As I mentioned in my previous posts, 2021 wasn't a very good year. It was okay. Other areas of my life may have evolved, but my PhD saw little progress.
I was supposed to start writing my thesis this month, so I purchased a 90-day writing challenge template by Christine Streeter of Scholar Culture. As I was in her website, I came upon another eBook available: The Scholar Refresh. I was instantly intrigued. I decided I needed to do the refresh challenge before I begin the writing challenge. And I did.
Disclaimer: I am in no way or form affiliated to Scholar Culture. Opinions expressed in this post are my own.
Who is Scholar Culture?
"Scholar culture is a blog for scholars who are searching for simplicity, organization, motivation, and a space to connect with other graduate students, PhD students, and early career researchers." ~ THE SCHOLAR REFRESH - SCHOLAR CULTURE
I have been following Scholar Culture on Instagram since my first year of PhD (although I had a different Ig profile back then). If I'm not mistaken, Christine's PhD is on the humanities, which is a whole lot different than mine, which is about submarine volcanoes. Nevertheless, simplicity, organization, motivation and a space to connect with other graduate students was exactly what I was looking for when I started (and still am. Apparently, doing a PhD is a process lonelier than writing a novel; I would know).
The Scholar Refresh
I had planned on doing the refresh challenge during the last month of 2021, hoping to kickstart 2022 in better terms.
The Scholar Refresh is an eBooks of 85 pages that provides daily tasks of small accomplishments that lead to great results.
The refresh begins with planning/organizing your year, month, week and day and gradually moves up to organizing your physical space (desk, drawers, pantry - yes, pantry, which I loved, by the way) and your digital space (desktop, emails). It does not exclude health related organizing, like meal planning and exercise for physical health, and self-talk and boundaries for mental health.
I found this to be completely refreshing. And I am more than willing to repeat it twice a year. Or as needed, of course.
After I completed it, I sat down and thought about things I would like to change to it, to better suit my situation, but couldn't find anything I'd like to replace. It seems to be carefully constructed to fit every PhD student's need. But that's just my opinion. I know, however, that I can use this template even when I leave Uni, by tweaking a couple of tasks here and there.
I highly recommend it to all my fellow grad students looking for a refresh.
You can find useful links to Scholar Culture below:
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