4.08 How to stay focused when a lot’s going on - a special coaching episode

In this episode, I talk with Gabriela, a student in my PhD Life Coach membership. She is taking a few weeks off to get married and is struggling with getting distracted, worried that she’ll feel guilty while she’s away, and that she’ll dread coming back. Listen as we work through ways to address these challenges. Whether you are taking a big break like Gabriela, or you struggle to switch off even for the weekend, this episode will help you! You can also hear more about what it’s like being a student in my membership. 

If you like listening to coaching episodes, you might like this conversation with final year student Swagata, about overcoming overwhelm and overwork in the last few months of her PhD. 

****
I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. Please make sure you subscribe, and I would love it if you could find time to rate, review and tell your friends! You can send them this universal link that will work whatever the podcast app they use. http://pod.link/1650551306?i=1000695434464

I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.

Transcript

Vikki: [00:00:00] I'm just jumping on here quickly to give you an update before this episode even starts. So today I am talking with Gabriela, who is a student in the PhD life coach membership at the moment, and she has a lot on her mind at the moment. You are gonna hear all about it in this episode, but I also wanted to give you a sneaky preview before we start the whole story. So Gabriela was preparing for some time away from her PhD for reasons that you'll hear about, and the day before she left, she put a message into the Slack channel. So we have a Slack channel for all members. She put a message into the Slack channel was saying, "hi all. This is just a quick message to let you know that I've officially sent the most upToDate draft to my supervisor today, and while it might not be as completed as I'd hoped for, I am incredibly proud that I've been able to send it on time and without compromising my non-negotiables. I'm ever so grateful to Vikki and my coworking lot. Whether you came once or you are a regular, these sessions are one of the best part of my resubmission period, and that is something I would never have thought of saying six months ago. I will miss you guys and [00:01:00] see you all in six weeks." So if you wanna know where she's off to and what challenges she was overcoming in order to get there, you've gotta listen to this episode and if at the end of this episode you're like, oh my goodness, I need some of this help too, then you are in luck. If you are listening live, the PhD Life Coach membership is open for new clients this week, so this is going out on the 20th of October, 2025, and that's a Monday. You can join between now and Friday. So if you wanna be part of that community, if you wanna be getting this sort of support so that you can achieve your goals the same way Gabriela has then go to the PhD life coach.com, click on the membership and you can sign up straight away. If you are listening to this at some other time, don't worry. We open once a quarter. You are always welcome in, so go and check it and I'll hopefully see you in the membership soon. Hope you enjoy today's episode. Gabriela is amazing. You will love her.

Vikki: Hi everyone, and welcome to their PhD Life Coach podcast and we have another coaching episode this week. Now many of you will [00:02:00] know that I often ask for volunteers to come on the podcast to be coached about something that is useful and relevant for them at the moment, but they might also be relevant for my listeners. And often I give that opportunity to people who I don't work with in any other context. But today is a special, special occasion because today I am chatting with Gabriela, who is one of my PhD life coach membership students. So, hi Gabriela. Welcome. 

Gabriela: Vikki, thanks so much for having me. 

Vikki: No problem. It is a pleasure. Those of you who don't know, my PhD life Coach membership is a quarterly membership program where students get access to a ton of coaching resources, online resources, communities and coworking opportunities as well. And Gabriela is in for her second quarter now. So we have worked together for, what's that, four, four and a bit months, something like that and so I know her background quite well, but what we're [00:03:00] gonna do today is you'll give everyone a little bit of context just a brief story of where you are at at the moment and what you want some coaching on today. And then we'll go at this as though it was a one-to-one coaching session like we do in our group sessions. Except you get a bit longer because we're on the podcast. Okay?

Gabriela: Awesome.

Vikki: So tell people a little bit about where you are at at the moment.

Gabriela: Right. So I had the dreaded sentence by every PhD student. I had my Viva last November and my PhD was deemed passable, so my Viva was accepted and I passed my Viva. However, I got resubmission and in my institution, resubmission means that you have to take a year long basically for your corrections, and they are more than major corrections, which means that I have to go back to labs, reanalyze my data, entirely rewrite my literature review, and I [00:04:00] have to resubmit it. It's basically like I'll be submitting first time, but this time I'm not allowed to have any other outcome, but minor corrections, PhD, and fail or fail.

Gabriela: So this was absolutely not on the cards. I have done my. PhD since 2021. So I'm at on my like five years. It's a very long time. I had two months of a bit of a break to decide what I wanted to do, and at the end of that break I joined a membership. And one of the first things we talked about with Vikki was to make a decision. So I've made a decision that for some unknown reason, I'm going to go for it for another year. And so here I am however life keeps going, and I didn't want to stop plans, which I have already put in motion. It happens that I'm getting married, during the time we're recording, this is going to be less than three weeks. And [00:05:00] today I was hoping that we could talk about how to engage with these big life events, which are so important to us, and in my case, leads to a whole other, opportunities within my family life. And yet do it while we're in the PhD system and we are during our program, especially when we have this feeling of like lack of closure before we move on with our life. So I was hoping that at this stage I'm going to be done and dusted. My PhD is going to be submitted or at least resubmit it. But I just, life happens this way and I am still here. I have some stuff done. I've got deadline before my break for the marriage. I've got some deadlines I have to hit. But then I'm basically off for month and a half. And what I worry about is that while I'm going to be during my honeymoon, I'm going to basically like [00:06:00] thinking about it, and I'm not gonna be able to immerse myself completely knowing that when I come back, I have to drop into this mayhem I left behind.

Vikki: Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. And I think. For people listening, you may not be in the exact same situation. You may still be pre Viva. You may not have something like a wedding and a big honeymoon and things happening, but I think so often people have this sort of parallel things happening in their personal lives, and particularly this idea of wanting to take time away without it getting spoiled by thoughts of the PhD, without it being super stressful before you go and afterwards I think is really, really relevant to, to lots of people. So yes, excited to chat this through with you today.

Vikki: Before we do though, just because when you say time of recording, this is three weeks before your wedding, which is very, very exciting and the membership are looking forward to getting photos.

Vikki: You will be [00:07:00] our second wedding actually. But this is also actually gonna come out just before the membership opens up again to other people. So you talked about making a decision and things like that. I thought it would be useful, just give a little bit of background as to why you decided to join the membership. What was it that sort of, you hoped you would get? 

Gabriela: So this is very out of character for me because I am very much so just get on with it. I'm going to deal with it on my own terms, um, and kind of don't bother other people. Just move on with your life but I was thinking to myself this way, I've done it my way and it didn't work my way.

Gabriela: And the supervision and support I got from my institution was lacking for multitudes of reason, I decided not to blame anyone. I just wanted to find another way of doing things. And I've been actually directed [00:08:00] to an achievement coach in my institution first, and we started working together and I was like, do you know what?

Gabriela: This is really good, but I'm kind of still feeling lonely within my cohort who moved on or they don't experience the same struggles, or they are in a completely different journey. So for example, they're being wildly published or they've got a massive grant or whatever. And I needed someone to maybe validate my feelings a little bit, maybe to find like this camaraderieship.

Gabriela: So my institution was, uh, running this monthly updates on Vikki's like free workshops she was doing and still doing, and I was like, do you know what? I've seen her before on one of the conferences. I think that she was actually straight to the point and not really like, fluffy about some stuff and like, just believe in yourself. It's all gonna [00:09:00] be good. So I was like, she seems like she seems like the right person to do it. And I gave it a shot and I submitted like a little form if I can join the wait listers. I've done another meeting with Vikki and I was like, after those two meetings, I really felt like something progressed within me, even not with with my PhD within me.

Gabriela: I kind of found myself again and kind of be like, oh, okay, so it's okay that I feel this way. It's been such, I know it's like incredible, right? It's okay to feel the emotions you're feeling, but I just think that the way you said it to me for the first time, it's like, it's okay. I just felt at home and I decided to, to, to progress with it and I found my community and, um, you mentioned coworking sessions.

Gabriela: They're the ones which are like the community spirit is really there. You're not alone. You can, you can say, oh, the software really doesn't work, or my Word document is just keeps [00:10:00] closing on me and I'm losing stuff and, and you know, we cry and laugh and meme together.

Vikki: And just to really clarify for everybody and just to give you the credit that you deserve, the co-working sessions, there's only two official co-working sessions per month that I run. The rest are all entirely led by my members, of which Gabriela is one of my super, like, super organized, super doing loads of them person. So they are community led and I actually really like that because it means that they are that bit more informal space. They are a bit more, you guys set them up when you need them, when you want them, use them however, and I know different people do different length work blocks and all of that, and so you get to kind of really, really adapt them.

Vikki: The reason I wanted to touch on that is partly 'cause I think it's useful for listeners to hear from somebody who's made a decision that they might be trying to make at the moment. But I think also this notion that you have chosen really, really [00:11:00] intentionally that "No, no, I do want to do this". 'cause when we met, you were in a bit of a, I want to do it, but I don't want to do it and so I should do it, but I'm not really doing it.

Vikki: And you were in that kind of slightly annoying, I think you were annoyed by it in Betweeny place where

Gabriela: a hundred percent

Vikki: it's like, Ugh, I've gotta do this thing, but I'm not doing the thing. And this is just feels very stuck. Tell me a little bit about the progress that you've made since then, because I think understanding how you have already changed so much will really help you to then believe that we can change this next bit.

Gabriela: Um, so the first thing I've done, I kind of divided my. Months, according to quarters, um, when I've joined you, you, you do this quarter kind of setup and it really [00:12:00] works for me, uh, first because I'm, I'm a person who likes planning. I'm a person who loves to have agenda, all of this detailed stuff.

Gabriela: And I felt like if I'm going to have these smaller goals I'm trying to achieve throughout the next year , it's going to feel a little bit more achievable. So that was my first. That was my first, like big progress I've made because before then I was just looking at this clump of stuff I have to make with no particular direction and no particular plan.

Gabriela: So that was the first,

Vikki: and, and you didn't wanna open your laptop, right? I don't wanna call you out. I remember our very, you were like, I did not open my laptop. 

Gabriela: Yeah. 150%. I was there. I looked at it like I had to change my setup because I physically couldn't bring myself to sit in a place I received the news that I am not deemed submittable or whatever.

Gabriela: So I changed my setup and I [00:13:00] was not opening my laptop. So that is a good, the good thing to to, to mention, I just started to follow the plan. It's, it's not, it's not been super smooth by the way. Like, I, I wanted to submit basically like two chapters a quarter to say like, yeah, kind of two chapters a quarter or at least a draft of each chapter, um, uh, each quarter.

Gabriela: So. It's not been exactly this way. But I've came back to dreaded labs, which was a huge mental block, uh, I experienced, uh, which we also coached on with Vikki on one of the group coaching. I came back, I asked for help. I continuously update my supervisor about my progress, which was not the case in my previous submission. Even if it's a small email to say I'm still working on my data analysis, you're going to have something by the end of next week. I'm still doing this every single Friday. So she's got kind of clear progress [00:14:00] report. I rewrote my literature review. It's patchy and I still have to add stuff, but I received feedback from my supervisor in the beginning of August, and she's pretty happy with how the things are going.

Gabriela: It's more streamlined, which was one of the biggest confusion during my viva. It was actually what my PhD's about, because I had to combine three failed experiments and three failed routes into one big PhD and now I just focused on the one which is the closest to, to being a good project. So that has been done. I submitted recently my methods and yay, it's patchy again. And I was dreading it. And I also asked Vikki for a bit of an advice. I, I, I've done it. I just sent it. We'll see what they're going to say. So yeah, and I drafted my results and I drafted my discussion, but this is something which I'm going to have to really, really work on, on the other side of honeymoon and, [00:15:00] and my marriage break.

Vikki: Perfect. And I know that feels like that's not central to the stuff you asked a coach on today. Mm-hmm. But one of the things that academics, PhD students, everybody, at every level has a habit of doing is taking for granted the bits you have done and immediately looking to the next bits. And what that does is it gives us this perpetual sense of not getting anywhere where in reality, and as you say, we've talked about this in group coaching before and I know the community's super proud of you too. You've made an enormous progress both in terms of the amount of work you've done and in terms of the difference in how you're showing up to do it.

Gabriela: Thank you.

Vikki: In this four months.

Gabriela: Yeah.

Vikki: And taking a minute just to go, I've come a really long way is actually a really lovely way to then look forward. [00:16:00] Yeah, because we get to say, okay, if I go back to past Gabriela who was considering whether to join the membership or not and told her where I am now, I think she'd be super, super proud.

Gabriela: I think that I wasn't even imagining it if I have to be absolutely honest. I, I've, you know, I've done some like soul searching on the beginning of this year where I want to really achieve and where I want to be, and it's, yeah, I, I have to be honest with you, in, in the beginning of my, of the year, I was just hoping to not approach it from the PhD level I was thinking of approach it from an MFI level and submit, um, anything by July to have it over with. But once I started working within like membership and I started working with my new supervisor, I've seen that [00:17:00] maybe it's still worth to, to put forward the PhD and just see what they say basically.

Vikki: Perfect. So tell me a bit more about what you are worrying about. You've got this three weeks, then you've got just over a month, isn't it? And then you're back. Yeah. So tell me more about your concerns. 

Gabriela: I think it's comes from two places. One concern is that I'm not going to be fully present, fully immersed in this one, once in a lifetime event. It's just not fair towards me and it's not fair towards my family. It's not to, you know, then my husband is not going to be fair towards him. And then the second, like streamline of worry is that I have so much to do when I have to come back, you know? I'm gonna come back and I'm not expecting from myself to like immediately jump into it and just produce, produce, produce, which means that I'm going to have a little bit of downtime, which means that I'm going to have to readjust my schedule again and kind of get back into the swing of things [00:18:00] and then I basically have like, I dunno, let's say four weeks I have to complete. So I'm trying to be conscious of the future Gabriela, and I'm trying to be conscious of the Gabriela who's going to enjoy her marriage and her and her honeymoon, and I'm trying to make the both of them happy with what I'm doing right now, but what it does to me currently is kind of just this overwhelm that I'm not doing enough and that I'm not focusing enough, and that maybe my work is not up the up to standard, which I was holding myself to. That's, that's basically where I'm, where I'm at right now. Um, and I'm trying to remind myself that I can only do what I can within the time I have. Like, it just become like my mantra, basically. But it is this, it, this is this s nagging feeling, which I can't switch off. So that's, that's kind of part of my problem. 

Vikki: Perfect. And like I said, I think this is really, really sort of adaptable to lots of different [00:19:00] situations that listeners will be in. So we've got these kind of three time periods, haven't we? We've got now to the wedding. We've got the wedding and honeymoon chunk and then we've got this period of time afterwards and you sort of slightly divided that. And I think it's actually quite sensible into a bit of a kind of gear back up as it were.

Vikki: If people are watching on YouTube, I'm making like ramping up things with my hands. I'm aware that doesn't work on podcast. So you, you may well have it, you're not gonna come back. Land your airplane, wake up the next day and then go, right, seven hours work, let's go, kind of thing. So we're gonna have a little bit of a ramp up period, but essentially we've got these three blocks of time. And I love this notion. I love that you are using this notion of thinking about what does the Gabriela who's on her wedding and honeymoon need, and what does the Gabriela, when you come back need? The one I think you're neglecting a little bit at the moment is, what does Gabriela right now need? Okay, so let's have a little bit of a [00:20:00] think about for these three weeks. What do you need from yourself, from other people? 

Gabriela: From myself, I need to keep showing up, but while I am actually physically present for my work blocks, I need to be able to focus on the work rather than daydream or go into my little tangents about like, I don't know, research some stuff for the wedding and, and all of this.

Gabriela: Yeah, all of this around because I have actually blocked some time in between my working blocks to finalize plans, and I have a week before the wedding to like completely immerse myself in this, like I'm getting married feeling. I need to be able to, rather than putting another, I don't know, another day of work on myself, I need to really make these hours, which I'm putting [00:21:00] currently work for me and what I need from others. And I'm definitely happy with what my supervisor is providing me with right now. And I've got additional support through university and through the community. . I just would like people to keep showing up for the coworking sessions. So I've got, so I've got someone physically with me going through it. Um, so yeah, I think, I think that's, that's mainly what I would say I, I need. 

Vikki: Okay. Cool. So this notion of being there and being focused while you're working, tell me a bit more. What are you expecting that to look like?

Gabriela: More being in the actual PhD mode and less being, I'm gonna call it scatterbrain, but [00:22:00] it's maybe unkind words to use to my towards myself. I just feel like I have never experienced fully immersive like focus flow right now. Mm-hmm. It's like there's always this sparks which are coming off this focus flow and I am immediately drawn to them because they are more attractive and they're something I'm, I'm authentically and purely excited about.

Vikki: Yeah.

Gabriela: While the work I'm putting in my PhD requires from me to hype myself up. Yeah, it's just the focus. I can be incredibly focused on stuff towards, you know, the, the Happy Life event, but when it comes to PhD, I feel like it's kind of draining my energy more. Um, so I would, I would love to be able to submit next Friday this really nice chunk of literature review, which is not perfect, not edited, not grammar, spell [00:23:00] checks, nothing. Just content. It exists. That's what I want. Okay. It exists. 

Vikki: Cool. So I'm gonna take you in for a little bit more detail. So you want to turn up, I've got a 90 minute coworking session where I'm gonna work on my thesis. You wanna get straight in? You wanna work for 90 minutes and use all that time?

Gabriela: Yes. Yeah.

Vikki: What if that's not gonna happen?

Gabriela: When it's not going to happen, then I'm sitting a little bit longer in front of my computer and hoping that, maybe if I run out of things to look at or run out of physical energy to focus on more than one thing, I will just be able to focus on this, on this one thing, which is my literature review and open, open mind.

Vikki: But what if you don't need to? [00:24:00] Take it, take me through. So you're, you're working, you, you're like, right. This is a section of my lit review i've got to write, we are writing, I'm doing the keyboard fingers for people who can't see me. I'm writing away, I think, "Ooh, ribbons on the chairs. That would be nice. What color ribbons might I have on my chairs?"

Vikki: And you shoot over here and you get onto Google and you start looking at different color ribbons. Okay.

Gabriela: That's pretty much it.

Vikki: Yeah. Okay. So what do you then do? How long does it take you to realize that you are doing something that's not what you were intending?

Gabriela: Pretty much immediately.

Vikki: Um, okay, so you notice. It is not that 15 minutes later you're suddenly like, oh my goodness, I'm looking at wedding things. What am I doing? It's pretty much immediately, 

Gabriela: it's pretty much immediately.

Vikki: Okay, now that's good. Okay. Because often people don't necessarily even notice what they're doing and the [00:25:00] fact that you are already using time blocking helps with that because you know that this is a time period that you've put aside for writing and you are recognizing very quickly that you are not writing. Might not sound like a big thing, but that is actually a big thing. So you've noticed. What's happening in your head while you are looking at these ribbons over here?

Vikki: It's basically like 

Gabriela: this little, this little finger, which is like, you should really not be doing this. You know that you're going to have time to do it. I don't know, like on Saturday or on Sunday, and right now it's the time you've got yourself into position. And mental space to actually be doing this. And because I work around my fiance, that means that I have got no one else in the house to care for, or, I dunno not, I'm not being distracted [00:26:00] basically by anything else but my brain. So I feel this, all of this comes into my head when I'm looking at these ribbons. 

Vikki: Yeah. Perfect. So you will know. But just for the listeners, we talk a lot in the membership about having the boss version of us who decides what's happening and who makes these decisions. And then the implementer version of us who has to actually do it. So boss you is kind of planning out when they should be working and things and then implementor you is going, Ooh, ribbons. And then it sounds as though boss Gabriela wanders past and goes, hang on a minute, dude. That's not what I put on your schedule. What is implementor you saying in response? How are you kind of justifying that you're carrying on doing it? 

Gabriela: Okay, so my go-to about the wedding stuff is, this is going to be once in my lifetime. This is like one thing I give myself to being [00:27:00] unreasonably attached to these ribbons. You know, um, because they matter. Yeah. And I know this is so silly, and I probably won't remember the ribbons on the actual day, but at the moment that feels like this is something much more important for my future than, doing my work.

Vikki: Perfect. If that's true, why are we not time blocking ribbons or whatever? 

Gabriela: We are time blocking ribbons. It's just, it's just, when I'm doing my PhD, I always have this feeling that I should be able to do stuff which I want for the wedding. I know this is, you call it a toddler, right? It's kind of like that.

Vikki: In a loving and compassionate way. 

Gabriela: Yeah, but it's true, right? Because it's unreasonable. I'm an adult woman. I shouldn't be like, I just want a candy, so I'm going to eat it before dinner. Like [00:28:00] it's,

Vikki: I mean, you're a human being, so we all do that, right? Yeah.

Gabriela: Yeah.

Vikki: Let's not, I mean, you know, we're teasing you about being a toddler or whatever, but we all do this, okay? There's nothing, we do not need to sit in judgment. Especially when you've got something as huge and exciting as a wedding coming up, right, it is completely understandable that you are very distracted by it. Now, people often ask me. If you don't wanna be like super strict and awful to yourself and be like, no, no, no you must work and you don't wanna be all indulgent and just say, oh, well, doesn't matter. We'll just do the ribbon instead. What's the place in between that? And the place in between that is not shaming yourself for being distracted. The place in between that is reminding yourself what you decided. Okay. It's completely understandable, especially [00:29:00] when you know, you've got cognitively difficult work to do on your PhD. There's a whole bunch of, and I know you've worked on it lots already, so it's a bit better than it was, but there's a whole bunch of negative emotions around the PhD and stuff, and the sense that you shouldn't be having to think about it at the moment, it's not at all surprising that given a choice between sitting in that or sitting in ribbons, that it's much more tempting to be over there. We don't have to beat you up for that. 

Gabriela: Yeah. 

Vikki: Okay. What I want you to do, and actually I'm gonna suggest that you look at this on a week by week basis between now and the wedding, is I want the bit of your brain that thinks you need to finish off PhD stuff to get in the same room as the bit of your brain that thinks you should be able to focus entirely on your wedding and look at ribbons whenever you want, and I want you to help them come to a [00:30:00] decision. Because once we've come to a decision about what is genuinely reasonable when I'm being level-headed and compassionate. Compassionate to the me that wants to be excited about my wedding, compassionate to the me that wants to get my PhD to a place so that it's, you know, so it's easier for me when I get back. It's compassionate to all those versions of you. Because you could do either way, you could just say, oh, I'm not doing anything more on my PhD. I'm in full wedding mode for the next three weeks, or you could decide, weddings organized. I'm not gonna faff with anything else, I'm just gonna completely focus on work or any version in between.

Gabriela: Yeah.

Vikki: What I want you to get to is a place where you've agreed that with yourself. So that then if you are in a PhD block and your brain is going, oh, but I should be able to look at ribbons. You get to go. "Yeah, you can. Between [00:31:00] three and six tonight, I've scheduled you three hours of ribbon time. We agreed. This is PhD time. Come back." 

Gabriela: I, I see where you're getting at. I think, I think I do remind myself about it, but I think I'm a little bit worn down by how long I've been at it. That's, I think is like something which makes me very moody. Yeah. If I, for, for the lack of better word, it's a moody. Yeah. Yeah. So. I, I worry a lot about the ability to handle myself because I have thoughts that like, oh, when wedding's out of the way and honeymoon's out of the way, and I'm like, super chill about it because I'm, I'm, you know, I'm in this still honeymoon zone and everything's fine.

Gabriela: I'm totally going to go back and smash it in the six weeks. [00:32:00] But then I also know that reality of it might look a little bit different. And I'm trying to prepare myself. I don't know if it's a good thing, but I'm trying to prepare myself for, a bit of a, you know, like as you said, downtime. A bit of a disappointing, no, not as much as I wanted to do during day days.

Gabriela: Um, and I think what I'm thinking about is this decision making alarm is like. Yeah, it's like even, even even stronger, even harder. Um, and I'm making decision and I'm tired, you know? So that's kind of the circle of Yeah. Circle of weariness I'm at, at currently. 

Vikki: Yeah. And that's really understandable, right? It's been a really long. You know, it is like getting to the end of a marathon and then being told you've gotta go back again. It's like you, you've got got yourself to the viva and now this is all additional time. 

Gabriela: Mm-hmm. 

Vikki: So it's [00:33:00] understandable, but I think that consideration needs to be in the planning room as well.

Gabriela: Yeah. 

Vikki: So it's like I'm tired of regulating myself at the moment. Yeah. I've got this exciting thing and I'm tired of having to do that too. So then we also start to think, okay. What is actually reasonable to ask of myself at the moment.

Gabriela: Mm-hmm.

Vikki: Yeah. How can I make it easier that I don't have to regulate myself quite as much?

Gabriela: Yeah. I think you've done, yeah, I think you've hit the nail in the head in here. This regulation is what's exhausting me. That's absolutely it. It's like I'm, I'm parenting myself too much.

Vikki: And that's, it is tiring. We need to keep doing it, but we need to be reasonable in what we're asking. 

Gabriela: Yeah. 

Vikki: And some of that is gonna be reasonable in terms of how many hours you ask yourself to work for.

Gabriela: Mm-hmm.

Vikki: But some of it is also being reasonable [00:34:00] in terms of what level of focus you're expecting. Because I actually think if you could get to a stage where you do some work. And you do go over here and look at some ribbons, and then you notice you're looking at ribbons and you go kind of, okay, no ribbons. We're going back over here. It's all right. We'll do that later. But the fact that you got distracted and you spent 10 minutes looking at ribbons doesn't have to be a big deal. So I'm distracted at the moment, my wedding's coming up and I'm tired of tired regulating myself. Of course, I'm gonna wander off, but that's okay because I can bring myself back too without it adding extra hours.

Gabriela: Mm-hmm.

Vikki: This is something that you mentioned before we came on to record, this idea that if you haven't focused enough in one time block, then adding more and more time on the end. And the problem is that means implementor you doesn't believe boss you anymore. 'cause boss you says you need to spend three hours working in your PhD this morning, but actually implementing you turns [00:35:00] it into five hours because you haven't met your required amount of actually being focused or whatever. 

Gabriela: Yeah. But then I don't believe my implementer me either because they don't do the work within the time allocated to them. It's like a self defeating kind of exchange notoriously between the implementer and the boss.

Vikki: Um, so yeah, so, so one of the things I suggest with time blocking is even if you realize I intended to do 90 minutes on my PhD and I've done 15 minutes on my PhD, I recommend you go on to the next time block anyway. If you were then scheduled a break, go take your break.

Gabriela: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vikki: If you were then scheduled time to do wedding organization, go do it. Because if we have this perpetually moving schedule. Where actually if I didn't do [00:36:00] my 90 minutes well enough, then I won't take my break. Then I won't have the time doing my wedding stuff. Then I won't have this other things that I've organized.

Gabriela: Mm-hmm.

Vikki: Then it doesn't reinforce the need to do the things when you're intended to do them, because you give yourself the option to do them later. And it means that you almost don't believe that you'll have time to think about the wedding later 'cause often you kind of take that away from yourself if you haven't been good enough. 

Gabriela: Yeah, I, I think it's, it perpetuates as well in like someone asking me like, oh, you know, how is your day going? And I'm immediately going it like. Oh yeah, it's fine. I'm technically here. I'm technically in front of my computer and technically working on my PhD, but I'm not really doing anything PhD related. And I think even like saying it out loud to someone or like writing it to someone, it also feels, I don't know, like it just [00:37:00] makes it too real. And then I feel like, okay, I really have to put like rubber to the road right now. I have to write it down. But as you said, it's kind of eating away from the time I blocked for something else. And it's just, yeah. 

Vikki: So I would just, if you set yourself 90 minutes to do your PhD, you are trying to do as much work as you can in that 90 minutes. And if 50 minutes of it was spent getting distracted, okay, but the time block still stops at the end of 90 minutes and you do what you were planning then.

Gabriela: Okay.

Vikki: Yeah, because it then it does reinforce the kind of, I've actually only got this bit of time. I used to have this conversation a lot with academics who used to work late and work on weekends and things like that too.

Gabriela: Mm-hmm.

Vikki: There's nothing that will make you less efficient than knowing you'll make up the time later.

Gabriela: Yeah. I, I get, I get what you're saying last, last week, I've. [00:38:00] Kind of bumbled about for most of my week. And then on Friday I had this big block scheduled and then a little bit of like a tiny block on the end of the day, which I usually don't do because I'm kind of a work life balance mastering trying to, at least.

Gabriela: So, but I had some Friday evening by myself and I was like, okay, let's do it. And I produced a lot during that time because I felt I had this mindset of like, I didn't work as much as I should or would normally, so I'm going to do it right now. And there was nothing else I would be doing. I just wanna do this.

Gabriela: So I get what you're saying with the, the motivation of making up the time, which I already bumbled about. 

Vikki: I think it's different to say, you know, I'm actually, I'm gonna slot in an extra couple of hours on Friday. Because you know what? There were some bits that I missed and I can smash out a few bits [00:39:00] there. I think that's fine. I think it's the, i'll let this session run a bit longer because I didn't focus as much as I wanted to. You know, I said I was gonna go for a walk, but I didn't really do anything, so I'm not gonna go for a walk. It's that kind of thing I want you to avoid because actually that structure, that sense of I've only got this period of time to do it, is part of what gets us going on the things.

Gabriela: It's almost like punishing yourself comes more naturally than rewarding yourself. So you just go into this, um, this self-fulfilling prophecy of, oh, I didn't do it, so I'm gonna do it. So I'm, yeah.

Vikki: And it just means you don't trust any of your time blocks anymore. 'cause you don't walk in your walk blocks and you don't chill out in your chill out blocks and you don't, you know, you don't do wedding planning in your wedding blocks.

Gabriela: Yeah. So. Do you think that's going to be the thing? Which is going to help me to feel a little bit more immersed in the happy event. 

Vikki: So this is, so we've really focused so [00:40:00] far on this period, running up into to it. I have one last comment about that and then we'll think about while you're

Gabriela: okay. Of course.

Vikki: The other thing on this bit, running up to it is I want you to be a little bit more decisive. So what I mean by that is if you are genuinely saying, I had time blocked 90 minutes to do my PhD, but I don't feel like doing my PhD, it's the right decision not to do my PhD, and it's the right decision to look at ribbons, as my little analogy for all things wedding.

Vikki: I want you to write that down. Turn off coworking. Go and look a ribbon somewhere else because this half-assed, I'm sort of meant to be working, but I'm not really working, but I'm feeling guilty about the fact I'm not working 'cause I should be working. It's just the worst of all worlds. [00:41:00] I would rather you just left.

Gabriela: Mm-hmm.

Vikki: You just said, you know what guys? Brain's not in it, not doing the PhD. I'm gonna go and look at ribbons. Love you all. That's easy. Okay. And go sit on sofa and do it. Okay. Yeah, because at least that way you'll feel like you've had your wedding planning pleasure properly.

Gabriela: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vikki: I'm sitting on the sofa, I've got a hot drink, I've got my laptop. I'm looking at whatever I wanna look at. Yeah. Is when we end up in this neither or space that it's just really unsatisfying. 

Gabriela: Yeah. 'cause Yeah, of course. 'cause you're not really focused on either of them, so your brain doesn't even register that you're doing it a hundred percent.

Vikki: And that doesn't feel like I deserve a wonderful wedding experience.

Gabriela: Mm-hmm.

Vikki: That feels like, oh, I'm so useless. I'm still looking at ribbons when I'm meant to be writing. 

Gabriela: Yeah.[00:42:00] 

Vikki: I suspect that when push comes to shove, if you say, I need to make an intentional decision about this, I suspect that nine times outta 10 you'll decide to continue with your PhD. 

Gabriela: Yeah. It's, it's probably a Right.

Vikki: Making that conscious decision 

Gabriela: mm-hmm.

Vikki: Is important. 

Gabriela: It's probably correct assessment because even the physical action of picking myself up and going back downstairs and sitting on the sofa and stuff like that is already, you know, I'm already here so I might as well like do the PhD. So I get what you mean.

Vikki: So we've really focused so far on that period running up to the wedding, and it might feel like we've not thought about the others, but actually the exact same principles apply. We get to choose really intentionally what is the kind of, I was gonna say, right, right [00:43:00] is never the right word. 'Cause that implies there's only one version. We get to choose really intentionally what we want that time to look like, okay?

Gabriela: Mm-hmm.

Vikki: And then from there, what we get to do is decide when other thoughts come up. How am I gonna manage that? So I assume that you have a, you have decided that you're not gonna do any PhD work while you're away.

Gabriela: That's correct.

Vikki: Is that fair?

Gabriela: That's, that's correct.

Vikki: So, okay, perfect. So what are the worries that you think will come up while you're away if you don't have the fear? Oh, I will find myself starting to do some work. What are you actually worried will happen? 

Gabriela: I worry about the mindset itself being like, oh, this is awesome. I'm really enjoying it, and I totally deserve it. However, there is this massive chunk of work I could have been doing during that time. Okay. That's what I worry about. 

Vikki: Okay, perfect. So what we get to do, this is why it's so important to focus on this first [00:44:00] bit. 'Cause the more you can look back on this period, as you know what I did the best I could, the easier everything else is. Even if this doesn't go perfectly, we can still do it, but it's easier if we've done this bit is in that period, you are, I'm gonna tell you now, sorry to be disappointing. You will have those thoughts while you're away. A hundred percent. Yeah. You will have your brain back here thinking about this Gabriela, and what she should have done, and you'll have your brain in the future about what it's gonna be like when you're back.

Gabriela: Mm-hmm.

Vikki: Okay. The fact that your brain goes there isn't a problem. What we get to choose is what you say to yourself, how you respond when your brain goes, oh, I should have set myself up better. I've got so much to do when I get back.

Gabriela: Mm-hmm.

Vikki: What sorts of things do you think you could say to yourself in that situation?

Gabriela: Mm. I think one of the things which I would [00:45:00] try to convince myself of is that I've done things in a short period of time. So even if I think that the work I have waiting for me. Is a a, a big chunk of work, I can still manage to finish it on time. 

Vikki: Mm-hmm. 

Gabriela: Um, another thing is that once I come back, I'm going to have more feedback from my supervisor because she's, kindly agree that she's gonna work on my literature review while I'm away so I can have the kind of appropriate direction when I come back.

Gabriela: So I'm not going to start from scratch. I'm going to have a nice layout of where I'm going with it. And that I've done the bit I said to myself that I will, because I believe strongly that I'm going to submit that literature review next Friday. So I've done it.

Gabriela: And [00:46:00] maybe it's not been as completed as I hoped to be, or maybe I was thinking that I can do even more, but I didn't compromise on stuff, which I really didn't want to compromise on, which is spending time with my family, spending time with fiance, exercising, eating properly, et cetera. Yeah, so I think that's 

Vikki: perfect. So really reminding ourselves of the things we have done, of the things we're capable of doing, of the support that we've got, is all really, really important part of reminding yourself that this will be okay. I'm gonna offer you a more flippant one that I think is also useful, okay. Which is reminding yourself, this is not my business right now.

Vikki: Okay, so what I want is I want you to start by reassuring yourself with exactly the things, you know. I did what I could do beforehand. I trust myself to be able to [00:47:00] handle what's there when I get back, I'm gonna have support, I'm gonna come back to the community. I'm gonna have, you know, all my different bits of support.

Vikki: I, I've done hard things before. I want you to reassure yourself with that first. But if your brain is then going, yeah, but you could have done more. But it's still a lot left, which it probably will, right? 'cause we have a tendency to do that. I want you then to switch to maybe, not my business right now.

Gabriela: Okay. That's gonna be a hard one. 

Vikki: Yeah, yeah, I know. But it's a really useful one to practice because the thing with, like logic and reasoning is you can argue with it. Okay. You can say, you know when you offer, yes, but you did everything you could. Yeah, but you didn't do that bit, did you? You know, you can have that little argument with yourself about whether you did enough before you left. You can have that argument with yourself if you allow yourself to about whether you are capable of it when it comes back, and we don't know because, you know, you haven't done it yet. It's still [00:48:00] uncertain. But if we can get to, no idea not my business. My business is to have a wonderful honeymoon.

Vikki: Yeah and reminds it's okay that you're stressed about it. Of course you are something, it's gonna happen. But that's future Gabriela's challenge. I trust future Gabriela. She's gonna be great. Now we don't wanna like pressure future Gabriela now by being like, she'll be able to do everything. Let's just dump it all back. We wanna make it as while you are still in the bit where you can influence it.

Gabriela: Yeah. Yeah.

Vikki: We want you to support her as much as you can. Right. We want you now to be like, how can I make this and clear and straightforward for her to come back to as possible. And we'll talk in the membership about how you can set yourself like a little plan for when you get back so that you're not coming back to a, Ooh, where do I start? So that you kind of send yourself a note in the future, as it were to come back to, we'll go through that in one of the sessions. But when you are on holiday, you can't do anything [00:49:00] about what you did in the past. 

Gabriela: Yes. 

Vikki: Yeah. And you've decided you are not gonna do anything to help yourself in the future other than get resting and having a great time. But as in, you're not going to do any of that work.

Gabriela: Mm-hmm.

Vikki: So it's literally not your responsibility. 

Gabriela: That's going to be a challenging one, but, um, yeah, I can, I can definitely argue with myself. My then husband might be like, what did I marry into? But

Vikki: not my responsibility. Not my responsibility. What am I doing? I'm doing this. My time blocking today says snorkeling, hiking, and then relaxing with my husband. 

Gabriela: Yes. Yes. That's, that's it. That's, that's exactly it. Isn't it crazy that we're always like, I think PhD is like this one thing which always makes you attached to it so incredibly much. It's not like you're leaving [00:50:00] the office and like, okay guys, see you in two weeks. It's like, it's always with you. It's always. You're always working in the background.

Vikki: Yeah, but this is whereby being more intentional. We can actually wrap it up. We can, I want you to go away feeling like may, you know, maybe even you, you write a note to yourself and you seal it in an envelope and you put a bow around it.

Vikki: It's like wrapped up, literally wrapped up on my desk for when I get back, and it's gonna have a motivational message in it to tell you that you believe you can do it. It's gonna have some clear instructions at first steps, some expectations, da, da, da. So that you're coming back to something. Yeah. Then you can say, I, I planned for this.

Vikki: This is how I've designed my entire year. This is why I invested in the membership. This is what I decided to do, is so that I can have this time. And if it pops up, it doesn't have to be a big drama. Oh no, I'm ruining my my honeymoon by thinking about my PhD. You don't, there's not ruining it, [00:51:00] doesn't matter, but you can just remind yourself, no, no, it's not my business. My business right now is do I want this drink or that drink this food or that food? 

Gabriela: Okay. That sounds really reasonable when you say it. I might, uh, yeah, I might, I might say it to myself a few times with your voice before. I'm gonna translate this to my voice. 

Vikki: Well, you can have this on podcast. You can listen to the whole thing.

Gabriela: Yay.

Vikki: And it will come out probably just about right. I think. 

Gabriela: Oh, that's amazing.

Vikki: Anyway, great. So much. Thank you so much for coming on Gabriela. I really hope that was useful. I think it's something that challenges a lot of people, so, um, I think it's really useful for other people. So thank you for being so open. 

Gabriela: It's always useful, Vicky, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna lie to you. It's always useful.

Vikki: Good. Thank you so much and thank you everyone for listening, and I will see you next week.

Thank you for listening to the PhD Life Coach podcast. If you like this episode, please tell your friends, your colleagues, and [00:52:00] your universities. I'd appreciate it if you took the time to like leave a review, give me stars, stickers, and all that general approval as well. If you'd like to find out more about working with me, either for yourself or for people at your university, please check out my website at the PhD life coach.com.

You can also sign up to hear more about my free group coaching sessions for PhD students and academics. See you next time.