Do you have things on your list that you should be doing, but you're not? Are you finding yourself getting distracted by anything and everything? Whether it's distracted by doing other admin y easy tasks, whether it's getting distracted by television or social media, whether it's even getting distracted by cleaning. I'm seeing this all the time with my clients at the moment, and even experiencing it a bit myself, so let's get into it.****I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life co...

Often as PhD students or academics, we get that feeling of being stuck and unable to do the next steps. In this episode, I coach Danielle, who struggles with feeling "stuck", making decisions about next steps and procrastination. We discuss where these problems come from and identify some steps to move forward. Ideal for anyone who feels that they are behind, overwhelmed or don't stick to their schedule. ****I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone f...

So many of my PhD student and academic clients are feeling overwhelmed, overcommitted and like they have to do everything. In today's episode I talk about why we should think about our careers in phases, as a way of addressing this. We're going to think about what we mean by phases, what decisions we can make once we know what phase we're in, and how it can change the way we think and feel about ourselves and our obligations and choices.

Whether you're a PhD student or an academic, it can be really hard to plan how to fit your writing into your busy schedule. In this episode we're joined by Jo VanEvery, founder of the Academic Writing Studio, to think about how to plan what writing you do when and how to prioritise it when so many things feel important. If you're watching this when it's first released, you'll also see an announcement of our new webinar! ****You can find out more about Jo VanEvery and her Writing Studio h...

It's that time of year when academics and PhD students are coming back after Easter/Spring break and trying to get back into the swing of uni life. Whether you spent the holiday having a "real" break, catching up on work you wanted to do, organising work you wish you didn't have to do, or just procrastinating, this is the episode for you. We'll think about why feeling the dread makes it hard to get going and what you can do instead. Let's start the new term as we mean to go on!  **** I'm Dr...

If you have items on your to do list that you aren't doing, you need this episode! We're going to talk about how to break your work down into manageable chunks. Everyone says we should do this, but no one really tells us how to do it. What is a manageable chunk anyway? How big should it be? What should that look like? What type of chunk will make it easier for us to get started? If you're procrastinating or overwhelmed by your to do list, I'm going to help you figure out how to break down...

Everyone makes mistakes. It's inevitable that we're going to make mistakes. But one of the most important things is to be able to recognize what mistakes we're making, figure out why we're making them, and if appropriate, move away from that pattern of mistake. So in today's episode, I'm going to be telling you seven mistakes that I see lots of PhD students and academics making that I want you to check that you're not making too. Some of them are relevant to everybody. Some of them are a...

At every stage of the academic journey, people are comparing themselves to those around them and doing it in ways that just  doesn't help and where they end up feeling guilty, feeling frustrated, feeling hopeless.  Whether you're a first year PhD student looking at the rest of your cohort wondering if you're doing enough or whether you're some kick ass senior professor who's smashing their career, we're still looking across to other labs going, Oh, well, they, you know, they have still got...

In this episode, you get to hear a live coaching session with Laura! Laura is a part time PhD student who has tried every planning and task management tool possible! She shares that she finds it stressful to even think about planning and is worried about how to manage the last couple of years of her research. I coach her as I would in a private coaching session and we reach some great insights about how Laura is already planning way more than she gives herself credit for and how she can keep...

How many times have you seen or been on a time management course? How many books and podcasts and blogs and social media posts have you seen about time management?  I want you to compare that to how many times you've seen courses and support for energy management. So much less. It's so rare to see people discussing energy management compared to how often we see people talking about time management, and it just doesn't make sense because time passes. We can organize our tasks within time, but...

If you struggle to plan your time and organise your tasks, this is the episode for you! I'll be sharing what I mean by "boss mode" and showing you how this can help you plan your tasks, stay focused, manage overwhelm and minimise procrastination.  ***** I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. My weekly podcast, The PhD Life Coach covers the most common issues...

This is the first in a series of episodes where I share a real life coaching session! In this episode, I talk with Ruth, a PhD student, who worries that succeeding in academia relies on having connections, rather than the quality of your work. She agreed to be coached for the podcast and we discuss why this bothers her, how it affects her work, and reach some conclusions that will help her move forwards.  When you're listening, make sure that you relate it to your own life and think about...

Wouldn't it be nice if sometimes someone just told us that we were doing a good job, that we were enough, that we were doing things well enough and that they were proud of us. And yet so often, that doesn't necessarily happen in academia. Lots of us feel that our supervisors could give us more reassurance, our collaborators or heads of school could give us more reassurance, and it's really hard to keep pushing yourself to work as hard as we all do, when we feel like we're not getting the...

This is the first time I have ever had to put a spoiler warning on my podcast. I'm so excited. If you have an intention to watch series two of the UK Traitors and you haven't yet seen it, please go listen to a different episode!  You don't have to have watched The Traitors for this to be an immensely useful episode, but if, like me, you got a little bit obsessed with The Traitors, then you are going to love this episode Because we're going to be identifying eight things that all PhD students...

How to be a better writer is one of the most common questions asked by PhD students and academics of all levels. While there are tons of useful "how to write" books on the market it can be difficult to translate this learning into actually improving your own writing. In this episode, I talk with writing coach Dr Katy Peplin about ways that you can support yourself to get better at writing and look after yourself at the same time! Hope you enjoy - there's some great advice! 

Last week we talked about how to manage procrastination in the moment, using my NICE model - that's super useful but are there ways we can prevent procrastination happening so often? I think so, and in this episode I share how building a clearer relationship with your past and future self can really help! Check it out and let me know what you think. To find out more about working with me, go to www.thephdlifecoach.com 

It's the biggie! Procrastination! The bane of everyone's lives and common at every level of academia. In this episode, I will help you understand why we procrastinate and then introduce a quick and easy model you can use to help you reduce your procrastination. This episode ended up being way too long, so I've split it in half and you can have the second half next week! 

In this episode, I'm chatting with Tara Wittin, Head of the University of Birmingham Graduate School and Danielle, who is one of the participants in my university PhD Life Coach membership programme. We talk about how the membership works, what benefits the students get from it, and how it fits with the other student support available at the university. Whether you're a student or an academic, have a listen and hear why consistent long-term coaching support is so important for all PhD students

It's new year. We've all got goals. We've all got new year's resolutions and we all have faint memories, maybe strong memories of all the previous times that we've tried to achieve things, and it's just not worked. If that's you, if you have a long history of not achieving the things that you set out in the new year, or achieving different things, or still achieving them but beating yourselves up for all the other things you didn't do, you are in the right place. We're going to be thinking...

On this podcast and in my coaching sessions, I spend a lot of time talking about thoughts. Talking about how the thoughts that we have shape our feelings and actions, and how we can intentionally modify our thoughts, not to just make stuff up, but to focus on thoughts that we already believe, but that we know serve us better, in order to feel better, do the actions we intend to do and achieve our goals. So there's lots of focus on thoughts.  In this episode,  I'm going to turn that...