it is called, is on the 2^nd of June. So I basically have a month to finish everything. And I feel I have at least three months of work to do! Yebb, good times ahead.

Well, best get back to work then.

Cheers,

Bryndis

Productivity ...

I love PhD Comics, they are just so funny. And a great way to procrastinate. Or when you just need to feel like you are not alone in the universe. Recommend you check them out.



This week (and many weeks before that!) has been a little like that comic. I've been going to my office and sitting by my computer all day, working away, but still have the feeling that I haven't actually done enough. Very strange. So, I've decided to try to log my work. I got that idea from my friend and office neighbour Sherrie, you can read her blog here! I am hoping that by logging my reading and writing, I can see just what it is I am doing. I will also have to log when I take brakes, when I'm working on my tutoring, when I'm going through emails and social media, etc. I am doing this because I think I am being to hard on myself. Sometimes I may spend the whole day 'writing' but only produce a couple of paragraphs. But that can often be a lot, because there is a lot of reading, thinking and gaining understanding of what I am writing that goes on behind the scenes, so to speak. I need to remember my Reggio Emilia philosophy here, it is the process not the outcome that is important. Well, obviously the outcome is important but I hope you get my drift. My proposal can only be between 20 and 30 pages, but it will have taken me 7-8 months to produce that document, so you can imagine the thinking, reading, writing, re-writing, re-reading, re-thinking, editing, changing, reconstructing, re-re-thinking and re-re-writing, and then some re-re-re-writing that needs to go on for me to be able to produce a quality proposal that will be accepted. It often feels like I'm going in circles, like a cat chasing its tail. But then I have days filled with 'Eureka' and feel extremely clever and on the top of my game, only to be knocked down to Earth by reality the next day. Like I've said before, this adventure is a roller coaster ride!

Yesterday I went on a Waikato river cruise with a group of academics. We had a BBQ and wine tasting and I had a great time. It was great to talk to people from Iceland, Sweden, Scotland and New Zealand and just have fun. But, staying up late and drinking all that wine caused me to oversleep this morning! I'm such a 'hen-head' as we say in Iceland. Not good for my productivity log! And I have just over a week for my ethics approval application deadline so I have no time to waste. Looks like this will be a long working weekend! But last night was worth it ...

My PhD Challenges

I am enjoying my PhD Adventure very much. There are ups and downs, for sure, but I cannot help but feel privileged and fortunate being able to chase this ambition of mine, to follow my dream. I know that there are a lot of people, a lot of women, who are just as capable as I am but not able to follow their own dreams, whether it be in education or anywhere else, because of a vast array of reasons. So I count my blessings and try to put everything I have into my work and PhD experience. There are, however, some challenges that I have to overcome on a daily basis in order for this to be a successful Adventure. I am sure many of you have these same challenges, and deal with them in many different ways. Here are some of mine, in no particular order.

1. Language. English is my second language. I started learning English when I was 12 years old. Before that, I may have known some phrases and words, but not a lot. I loved my English lessons. All through school I excelled at English. I went off to University and did my first Bachelors degree in English language and literature at the University of Iceland. And I did a good job. My thesis was on Jonathan Swift and his A Modest Proposal, which is probably the best satire ever written. Later, I went off to do my Masters degree in early childhood education and care, and as it was an international masters, all the courses and the thesis, was in English. And I did a very good job. English has almost become my natural language, I think in English most of the time, I obviously write a lot in English, but not only academic stuff, sometimes I will write my grocery list in English. It has just become natural to me to use that language. Don't get me wrong, I am making sure that I keep my Icelandic roots, but English is my day-to-day language and therefore it has taken over my brain, I suppose. But it is not my native language. And I do sometimes struggle with it. I obviously have an accent, which apparently sound Scandinavian! My accent differs from situations to situations. Sometimes it is very strong. Sometimes it is not. Sometimes I am lost for words. Even though my vocabulary is quite big, sometimes I cannot find the words I need in that particular situation. And that can be very frustrating. In these last few months, I have found that my vocabulary is getting bigger and more sophisticated. So that is great. But writing a doctoral dissertation, around 100.000 words, in English, will take effort. I am more than willing to do the work, but sometimes it feels difficult and frustrating. This is, however, a challenge I am more than willing to take on and quite capable as well!

2. Being 17000 km from home! I googled it and that is the distance I was given between New Zealand and Iceland! It is hard being so far away from the people you love. For me, what I find the hardest, is the time difference. I am 12 hours ahead of Iceland and Ireland, and 13 hours ahead of Norway. So I cannot just call people when I feel like it. They might be sleeping or at work when I am relaxing at home, feeling like Skyping, chatting on Facebook or calling them on the phone. Or I might be trying to work during day time here while they would love to talk. And of course the knowledge that I cannot just jump on a plane on go home for the weekend, like I could while living in Oslo. So this is definitely a challenge. I am obviously tackling it by going to Iceland for my data collection (among other reasons) so that should help somewhat. But as I am not planning on moving back to Iceland on a permanent basis in the near future, this is a challenge I will have to take on for the long run. I guess 'make one's bed and lie in it' is referring to exactly this situation!

3. My personality! I am an introvert. Which will make me a very good researcher because I can spend for ever just reading and writing, and just spending my free time with people I already know and feel comfortable with. But one of the goals of PhD is networking. You need to get to know other people in your field, both to build your own reputation, but also to collaborate on projects, to make connections that can help you get funding as well as help you get a job after you finish. So I am going out of my comfort zone by doing this PhD. My comfort zone has been getting bigger and bigger for the last 12 years, when I got fed up with my insecurities and shyness and just had to do something about this fear I had of social interactions. I took public speaking classes, even took part in a public speaking competition with my local JCI chapter, which we won. I also took classes on project management and how to organise and manage meetings. I sat on the board of my JCI chapter and tried to do my best to organise events and learn how to be more social. I was also a union rep at my job. I played in a solo recital when I was doing my piano exams, a whole concert with Chopin, Bach, Beethoven and others. I was my class rep for one year of my masters programme. I sang duets in my choir in Oslo. I sang solo in a master class with my singing teacher and fellow students. I sat on the board of the Icelandic Association in Oslo and organised a couple of event through them. And now I am working with Sherrie, and hopefully others, to create social and academic events for us and our fellow PhD students at the Faculty of Education. And I am even contemplating becoming a board member (or at least a volunteer) at the Post Graduate Student Association at the uni. I actually went to a Pizza night earlier today, with the PGSA (didn't have any pizza though!), although I actually hate these kind of events. There is nothing as terrifying to me as small talk. Seriously! It is the worst thing in the world. And none of my closest friends were going to this event, I knew Carrie, the outgoing president of PGSA, whom I know, was going to be there, and maybe a few others that I kind of know, but the whole situation just made me very nervous. I almost walked past the place. I actually did walk past the place. But then I turned back and faced my fears. And it was fine. I managed to have some small talk, and thankfully almost everybody wanted to talk about being a PhD student anyway, so there was plenty to talk about. This is a challenge I am taking on with all my might, I am sure it will be difficult and even painful at times, but I refuse to let my insecurities and old baggage drag me down. So here I am, expanding my comfort zone centimetre by centimetre!

I could probably go on and on about the things I find challenging and difficult. But I won't. Indeed, I think my next post will be about the positive things about my Adventure. Not that those challenges are negative. I am learning and growing as a person, as an academic as well as professionally, so I love those challenges. They are what makes this PhD Adventure worth it. And it is worth it. I have no doubt at all. Magic happens at the end of your comfort zone. And I love magic :)

Bryndis

Aims and objectives!

For the past few weeks I have been wondering what to do about this blog. I like the idea of having a blog. I like to write down my thoughts and reflections and stories from my life, and I like sharing them with others. But for some reason I just haven’t been very active here on my blog even though I would want to. I think that may be because of lack of structure. What is this blog about? What is its purpose? So I have come up with some answers to those questions that will hopefully make it easier for me to put up blog posts more regularly. In fact, I have decided to do weekly blogs. At least! I plan on using Fridays for my blogging days. Well, not the whole Friday, but you know. I might blog more often, but for now I am giving myself a task, organising my schedule and an hour or two on Fridays will be dedicated to my blog.

The big question is, what is this blog going to be about. I suppose I will mostly be posting the same things I have been posting, just more regularly. I call myself the RunningResearcher. That kind of says it all. I am struggling a little bit with my running motivation these days but I feel that I am getting it back little by little. I think that might be because it is starting to get cooler here, autumn is just around the corner, and there is nothing better than going for a run in the cool air. My body is also starting to get fat adapted, so I am able to run and exercise more every day. I will, therefore, very likely talk about my running ‘journey’ on this blog, and I might talk a little about my overall ‘health journey’, like my new way of eating, the fact that I am trying to get into yoga again, and strength training that works for runners. So the Running part of my dual identity will certainly be visible on here. The Researcher part of me will probably be dominant, though.

I am now in my fifth month of my PhD. Here in New Zealand, when you start your PhD, you start with a sort of ‘conditional enrolment’, and in the first 6 months you work on your research proposal, get ethical approval and then present your proposal to a panel of experts. They will then decide if you can go on to ‘confirmed enrolment’, which means that you can continue with your research, start gathering data and things like that. They can also tell you that you need to work on the proposal some more, giving you feedback and time to fix what needs to be fixed. Or they can just tell you to go home! Obviously, I am working towards the first option! You can extend those 6 months if you need to, and I will probably extend a couple of months. That is because my initial idea was to conduct my research here in Hamilton, in the NZ context. But, after considering a lot of different things, I decided to change my context to Iceland. So I will be gathering my data in Iceland. Cannot wait to go back there, but that means that I needed to do some changes to my proposal, and it always takes time to get things in place. Anyway, the proposal is split into different sections. You need to state the aim and objectives of the research, why this is a significant topic worth researching, you need to present a literature review of previous research on your topic and where your research sits within the field and what it might add to the knowledge base. You need to address all ethical issues, present your methodology and have a clear timeframe of how your research will progress. So those are a lot of things you need to do in 6 months! At this moment, I am “finished” with the first parts of my proposal and am now starting to work on my methodology and ethical approval application. I think everything is going well and I am making good progress. You often get discouraged when you are working on something, and all of a sudden it doesn’t seem to make any sense. The other day I was almost in tears because I just couldn’t see what I needed to see in my literature, how I could connect this to that. But then the next day, I was in cloud nine because everything was making such great sense. This PhD is definitely a rollercoaster ride! But I love it, the good and the bad.

See you next week :)

Kia ora

So, I’m in New Zealand. I almost have to pinch myself when I wake up to believe that this is real. The haze of confusion is slowly lifting and I’m starting to understand how things work here. Still don’t have internet at home, which is causing me too feel quite disconnected from the world. Even if I do have mobile internet in my phone, it is just not the same. Anyway, I hope my building supervisor will fix it soon so I can start Skyping and calling people.

My first impressions of New Zealand is that it is very beautiful here. On my way from the airport in Auckland, all I saw were beautiful green rolling hills, and I was seriously half expecting Hobbits to appear (or Teletubbies!). The nature here is lovely. Hamilton is also very green and beautiful, but very different from Oslo. It reminds me both of the suburb where I lived in Augusta, Georgia, and Iceland. Things are flat here (that part does not look like Iceland at all!) and everything is spread out. It is not very pedestrian friendly, you almost need to have a car. There are buses but, I don’t know, the public transport system doesn’t seem to have the same convenience as it does in Oslo. I walked to the supermarket yesterday, about a 40minute walk/3km (similar from Eyrin to Bónus, for my Isafjordur dwelling readers). It is doable, at least if I take the bus back home like I did. I’ll just have to put my grocery shopping on my work out plan.

Saying that New Zealanders are friendly, is like the understatement of the century. Very friendly people, indeed. Everybody is so helpful and nice and willing to help with everything. And it doesn’t seem fake, people seem to be genuinely interested in helping. It definitely helps with settling in. I have just finished all the enrollment paperwork and just got my student ID card, tomorrow I will get my office space and Wednesday I’ll have my first meeting with my supervisors to finish all the details with the supervision agreement and then ... fulltime PhD student I’ll be! They seem to take very good care of their postgraduate students here. There are writing retreats and workshops and other events to both bring people together but also to assist you with issues you might be having. I’m so looking forward to the next 3 years.

I will try to keep this blog active and interesting for you, I haven’t quite decided what kind of a blog it will be, academic, personal, marathon training, or a combination of all three. We will see. I hope you are all well.