Avoid these 6 Toxic PhD Habits

Embarking on a PhD can be an isolating affair, leading to the development of several unwanted habits that can have lasting negative consequences. Common habits include delaying tasks past deadlines, poor time management, procrastination to the point of harming mental well-being, maintaining bad relationships, and more—all common traits in academia. Unfortunately, some of these habits not only affect your work environment but also have a chain reaction effect on your personal life, which is never a positive outcome. Let’s dive deep into some of the habits to avoid at all costs during your PhD journey.

1. Waiting for the deadlines: It’s surprisingly common in PhD to wait until the last minute before completing tasks, causing additional stress and anxiety, impacting your overall attitude towards your PhD. To overcome this, understand that PhD work cannot be completed in a single day; it requires multiple iterations over small tasks distributed throughout the week. Time blocking your daily schedule for small chunks of planned tasks is the key to efficient work. This approach also allows for timely feedback on your work if multiple people are involved.
2. Trap of being a perfectionist: Being a perfectionist is the last thing you want during your PhD, as your efforts can always be fine-tuned in someone else’s eyes. Save yourself from burnout by leaving out the burden of over-scrutinizing everything you do. Understand that your peers may offer valuable insights to improve your work based on their experience. No one is a perfectionist in academia, as research is an iterative process with multiple revisions and changes at every stage.
3. Lone wolf in the group: If you prefer working alone all the time, you might face challenges in collaborative environments down the line. The essence of a PhD is to learn from your surroundings, as everyone has a different approach to research. The same applies to analyzing things and meeting deadlines. Being isolated in your research without much social interaction can develop a one-dimensional mindset, hindering your character building. Making collaborative opportunities during your PhD can expedite your career progression and enhance your face value in the relevant community.
4. Personal life takes a back seat: Gone are the days when working non-stop 24x7 was glorified. Nowadays, it is considered toxic work culture. Surprisingly, many personal relationships get affected due to PhD work strain. Learn to value the people standing by you during your PhD journey. Blocking regular time for your loved ones every day relieves work stress and gives you a higher purpose to efficiently complete your work. Start with blocking a date night with your partner or call your aging parents regularly. These small habits give you sense of self-worth and make your loved ones believe that you care.
5. Staying late in the office: Staying late in the office is justified only if you are highly inefficient (which I don't want to believe), watch too much YouTube, or have poor time management (which is fixable). Assuming you fall into none of these categories, you don’t have any reason to stay late in the office. Work 7-8 hours in the office, go home, relax, work out, cook a healthy meal, and do the additional 1-2 hours at home if needed. Stop making excuses to be a lab rat. Go out in the sun or take a walk if required to recharge your batteries.
6. Weekend = Weekday: If you find yourself in the university even on weekends, it’s time for some serious brainstorming to fix these issues. This particular habit leads to a loss of interest in your research. No one can stay productive like this for 4-5 years (in some countries, up to 7-10) on bare minimum stipends. If you are consistent during your weekdays, you will have reasonable success in your PhD. Grilling your mental health over the weekend won't fix it for sure. Make plans for the weekends, play a game, go for a swim—in short, do something other than work. You are preparing yourself for a life beyond just a degree, and having no weekends is definitely not what you are aiming for. It’s the right time to fix it.

I hope there were some takeaways from this post. My vision is to make researchers feel that they are not alone in this journey. Many stressful things during a PhD can be controlled with thoughtful planning."

Feel free to let me know if there are any more adjustments or if you have further requests!