5 Hard Truths about Achieving a Work-Life Balance in the Silly Season
With the office Christmas party invitations flooding in, and end of year meetups filling up your calendar, not to mention that Woolies Christmas mince pies are already getting shelf space – you’re right in feeling that the silly season is fast approaching. But before you find yourself spinning, take a moment to reflect and prepare to attain a sufficient and sustainable balance in all the areas of your life, so that you can still be productive and have fun amidst the goings-on of the season. One thing is for sure, you are going to have to adjust your schedule. Pretending that your rigid work-study-life programme is still valid through December is probably the biggest mistake you can make. Don’t allow tiredness, burn out and loss of energy to deplete your self-esteem and confidence levels over this demanding time of year. Because there is no energy in the pit of low…
Understanding Self-Determination and What Keeps You Motivated
Recall any goal that you set for yourself in the past which you then went on to achieve. I’m willing to bet that if you think about that time in your life, you’ll remember how determined you felt. You knew that it was up to you to make the changes necessary to achieve your goal and you pig-headedly believed you could and would do it. And then you did. Psychologists call this ability to motivate yourself to make significant changes in your life self-determination. Are you ready for change? Read more about the phases of change here. What Motivates Us? We are motivated intrinsically and extrinsically. Intrinsic motivation means we do things because we want to, it makes us happy and satisfies us on a deeper level. No external reward necessary. Extrinsic, or external motivation, is the age-old carrot or stick. We do things because we feel we…
The Roadmap to Writing your Thesis
Most students are quite overwhelmed at the idea that they are tasked to write a hundred or more pages for the thesis or dissertation component for their course. And many do not know where to start. What should the chapter outlines be? What kind of content should be on those chapters? This article is intended to provide you with a simple, yet practical roadmap to getting your thesis document started. The bullet points below should serve as a strong guideline and give you a solid start but bear in mind that there is a lot more to it than that. It is imperative that right from the beginning you understand your institution’s technical requirements for the actual thesis document: title page layout, margins, font, line spacing, tables and figures descriptions, format of front page, format of table of contents and any other technical aspects that you need to know. Spend…
8 Technical Tools to Help you Kick Thesis Writing Butt
Many students who are facing the daunting task of writing a thesis or a dissertation immediately get stuck into doing the necessary research. This process can lead to hours and hours going down rabbit holes on the internet, ordering books from Amazon and collecting articles. You need to figure out when “enough is enough”. At last, the day will come when you finally feel ready to start putting the words down. It is at this stage, when you must put bum-in-chair and write, that a whole new set of challenges may start derailing the writing process. In my experience, this is when you start losing hours like coins in a casino and begin to feel severe pressure. You want to try and avoid these obstacles at all costs. It is vital that you set yourself up for optimal productivity and success by acquiring and mastering the necessary tools to make…
Thesis Writing. 7 things you can do when you lose the plot
Unlike achieving a bachelor’s degree, post grad studies often demand a dissertation or thesis component and the transition from student to researcher is demanding. Not only do you have to learn, you also have to do your research independently to answer your thesis question. Furthermore, you have to organize your findings in an academic paper worthy of publishing. Writing a thesis is a lot like eating an elephant: You have to tackle it in bite size chunks. If your mindset is focused on The Thesis, in its entirety, you will feel overwhelmed and grow anxious by the enormity of the task ahead. That is why project managing yourself and having a structured approach to how, when and where you’ll spend the time writing your paper is vital. READ: Project Manage Yourself to the Finish Line But even the best laid plans can go haywire, because, well, life happens. This is…
(Don’t) Just Do It. Understanding the stages of change.
How make a lasting change to reach your goals. Understand the 6 stages of change.
The New Year’s Resolution is Dead…
…Long Live the New Year’s Resolution! You might have heard the phrase: The King is Dead! Long Live the King! This means that the (previous) king is dead and we wish the (new) king a long life. It also indicates that there is never a time without a king. Enter the ye olde new year’s resolution. It’s been a trend in recent years for people to publicly declare that they don’t do new year’s resolutions. Are you one of them? I’m of the opinion that while the first of January resolution might not be fashionable anymore – goal setting, planning and working towards personal and career growth is a big deal to individuals who live consciously. On one level it makes sense to ditch the idea of making resolutions if the past has taught you that you are more likely to fail than succeed. But there is a big difference…
How to Survive #ThesisLife over the Holiday Season
If you intend to graduate in March 2019 and your thesis submission deadline is somewhere between now and then, you know what I’m about to tell you: You’ll have to work on your thesis over the festive season. Of course, it is tempting to simply take the December holiday period off and pick up your academic study in the new year. But, while the idea of fitting in thesis writing between sun-downers, year end functions and family get togethers may seem an impossible task, it will be well worth the effort to get organised and do as much as you can without sacrificing an entire month of progress. Simply put: make peace with the fact that you will have to give something up to fit in your work. More on sacrifice here. Then be pragmatic and start planning in sessions that you will dedicate to your thesis between 1 December…
What is a Thesis Coach?
Research suggests that many postgraduate candidates fail to earn their degree because they do not submit their thesis. And, many more suffer prolonged periods of serious stress related to years of delay in completing their research. Would a Thesis Coach help? In my view, a Thesis Coach focusses specifically on postgraduate students, specifically those navigating the thesis phase of their qualification. A Thesis Coach provides the following services through individual one-on-one coaching sessions: Coaching to evaluate the client’s highest priority values to understand and determine the level of commitment to their topic choice. Usually, a specific highest value drives the topic choice, which in turn, drives and motivates the process towards thesis completion. Coaching to incorporate proven and practical project management techniques for goal setting and planning. This will support the client to establish control over their own process and to manage work/life/thesis balance. Coaching to ascertain the most effective routine/s…
ARE YOU SCARED? WELL, DON’T BE – PROJECT MANAGE YOURSELF!
ARE YOU SCARED? WELL, DON’T BE – PROJECT MANAGE YOURSELF TO THE FINISH LINE Don’t be scared, just get used to it, you have to be your own project manager. You only have a limited amount of time and energy in any single day or week and you have to direct this towards your own, personal value-driven goals. Timeline for your future objective What do you do everyday that gives you pleasure? What feeds your soul? You are unique, discover what you are best at and what you enjoy doing. Figure it out. And then get on with it. Daily routine is essential Start your day with a routine that works best for you. Make this daily routine part of your project plan. This gets you going in the morning and helps you to focus. FFS, don’t set yourself up for failure within the first week because your plan includes…