Introduction: No, I Didn’t Wake Up at 5am

Ok, first things first: this is not a blog post about waking up at 5 a.m., running a marathon, journaling for an hour, and not ever getting burnt out! If anything, 2025 taught me that small, realistic habits are much better than trying to be an ‘aesthetic productivity influencer.’ As a PhD student, my life exists somewhere between waking up excited about intellectual discovery and asking myself why I chose this path (like no one forced me). This year, I didn’t magically become perfectly organized. I didn’t become stress-free. However, I did adopt habits that honestly made my life better. These habits made it calmer and more sustainable.

1. Planning My Day Before Opening My Email or Starting an Experiment
2. Treating my PhD Like a Job (With Actual Hours)
3. Taking Breaks Before I Felt Desperate
4. Writing Things Down Instead of Trusting My Brain
5. Accepting That Progress Is Slow (Especially in Research)
6. Asking Questions
7. Building a Community (Instead of Struggling Alone)
8. Being Kinder to Myself on Bad Days
9. Conclusion: Small Habits, Big Difference

1) Planning My Day Before Opening My Email or Starting an Experiment

Instead of starting my mornings in a panic by opening my inbox or attempting to start any lab work, I started planning my day first. Just 5-15 minutes to decide what matters. This way, I wouldn’t spiral halfway through the day when I realize what I’m doing is actually irrelevant and my time could have been spent doing something meaningful. By writing down my priorities before I start, I have full control of my schedule!

2) Treating my PhD Like a Job (With Actual Hours)

In 2025, I stopped romanticizing the idea that working longer hours automatically means better work. Academia loves to blur boundaries; however, working endless hours doesn’t make you more productive, just more burnt out. So, I decided to treat my PhD like a job! With consistent start and end times (more or less), I took lunch breaks without guilt and reminded myself that rest is not something I have to earn through suffering!

3) Taking Breaks Before I Felt Desperate

There’s a notion in academia that you’re only working hard enough if you’re working 10 hours a day without any breaks! The old me would only take breaks when I felt absolutely exhausted and one minor inconvenience away from tears! But this year, I learned to take breaks proactively, before I reached my limit.

Short walks between experiments. Coffee away from my desk. Even just sitting somewhere that wasn’t in the lab or my office! These small pauses made a noticeable difference to both my mood and concentration. Breaks aren’t a sign of weakness or unseriousness; they are basic maintenance. Think of it as charging your phone before it dies!

4) Writing Things Down Instead of Trusting My Brain

My brain may be many things, curious, creative, analytical, but reliable? Absolutely not! Instead of writing things down, old me would ‘trust myself,’ because ‘how can I forget?’ But it turns out, I always did! This year, I stopped trying to hold everything in my head. Meetings, lab notes, experimental details, random thoughts, if it mattered, I wrote it down. This simple, yet obvious, habit freed up so much mental energy I didn’t even realize I was wasting! Once everything was written down, it stopped looping in my head and quietly stressing me out.

5) Accepting That Progress Is Slow (Especially in Research)

Before I was a PhD Student, I thought I’d be making new discoveries every month, writing papers and making life-changing breakthroughs. However, this could be further from the truth! Research moves slowly. Like painfully slowly. And for a long time, I fought that reality.

This year, I stopped measuring progress purely by results and started measuring by consistency; showing up, learning new techniques, asking better questions, and trying again when things failed. All your hard work won’t be for nothing! Trust me! This mindset shift didn’t make my research faster, but it made it far less demoralising.

I learned that not every day needs to be a breakthrough to count as progress!

6) Asking Questions

This one took me a while to master. I was always afraid of asking, “a dumb question,” but it turns out academia is exactly the place where you need to be asking all sorts of questions! Asking questions is literally the job. Pretending to understand things you don’t only delays learning and adds unnecessary stress. Letting go of that unnecessary apology made me more confident and helped me learn faster.

7) Building a Community (Instead of Struggling Alone)

Halfway through the year, I became a lot more intentional about building a PhD community. Community is important in every aspect of life, but especially important you’re a PhD student! I leaned into my PhD community more than ever. Friends who understood the chaos. People who celebrate tiny wins. Others who reassured me that struggling was normal. Science is collaborative by nature. Surviving a PhD should be too!

8) Being Kinder to Myself on Bad Days

Some days were hard. Experiments failed. Motivation disappeared. And no matter what I did, I just didn’t feel productive! Instead of spiralling, I practised self-compassion. Bad days don’t cancel out the good ones; they’re just part of the learning process! Learning to speak to myself with kindness made recovery faster and setbacks easier to handle.

Conclusion: Small Habits, Big Difference