Ahh, goal setting. Boy do I have a lot of thoughts about goal setting haha! As much as a I often roll my eyes at its prevalence in the productivity world, goal setting is one of the most research-backed ways of getting things done - especially if you’re setting goals that are specific, measurable and achievable. But what happens when you’re a grad student or an academic and you’re working on projects that take months, if not years (IFYKYK)? Here’s how I like to goal set at the top of the year:
TIPS FOR GOAL SETTING IN ACADEMIA
Some of the challenges for goal setting in academia and in any other profession that require lots of long-term planning are:
there is often an overwhelming amount of stuff to do.
there are LOTS of demands on your time.
it’s often difficult to feel like you’re making progress on long-term projects.
goals are often changing or need to be altered to fit changing situations and expectations.
These challenges make goal-setting especially difficult because it’s important to make sure that goals are specific and achievable. When your projects are super long, tedious, and feel like they’re never going to get done, it can be super discouraging (at least for me!). So, my main tips for setting goals in academia is to keep a couple of things in mind:
Flexibility: One of the things I find especially challenging about research projects is how they feel like they are never done and are constantly changing/bouncing around. Most of the time you submit a paper, it gets rejected or at least requires a relatively time-consuming revision, so a project that felt like it was “done” was only really done temporarily and gets bounced back onto your to-do list. For me, this means that I have to goal set on a digital platform. As much as I love a written to do list and used to love goal setting in a notebook, nowadays, it’s completely impractical because the deadlines and requirements on my projects change on a regular basis. With my goals on a digital platform, I’m able to update my goals as needed without feeling too stressed by the change 😊
Keep your goal setting low pressure: On long-term projects, goals often change and update as the situation changes and it can feel like you’re not making any progress. So when goal setting, I try to focus on keeping my goals low pressure. A common piece of advice is to make sure that your goals are achievable. I find that this is especially important in grad school or academia because we often have such pressure from the industry to publish 1,000 papers. Remember that you’re a human. You can only do so much with your time, and that’s okay.
We also face a lot of pressure as a society to set all of these lofty goals at the beginning of the year, but it’s worth remembering that you can always update and change your goals - no matter WHAT day of the year it is. As I’m writing this, it’s January 8th and I’m just now starting to set up my goals. It’s okay to take your time thinking about what you really want out of a year - what’s most important to you - and what is most achievable that year.
Focus on breaking things down: In order to make these big, long-term goals specific, measurable and achievable, you HAVE to focus on breaking down those big projects! I like to break things down into small pieces that I can tackle by month, week, and day - which I’ll talk more about next!
MY GOAL SETTING BREAKDOWN
Alright, now let’s get down to the actual the nitty gritty about how I actually break down my goals for the year!
(1) Theme of the Year
I like to pick a theme for each year depending on what I feel like I need for that year and what I’ve experienced in the past year. In the beginning of 2020, my theme for the year was being my own advocate because I’d experienced a lot of things in my program that felt like they were out of my control. In 2021, my theme was peace. This year, my theme for the year is to make space - because over the past year, I’ve often felt like I didn’t have enough time for my work, for my social life, or for my own well-being. This year, I want to focus on what I do have time for and realizing that oftentimes, the belief that I don’t have time or space for certain parts of my life is really something I’ve imposed on myself and something I’d like to reframe in my approach to life. I usually put this theme of the year on a post-it note or a letterboard as a constant reminder.
(2) Divvy it up by Personal vs. Work
Next, I usually divide up my goals by personal and work goals. Though at one point I would put all of my goals in the same document, I now prefer to put goals into separate personal and work notes because I have a tendency to overly focus on my work goals and not my personal ones. Having them separated helps me devote time and energy to my personal goals when I choose to set aside time for personal goals without being distracted by all the work I think I should be doing 😛
(3) Categories
After dividing it up by personal and work, I categorize goals into 4-5 broad categories. For my work goals, it usually involves admin, research, teaching, and dissertation. For personal this year, I’ve included categories like blogging, travel, hobbies, and wedding. Within those broad categories I’ll note important dates and big high-level projects within each of those categories (e.g., defend my dissertation, spring semester or book winter trip). I’ll also usually set numeric goals for myself in each category such as hitting a certain number of average pageviews on my website by the end of the year or submitting a certain number of research papers for publication by the end of the year. Though I don’t always hit those numbers, I find it motivating to have numbers in mind as long as they don’t seem too unachievable! 😊
(4) Break it Down by Time Frame.
Finally, I focus on breaking things down by time frame. For me, the important thing about planning for the year is to keep things big picture. I break down my annual goalsetting notes by month so that for each category I know what my goals are for the year, but also how that shakes out for each month. I also typically only shake out the smaller goals for the first 4-5 months and then fill out the rest of the months as the year progresses. For example, I know that this year, I’d like to work on getting 5 research papers under review, so I’ve divvied it up so that I spend January (when I’m on winter break) working on getting 2 papers out and then the rest of the spring semester (when I’m busy with my dissertation) I’ll go at more of a slower speed at 1 per month. That’s the timeline for now, but it can certainly changed based on how the semester shakes out! So, rather than just making one huge list of all the lofty things I want to do during the year, I also try to break it down by month so the plan to get there is more concrete.
So, how do I use these goals in everyday life?
Well, since I like to keep my goals on a digital note (usually on icloud notes), I re-visit them on a weekly basis to figure out what I need to do each week. If I know I need to send in a paper by the end of the month, I’ll delegate a week to cleaning and analyzing the data and pick another week to get the paper written. Even though it might sound a little over the top, I find that going through this methodical process of breaking everything down means I’m less likely to get overwhelmed and not so hard on myself. It also makes me feel more like I’ve achieved something in a career where positive reinforcement is rare 🤣
Welp, I hope this helps you set your own goals for the new year as a grad or phd student! Have any other questions? Leave me a comment - I’d love to hear from you!
