How to plan so that your graduate work blends easily with your life.compressed

How to plan so that your graduate work blends easily with your life

Goals for today… (amended)

Compare your experience with others using this

survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2018_general_5fs

Help ensure you have the tools/ideas you need to sail

through your graduate program this year.

A bit of planning, a bit of having the right tools on hand and

a good set of discipline and you are on your way!

Quotes from Stephen Covey

The more aware we are of our

basic paradigms, maps, or

assumptions, the more we can

take responsibility for those

paradigms, examine them, test

them against reality, listen to

others and be open to their

perceptions as well.

1

It becomes obvious that if we

want to make relatively minor

changes in our lives, we can focus

on our attitudes and behaviors.

Bit if we want to make

significant, quantum change, we

need to work on our basic

paradigms.

2

Highly effective people really do

not manage time – they manage

themselves.

3

Agenda: How to plan so that your graduate work blends easily with your life

This Discussion• the 5fs survey and what we know

• Principles / Roles / Centeredness

• The Covey Quadrant

• Taking proactive to a new level: win/win

• Now look at your life/work/graduate work

• What we can Influence

• Understanding before being understood

• Tricks to maintain work-life balance

• Planning your year graduate and otherwise

• Exercise

• Tools to help

• What’s New at MN & DN?

Comin Up Next…• How to LOVE Your Masters or Doctoral Work in

2018• Beginning with the end in mind

• What does it take to love something?

• Connections• People

• Your field

• Others who like to think

• Conferences

• First things first

• Moving from individual to interdependent strength• Dynamic or Static decisions?

• Centeredness, getting your needs met w/o trapping yourself

• Synergy• Sharpening the saw

What students say…

The 5fs survey

Remember…

Everyone taking this

survey has already been

successful at college

education

The Place to Start…Principles / Roles / Centeredness

Principles

There are basic principles of effective living, and people can

only experience true success and enduring happiness as they

learn and integrate these principles into their basic

character.

No enterprise or person can become or remain truly great

without a core set of principles to preserve, to build upon to serve as an anchor, to provide

guidance in the face of an ever-changing world.

Acting out of principle can be preventative such as preventing disease or problems by aligning

with you lifestyle with the principles of harmony and

actions of good health

What principles guide you?

What roles are you responsible for?

• Parent

• Teacher

• Student

• Friend

• Boss or Employee

• Leader

• What matters most to you?

• Your family

• Your children

• Your work

• Your degree

• Your future plans

• Your friends

• Having a good time

Roles and Centered-ness

The Covey QuadrantHow much of your time is in #2?

Quadrant 2 = Less Stress and More Satisfaction –Exercise at the End

Taking Proactive to a New Level:win/win

• How can your behavior in those groups not

only advance what you need but he needs of

others?

• How can your behavior help everyone

succeed?

• How do your principles support those

behaviors?

• What roles are you fulfilling?

What groups do you work in? Who do you work with?

Graduate / Postgraduate Work

Taking these ideas into…

For an example…

1. The principle of cooperation is important to you

2. You take some extra time relationship building (Quad 2)

3. You learn that colleagues/committee chair have deadlines coming up (their Quad 1)

4. So you negotiate a different timing that you would have for your review

Putting it together…

And what to do when we can’t

What we can influence

Seligman’s research has shown

that three people benefit from

acts of kindness. The person to

who was the giver, the receiver

and anyone who witnessed the

exchange.

Covey says: The challenge is the

same: how can we do the most

good for the greatest number

with the resources we have?

(Habit 2: Begin with the end in

mind)

Influence

Before Working To be Understood

Understanding

Self control

Circle of

Influence

Outside of

your

control

What you can influence & what you can’t

In the example used before….

Can you influence….

1. Your mood about turning in your work to your committee chair?

2. Your relationship with your committee chair?

3. The requirements of your university on committee chairs?

4. Whether their review is helpful to you?

5. Whether their review is turned right around?

Self control

Circle of Influence

Outside of your control

1. Someone who is crystal clear about what they want and why?

2. Someone who understands the full dynamic of needs and desires of both people?

3. Someone who knows the other is on their side?

4. Someone who is suspicious that they have to protect themselves from bad attitudes in the other?

Who it the better negotiator?

Tricks to maintain work-life balanceAnd to the Negotiation that Makes it Work

Focus on What You Can Do, Negotiate the Rest

Exercises

Exercise One

Define for yourself…

• Which of the 5fs is most frustrating to you?

• What principles are the most important for you to live by?

• What matters to you most and how does that sync with the principles you want to live by?

• Which roles are in alignment? Which are likely to interfere?

Spend time dreaming of ways in which these come closer together?

Exercise Two

1. Look at Covey’s quadrant and plot your weekly activities.

2. What negotiations can you make with others to move more into quadrant 2?

3. Think about the people in your life… What more can you understand about them in order to deepen your relationship?

4. What aspects of your life and your relationships can you move to a more win/win level?

5. What do you want to influence but its outside of your control? What else can be influenced to improve the situation from another angle?

Tools: Planning Your YearGraduation? Advancement? & Everything Else

For MN and DN Members

Tools for planning – sign onto your DN/MN Portal and then add this ending to the url…

1. Just starting – see the maps first under each menu • and milestones: https://resources.doctoralnet.com/other-resources/doctoral-milestone-

checklist.html

2. Backwards map from graduation backwards to now –• Video: Strategic Planning for Graduate Students• What Does It Take to Graduate This Year? Part One: Backward-Mapping• Finish Your Dissertation in Two Years – Year Two• Planning and Time Management

3. What skills do you need more of (on your resources menu)1. Academic writing (new boxed set): https://resources.doctoralnet.com/boxed-sets/academic-

writing-tools-to-get-it-done.html2. Writing habit: 30 day challenge https://resources.doctoralnet.com/optins/30-day-writing-

challenge.html3. Work-Life Balance: https://resources.doctoralnet.com/optins/30-day-challenge-4-work-life-

balance.html4. Motivation: https://resources.doctoralnet.com/optins/365-phd-motivation.html