Charting your course through your doctorate may sometimes feel like navigating featureless oceans of time with self-directed endeavour, punctuated by intermittent bouts of intensive goal-focused activity towards significant milestones along the way. Creating the right equilibrium of energy, planning, effort, challenge and support can be difficult under these circumstances. In this workshop you’ll experiment with a range of tools and techniques for optimising your energy, attention, and progress towards your doctoral milestones (e.g. proposal, upgrade, submission, and viva). You will assess your usual responses to stress and identify ways to build on your resilience. You’ll decide which tools might serve you best in planning for high-pressure work cycles (and the necessary subsequent rest-cycles), handling them when they arise, and adapting your strategies for future milestones. These personal strategies will equip you for navigating your PhD and in your professional path beyond.

Learning outcomes: Engaging with this workshop will enable you to:

• Analyse your responses to pressure and challenge

• Identify which strategies are benefiting you in your doctoral context and how to enhance them; which strategies are not serving you in this context and need upgrading

• Scan your PhD path and identify key milestones and their implications for your energy, skill, and time allocation

• Create a personal action plan for your next milestone, that works with your individual situation, strengths, and preferences