Speaker 1: I finished my PhD in three years and it's not because I'm some sort of crazy awesome scientist or researcher, although sometimes I like to pretend that I am. It is because I focused on the right things and I put the right kind of procedures in place to make sure that I stayed on time. So here are the four really important steps that I think you need to take if you want to finish your PhD within three years. When you think about time managing a PhD, it can get really boring really quickly. You think you've got to have loads of graphs and tables and spreadsheets. I had none of that. Let me share with you how I actually managed my time and why I think it was so important that I did these simple things. I didn't weigh myself down with all of the other stuff. The first thing that's so important is that I had a hard deadline to the end of my PhD, a hard deadline that everyone knew about. All of my three supervisors knew that in three years I needed to finish, otherwise, as an international student, it was going to cost me $20,000 to do another year. Now when I spoke to someone about this, they were like, oh, there's ways to get around it. But I was like, no, let's not do that. I don't want to be here any longer than I have to be. So let's just focus on getting it done in three years. The other part of time management through your PhD is not about the large goal at the end. It's about breaking it up into smaller chunks. It can get overwhelming even then because you're like, what chunk do I do next? What should I do? This is simple. Just do this. It worked for me and I'm sure it will work for you. Focus all of your time management around supervisor meetings. I had supervisor meetings every two weeks without fail. What that did was give me a week to plan and do experiments, a week to analyze the data, and also do those little experiments to fill in the gaps if I needed to present a story. And then in my supervisor meeting, and this is the most important thing I did, was I presented a research story. I didn't just sit there and just with a notepad. I prepared a formal presentation for my supervisors. I would sit them all down, I'd stand up and I'd present as if it was a conference presentation every two weeks. I had figures, I had schematics, I had everything I needed to tell a story. And that is so important. If you use your supervisor meeting correctly, there is no reason why you shouldn't finish within three years because they are little goal posts every two weeks where you produce results. Use those supervisor meetings as accountability markers throughout your year. If you don't have something important to say at a supervisor meeting, every two weeks you're not doing enough. You're not working hard enough. And so obviously that's field specific and stuff, I understand. But for me, every two weeks was perfect. It gave me enough time to do things, it gave me enough time to analyze it, it gave me enough time to come up with a story and produce a proper presentation. And the thing is, is I didn't work sort of like, don't tell anyone this, continuously throughout like the two weeks. I did it in sort of like, you know, panic moments where I was like, oh God, the supervisor meeting is coming up and I don't have anything to report on. A lot of people would go into that and be like, no, it's not been sort of like a successful two weeks. No, I always had something to present, even if it was just one new table, one new graph, one new schematic, whatever it was, I presented it. And you'll see why in a minute, if you stay around to the end of this video, why that is such an important thing. During my PhD, no matter what happened in the lab, I was results focused. I made sure that no matter what the outcome, if something failed, I think immediately, how can I get a graph, a table, a schematic, anything, some results, some data out of what had just happened. I had countless solar cells fail, like way more than the ones that worked. But what I did was sort of like a autopsy analysis on these solar cells. So then I had data. I had data for why they failed. And that actually led to some really interesting experiments later on. But importantly, I produced data from the stuff that failed. Not all areas of research are capable of doing this, but one thing I really want you to do if you want to finish within three years is think about where you can get results, results for tables and graphs. That's probably about it. Everything that goes wrong, think about how can I turn this into a table? How can I make it go wrong in different ways to produce a nice graph or a schematic? No matter what happens in the lab, be results focused. Don't just say that didn't work, toss it in the bin. You need to go, okay, that didn't work. Why didn't it work? How can I get results from this? And that is what will then sort of like fill up the bulk of your thesis or your peer-reviewed papers. Remember, a thesis is like one big story with lots of little tiny stories in it. So how do you make the most of your thesis? Well, you tell lots of tiny little stories as well as one big story. The third really important pillar of a PhD in three years is writing. You cannot do a PhD without writing a lot. Now that is both in terms of a thesis, but also now more commonly it's in terms of peer-reviewed publications. The more peer-reviewed publications you can get, the better. Most people, however, are still going the thesis route, I think. Now quite often you hear the advice that you should write continuously throughout your PhD. I didn't do any of that. I actually sort of like think sometimes when we talk about writing, we get it wrong because writing a PhD thesis or a peer-reviewed publication starts by not typing out words on a keyboard, not just by like smashing your fingers until you get words that fill up a Word document. It's about the story. And I start the story with figures. I start by producing my figures and tables and I did that for my thesis, I did it for peer-reviewed publications. And so quite often I would go months without actually writing something sort of like significant for a thesis or for my literature review, whatever. But because of the supervisor meetings I talked about earlier, I had all of the story ready to go. Then I would write in bursts. I would write in bursts and say, okay, I need to produce this chapter, I need to produce this section of the paper and I would sit down and I would write it and it would be so easy to write because I already have the story based on the figures from the supervisor meetings I've had, you know, maybe even sometimes months ago. So it's really important that you don't just see writing as, you know, these days, chat GPT or sat there typing away on your keyboard. There's much more to it and actually it starts with images like figures, tables, schematics that you can sort of then write around and about. So if it doesn't suit you, don't worry about writing continuously throughout your PhD. Write in bursts but you need to be continuously fabricating stories that then you can write about later. The fourth pillar is all about how you approach your PhD with the right mindset. Now I think that this is probably one of the toughest things but if you can sort of like just get through a PhD in your own way, that's all that matters. Remember that a PhD isn't about winning a Nobel Prize. It's about just convincing some crusty old people in a room somewhere that your thesis is worthy of them ticking the box and yes, this is a significant contribution to a field and that significant contribution varies. It can be that you sort of like just taken an idea a little bit further, that's a significant contribution. So you need to get into the mindset that a PhD sort of like will inevitably come out at the end if you just do all of the things I've talked about in this video, produce figures and results, have regular supervisor meetings, continually craft stories around your work. That is how a PhD kind of gets automatically kicked out of the other end and the problem is that too many people think they have to win a Nobel Prize to get a PhD. Not the case. I used to think that this used to be like one of my worst traits but I really didn't care for perfection. I never really have but do you know what? One time, I really, really worked hard on a piece of writing and it came back with just as many corrections if not more and it just showed me that it's about just putting your work out there, getting it corrected, making sure you're not sort of focused on perfection but rather than progress. Have a couple of sort of like bounces back and forth between you and your supervisor or you and another colleague around a particular piece of work. That's all that really needs to happen. So progress over perfection because to be honest with you, it just works. Just send it out even if you don't think it's ready. And the last thing about mindset really is about making sure that you don't compare yourself to others. It is your journey and also people do PhDs for different reasons. If you want to go into academia, great. If you want to do something else afterwards, also great. Arguably, most people will be doing something else afterwards anyway. So don't worry about comparing yourself to that sort of like superstar in the lab that has got 12 papers in nature because clearly, they're on a sort of like a pathway that maybe you don't want to be on. Focus on what you have to do, what you're strong at and a lot more opportunities come out of that than constantly worrying about sort of like keeping up with this person or comparing yourself to someone else in another lab or even another field. It's not helpful. If you like this video, remember to go check out this one where I talk about the six small changes you can make to revolutionize your PhD overnight. I think you'll get a lot from it. So there we have it. There's everything you need to know about finishing your PhD within three years and the four sort of like proper steps you should take to make sure that you finish in a timely fashion. Remember that your supervisor and the university wants to keep you around for as long as possible because you are cheap labor to them. So you have to sort of like be a bit forceful so that your PhD works for you. Alright then, if you like this video, remember there are more ways to engage with me. The first way is to sign up to my newsletter. Head over to andrewstapleton.com.au forward slash newsletter. The link is in the description and when you sign up, you'll get five emails over about two weeks. Everything from the tools I've used, the podcast I've been on, how to write the perfect abstract and more. It's exclusive content available for free so go sign up now and also remember to go check out academiainsider.com. That's my project where I've got e-books, I've got resource packs, courses are coming soon and I've also got the forum and blog and everything is over there to make sure that academia works for you. Alright then, I'll see you in the next video. Bye. Transcribed by https://otter.ai