The first year of your PhD will probably be a mess. At least that was what my first year felt like. I felt like my attention was being pulled in multiple directions since I had to learn about an area I knew very little about to do my research, get started in the lab to develop my experimental skills while diverting my attention to things like orientation, admin, and other commitments I had prior to starting the PhD. This blog post is for Jean two years ago because I learnt a lot of these lessons the hard way over the course of my first year as a PhD student! 

First of all, what is your purpose for Year 1? As mentioned above, Year 1 will be chaotic. You’re probably starting your research in a new work environment, getting to know new colleagues, potentially moving to a completely new place and there’s a lot you’ll have to do to get settled in. It’s easy for me to say “embrace the chaos”, but I have the gift of retrospect that allows me to say that! 

Your first year gives you room for trial and error, both in terms of how you work and your experimental methods. You’re unlikely to ever have as much time on your PhD after Year 1 to optimise what you’re doing – trust me, the subsequent years of your PhD will only get busier! 

For you to effectively optimise what you’re doing on your PhD though, you need enough data to reference. Tip #1: keep a record of everything. The obvious thing is keeping track of everything you do in the lab in your lab notebook, but make sure to keep track of your train of thought when going through the literature – this will be very useful when you come to write up your thesis and reports. I also like using Google Calendar to keep track of commitments to my time e.g. lab meetings, supervisory meetings, and conferences/seminars. I then use all of that information to come up with a daily to-do list on Google Keep. Google Keep allows me to display each to-do list as a single note with checkboxes I can tick off throughout the day. I also use Google Keep to create weekly to-do lists, write down everything I have done in the lab each day/week and do “braindumps” where I can offload the various to-dos/ideas I have in my head. 

Now that you have the data you need to reference, here’s tip #2: review your progress regularly. You can do a review at regular timepoints to see whether what you’re doing is working for you. I do this every month, but other timepoints that came up naturally for me included when I was preparing my first year continuation report and recently before I had my project strategy meeting. At certain points it might also be helpful to get your supervisor and fellow lab members involved with this e.g. with a project strategy meeting where you review what you’ve been working on so far and next steps. 

If you’re new to lab work like I was, tip #3 is for you: break your experiments down into specific steps when planning your day/week. When I first started it was really easy to plan to do 5 different experiments a day when in reality, I probably would have only done 3 or fewer that day. For example, I’d have to spend two days on a Western blot to get my images (assuming I already have my samples ready). On the first day I have to run my gel, do the transfer, block in 5% milk, before incubating my membranes in primary antibodies overnight. The next day, I will have to wash my membranes in TBS-T, then incubate them in the appropriate secondary antibodies, and wash them again in TBS-T before I can image them. Breaking my experiment down into specific steps like this allowed me to input each step into my daily to-do list and it made each day a lot more manageable. I also liked being able to tick off more items on my to-do list 🙂

Doing this also helped me visualise how long each step of an experiment would take which really helped with time management and prevented me from forgetting about specific tasks. During the initial days of my PhD before I started doing this, I always ended up spending a lot more time than expected on my experiments. With that came the stress of missing meals, seminars/events I wanted to attend and training in the evening. Once I finished in the lab at 3am (I started around 9am the day before) and that was entirely because my lab work took way longer than expected. 

This follows on to tip #4: have hard limits for when you work. For example, I followed a 9 to 5 schedule when I first started (and still do) and I make it a point not to start any experiments over the weekend. My 9 to 5 schedule made sense to me since the postdoc who supervised me in the lab also followed a 9 to 5 schedule. By following the same schedule, I maximise my chances of being able to get help when I need it. Granted there might be days where you need to spend more time in the lab and that’s fine, but it’s important to not leave yourself with no rest. Another hard limit I have is that I must make time to exercise throughout the week because it helps clear my head and allows me to better focus on my research. 

Tip #5 is to learn how to ask for help. A seemingly obvious one but no one actually teaches you how to do it! I found this very tough especially when I first started since I was so new to the lab and I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. I had no idea how to even articulate my questions. Since then, I’ve developed various go-to phrases when asking for help such as “Please can you give me a crash course on XYZ” or “If I am looking to do A, is B the best way to do it or are there better alternatives?” – feel free to use them yourself! 

My final tip is to take time to rest! When I first started my PhD, a newsletter edition by Dr Katy Peplin from Thrive PhD about rest and recovery really stuck with me and here I will discuss the four components of recovery that she discusses in the newsletter, applying some of the tips I discuss in this post and using myself as an example. These apply more to your day-to-day activities so make sure to also use your annual leave! 

1. Psychological detachment – being able to disconnect from work and work-related thoughts during non-work time. Not easy, but this is exactly why I exercise and more specifically, practise karate. During a karate session, I can focus entirely on following my instructor’s cues and my technique. If I don’t, I might end up getting injured or kicked in the face which isn’t great for me! 
2. Relaxation – activities that promote a sense of calm. This is probably why I started enjoying meal prep on a weekend, also a nice way to encourage psychological detachment! 
3. Mastery experiences – this refers to anything that promotes a sense of competence and achievement. This is why I started doing work as a karate instructor, also why I continue doing my outreach work through this website and the cancer research centre. 
4. Control – having the power to decide how you spend your time, energy, and attention. For me, creating all the different to-do lists I mentioned and all that planning gives me more control over how my time is spent because I know exactly what I need to do for my PhD each day. 

The start of your PhD journey will be challenging but I hope you can make your life easier with these tips! If you’d like to see more content like this, you can subscribe to my blog below so you get an email each time I put up a new post.