PhD Productivity: Why Managing Your Attention Is As Important As Managing Your Time
Time management and productivity are big concerns for the PhD students I work with. As well as the challenge of managing the quantity and complexity of their work, they speak of feelings of overwhelm, uncertainty, self-doubt linked to coping with their workload. It’s no surprise. Doctoral research is a time management challenge! It’s big, it’s difficult, it’s uncertain and it lacks many of the external structures such as short-term deadlines that keep many of us on track on a day-today basis.
While planning, prioritisation and scheduling are essential time-management skills, they only improve productivity if you can focus on the planned work and get it done. Productivity for PhD students isn’t just task management; it’s self-management. Whether you are writing your thesis, analysing data or reviewing literature doctoral research requires sustained periods of concentration. Your productivity relies on your ability to direct and maintain your attention.
In this article you'll learn four practical ways to pay attention to your work, by reducing distractions, protecting your mental energy and building the ability to focus on the demanding, deep work of research.
1. Remove Digital Distractions to Stay Focused
The distractions created by our highly digital world don’t just affect PhD students. However, the sustained level of concentration required to successfully undertake the deep work of research is particularly vulnerable to these distractions.
To recognise how seriously these distractions can undermine your productivity, it helps to understand the concept of ‘working memory’:
Working memory is effectively your brain’s RAM – it’s the processing power that we use to actively think about things.
The more demanding the thinking, the more working memory it requires. Digital distractions steal available working memory in the following ways:
Task Switching Cost: Every time your focus is grabbed by a notification it takes time to get back on track. This is called the ‘switching cost’ and unnecessary switching wastes time and mental energy.
Working Memory Availability: The content of a notification is logged by our brains and part of our working memory will be busy subconsciously processing the information, reducing the working memory available for your research tasks.
Anticipatory Distraction: The awareness that you might have a notification creates ‘anticipatory distraction’. Some research suggests that having your phone on your desk, even if it’s on silent and face down, damages your concentration.
Try this today:
Switch off automatic notifications, visual and auditory, from emails, Teams, social media etc.
Become intentional rather than reactive about checking in with messages, e.g. decide to check every hour.
Remove your phone from your eyeline – put it in your bag or your desk drawer.
I know this kind of self-discipline is hard – we’re all probably a bit addicted to our phones. Also, let’s be honest, when we’re dealing with difficult tasks, we welcome these distractions! But these small, seemingly insignificant distractions add up over the day and can significantly reduce your productivity.
2. Manage Mental Energy to Make the Most of Your Day
If you decided to run a marathon, you would know that you need plenty of physical energy to get you through it. A PhD is a marathon for the brain! You wouldn’t set off on a marathon, sprinting as hard as you can – you’ve got a long way to go. You need to be able to sustain your mental energy for the long haul. There are lots of lifestyle measures you can take to improve your mental energy and sharpness, e.g.:
getting good sleep
eating a nutritious diet
taking regular exercise
practising meditation
There are also some simple strategies to get the best out of your brain power on a day-to-day basis: working with your natural patterns of concentration and using variety to maintain your mental energy.
Try This Today:
Work in short, timed periods of no more than 35-40 minutes before taking a timed, short break e.g. The Pomodoro Technique
Add variety to your work. Schedule a variety of tasks into your day to maintain your mental energy.
Schedule difficult cognitive tasks in line with your Circadian Rhythms, the natural patterns of alertness e.g.Cognitively demanding tasks, such as thesis writing or analysing research data are done better in the mornings when you are more mentally sharp.
3. Become More Aware of Your Attention
Metacognition is a mental skill that has been linked to better learning, successful achievement of goals, effective self-regulation and increased productivity.
Metacognition is: thinking about what you’re thinking about
You can use metacognition to be better able to direct your focus during the working day.
Be ‘intentional’. This means making conscious choices about what you will pay attention to. This can be practical measures such as a daily to do list, or a daily task schedule.
These choices can be amplified through ‘self-talk’:
Self-Talk – is the process of harnessing your internal narrative (all the thoughts flowing through our minds, more less unconsciously).
Tell yourself what you are choosing to focus on e.g. “I will now finish reading the journal article” or “I am writing a draft of my research interview protocol”.
Notice when you are distracted, so you can correct this and bring yourself back on track. Our minds wander a lot. One research study found that people's minds were wandering during almost half (46.9%) of the time sampled. Noticing we have lost concentration is the first step in refocusing.
Try This Today:
Consciously choose what to focus on at any one time throughout the working day.
Tell yourself what you are focusing on. You can even just say to yourself ‘I am focusing’.
Check in with yourselfregularly to notice what you are thinking about, e.g. every half hour.
4. Build Your Focus Muscle
To go back to our marathon running analogy, you don’t wake up one morning, put on your running shoes and run a marathon. You spend a long time developing the strength, stamina and technique to be able to run that far.
Your ability to focus also needs time and effort to develop in strength and stamina. The best way to do this is to create and maintain the habit of focussing.
Try this today:
Create a routine. Sit down to work at the same time every day and for the same period of time, as far as possible. Essentially, treat your PhD as you would any job, with required office hours.
Use external sensory cues, such as place – e.g. your desk, or sounds e.g. music, or even your work clothing or shoes. This signals to your brain that it’s time to focus.
Strengthen your ability to resist distractions. Whenever you have the impulse to follow a distraction – e.g. pick up your phone, chat to a colleague, resist the urge and instead make a conscious choice to stay with your work.
A PhD is hard work and it demands a lot from your brain. It is also a marvellous opportunity to develop your mental strength and focus. The 4 strategies in this article reinforce one another. Removing distractions protects your working memory. Managing your mental energy helps you sustain your attention. Metacognition helps you notice when your focus drifts and brings it back. A habit of focus becomes the norm, not a struggle. Together these strategies put you in charge of your attention, creating the conditions for increased productivity.
What to know more?
Effective time management and productivity also rely on:
setting clear objectives,
choosing your priorities
realistic planning and scheduling
regular reviews of progress
reducing procrastination
All of these topics are covered in Fistral’s time management and project management courses and extensively in my Book, co-authored with Fraser Robertson.
By Rosie, Trainer
Further resources:
Bailey, C. (2018) Hyperfocus: How to Work Less and Achieve More. London: Pan Macmillan.
Brann, A (2015) Make Your Brain Work. London: Kogan Page
Clear, J (2018) Atomic Habits. London: Random House.
Doyle, R. and Robertson, F. (2024) The PhD Handbook: How to Take Care of Yourself, Your Research Project and Your Future. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Foster, R. (2022) Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock, and How It Can Revolutionize Your Sleep and Health. London: Penguin Viking
Hills, J (2016) Brain-Savvy Business. London: Head, Heart & Brain
Newport, C. (2016) Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. London: Piatkus.