Julio E. Peironcely is a PhD student in Metabolomics and Chemoinformatics at Leiden University, The Netherlands. In his free time he writes for his site juliopeironcely.com about his research, academic life, social media, and lifestyle design. You can follow him on twitter @peyron.
This is the first part of two that reviews 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, a book that provides advice relevant to PhD students and post-docs.
I have lost a lot of time during my PhD. On the one hand I waste time as everybody does; on the other hand, I waste time searching for the best tool to organize my time.
Initially I thought that I was not using the right tools to manage my projects, tasks, and time. Therefore, I tried all sorts of analog and digital tools, like a Moleskine, the GTD methodology, the pomodoro technique, Wunderlist, Remember The Milk, Google Tasks, Evernote … you name it. So much wasted time searching for the tools, implementing them in my workflow, and testing them. Can you imagine all I could have achieved if I had instead just, well, worked?
But something did not feel right. Once the new system was implemented I would not stick to it, by not creating the habit of using the tool and using it effectively. I would move on the next tool and start all over again.
I had to change myself.
I came to realize there was something deeper that needed to be changed, something within me. But all those time management books were talking about externalities that after hard experimentation were far from my control. This was when the 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People came my way. This book goes further than time management. It is about defining who you are and who you want to be. It presents the tools you need to define the rules you want your life to be based on. Although it is not aimed at PhD students and academics, it should be included in the Top 42 Books For PhD and Graduate Students.
I found out that these 7 general principles, outlined in these two posts could help me to be more effective during my PhD and in any writing projects I undertake.
K UP, BACK UP YOUR RESEARCH
