Procrastination and Goals

Sometimes you have to do something that causes you unease. At that moment, you look around hoping that something more doable pops out so you can draw your attention from the important task. Of course, you always find something “better” to do and quickly switch to this other mundane task that seems more pleasant. This is procrastination.

Everybody procrastinates at a certain level. It isn’t worrying if it doesn’t interfere in your daily workflow and you get most of your work done. In my case, I usually feel the rush to check some email, browse the Internet for some tangential topic, or maybe jump into some dangerously unclosed tabs.

Procrastinating in PhD

I’ve always been a procrastinator. What saved me at university was that, when close to a deadline, I saw the problems coming and I felt the urge to start doing something immediately. This was a good activator of getting things done because, otherwise, I would fail the course and need to take the same subjects again next year.

But this problem-solving technique didn’t work anymore when I started my PhD. Why was this happening to me if I always did great in school and university?

When being a PhD student, you have quite a large period of time ahead, as opposed to the university semester where a few months go on quickly before facing the exams. Furthermore, a PhD graduate doesn’t usually take exams (besides the final thesis defense, if applicable).

The need of clear and bounded goals

Trying to link success at university with success in a PhD, I found out that exams represent meaningful goals that fit the SMART goal setting criteria: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. I lacked this kind of goal in the PhD period.

So problem and solution detected: on one hand, a blurred goal tends to suck my motivation out and, on the other hand, deadlines and exams are good detonators of good work.

Identifying these issues has been key for understanding what happened to me in a large project like the PhD thesis. In my case, taking a PhD is supposed to take a large time scope of 3 years or more. With this time scope, it is impossible to achieve good results if you just randomly “work” hoping that your results will sprout from nowhere someday.

The supervisor problem

Finally, let’s talk about another concern that can severely affect the course of a long-term project like the doctorate studies. Ideally, the figure that brings order out of the chaotic work of a PhD student is the supervisor. For me, I have an academic supervisor and an industrial supervisor, and also a third-party advisor that participates every now and then with some ideas. The three of them with very different mindsets. The three of them with high-level insight but not a very in-deep technical approach to help with.

This can only result in mayhem for a student that has just finished a university degree and hopes to find a fatherly figure that steers him in the right direction and gives him valuable pieces of advice when he’s stuck.

If you are in this situation, you have two options: quitting and hope to find a good supervisor figure in other place or project; or take control of the situation and start managing yourself and your work.

Good luck!