A Fresh Start: My PhD and Life Goals for the New Year
Happy new year! Can I still say that mid-way through January? In this blog post, I’d like to discuss some goals for my PhD I have for this year. I took some time over the Christmas break to truly take a step back from my work. I relaxed, went skiing, and spent time with my family. I came back very excited to start up work again, with a renewed sense of motivation. Within that motivation, I discovered I wanted to do the following things this year to improve my PhD work, and my life in general.
Whether it’s your first year in graduate school, or you’re still in university, I hope my bit of motivation can help you feel motivated as well.
*throughout the blog you may see affiliate links. If you purchase an item, I will get a commission
Wake up early - consistently
I’m normally an early riser in general, but I’d say my comfort level is around 7:30 in the morning. Unfortunately, I get my best work done in the morning, so I’ve realized it might be time to start waking up earlier → around 6:30. I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now, and only sleeping in till 7:30 or 8 on the weekends, and I already feel more productive. I’m able to have a slower morning and get to the office by 8 am, ready to work.
Now, maybe you hate the mornings and are more motivated in the afternoon. Then stick with that! But, if you want to become a morning person, here’s some tips I have for you.
Buy a sun alarm clock (see example here). This has been a life changer, especially in Saskatchewan where the sun doesn’t rise until 9 am…or later. When I’m woken by light, instead of a blaring alarm, I find that it’s easier to get out of bed. Scientifically, waking up gradually compared to a sudden alarm, is quite good for your mental state and melatonin production.
Light candles! After waking up, I don’t like turning on large lights, so I light some candles around the house. My favorite are unscented candles, usually these taper candles. It’s become one of my favorite parts of the morning, so I actually look forward to waking up. If you don’t have an electric lighter - get one; you won’t regret it.
Lastly, to save time in the morning, I normally make and drink a smoothie. I fill it with protein powder, fruits, spinach, and yogurt to get a healthy start to my morning. I have the nutribullet and it’s a reasonable price and works better than the magic bullet in my opinion.
Learn GitHub
After years of trying to avoid github, I’ve finally committed to learning it. As an aspiring research scientist, I’m seeing the large benefits of backing up my code on GitHub and using it to share code with collaborators. One of my research mentors shared this free website with me, and it’s been very helpful to start up my journey. I list below some reasons why I think this will be beneficial.
Storing and backing up code
One of the large purposes of Github is that you can link RStudio Projects with a github repository. Then, you can link specific R scripts to that repository, and track when you make edits and most importantly why you made those edits. This is called “committing” and “pushing”, if you know the github lingo. Basically, GitHub will store all your previous version of code on the back end, showing you your comments of why you did what you did. For me, I’m seeing that this could be extremely useful, especially when instead, I just end up making 10 scripts all labeled with a date to track my changes.
Sharing code
You can easily share the link to your GitHub repository with collaborators who can access your data (if you upload it) and the code (with descriptions). Obviously, you can just share this via email, but the cool thing about using GitHub is that they can make edits to the code on their own GitHub, and you can see what they do. If they have any problems, you can specifically see what they changed. If you received code back via email, there’s no “tracked changes” and it may be hard to see where they went wrong
Code repository for manuscripts
As I get closer to publishing some manuscripts, it’s important that I have a place to have my code stored so the public can access this. GitHub is a good way to do this, because people can easily see any changes you make in the future or fork the repository and use it for their own work. You can additionally link your GitHub to Zenodo, another repository that stores data and code. This is what I plan on doing as it’s more permanent than GitHub and automatically creates a DOI!
One of these days, I could write a blog series on GitHub, especially as I start to learn it more and more. But, until that day comes, I encourage you to try learning it on your own, especially if you plan on using coding in your future.
Writing more efficiently
I’m not sure if this is really a goal, or just something I have to do, but this is going to be a year with lots of manuscripts (I hope!). I want to get better at writing, and while I think I improved a bit last year (see blog post), I know I can keep learning.
Joshua Schimel’s Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited and Proposals That Get Funded has to be one of my favorite writing books, but I also recently got this one, which I’m excited to read soon. It was written by Martin Nunez, an ecologist, who wanted to create a guide that he wished he had 20 years ago.
If you’re in graduate school and haven’t dedicated the time to actually learn how to write, I highly encourage you to do so.
Baking bread
Cassidy, what does baking bread have to do with my graduate degree? Well, I’m glad you asked. As graduate students, I think it’s extremely important to find a hobby. Something that you enjoy that isn’t related to science, so you can take a break and reset. For me, that seems to have become bread making. I’m no expert, but it’s been fun experimenting in the kitchen and having something yummy to eat at the end!
This is the recipe I’ve been using for just normal bread. It’s super easy, but you do need a dutch oven. Here’s a link to a few on amazon.
I’ve also started doing sourdough and I’ve been following this website, and this one.
So far, even though I have a starter working, I have failed to produce a loaf of sourdough bread. But I will get there!
So there you have it, I’ll be spending this year waking up early, uploading my code to GitHub, writing manuscripts, and of course, baking bread. I also hope to keep writing on here more consistently, and sharing products that I believe are truly beneficial to graduate school. See my Amazon storefront here!