How to keep motivated and productive as a PhD student with Ciara Feely

According to a study by The Council of Graduate Schools, 44% of doctoral students lose their motivation and do not complete their degree within 10 years.  Maintaining your passion and motivation for your PhD is a real challenge - especially in the times that we find ourselves in where just keeping going is a struggle.

 

Ciara Feely is a 2nd year PhD student with ML Labs in University College Dublin. In the second semester of her PhD program Ciara started the PhD and Productivity YouTube channel  to improve her public speaking.  On the channel she talks about being productive during a PhD, working from home, and maintaining work-life balance.

 

Ciara’s keen interest in productivity, led to the development of a startup with a fellow PhD student. They placed third in NovaUCD’s student enterprise competition this June and are continuing to develop Daysier, with the aim to provide personalised productivity solutions.

 

In this episode we dive into the challenges of productivity - from realistic goal setting to keeping focused.

 

Ciara shares lots of useful resources that can help you plan your work schedule and make effective use of your time.

 

You can find out more about the pomodoro technique here: https://francescocirillo.com/pages/pomodoro-technique

 

The two books Ciara references are:

 

Newport, Cal Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, London: Piatkus, 2016.

 

Koch, Richard The 80/20 Principle: The Secret of Achieving More with Less, London: Nicholas Brearly Publishing, 2017.

 

You can connect with Ciara in the following ways:

Ciara's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/PhDandProductivity

Ciara's Instagram and Twitter: @ciaraxfeely

Link to daysier: https://www.daysier.co/

Daysier's Instagram @daysier.co