Staying Sane in Lockdown
By Jamie Davidson
Published on 21st June, 2020
Working from home at the moment is tough, especially if you’re in a house with other people who aren’t working. I’m not great at keeping focused at the best of times and I really struggled at the start of lockdown, but by trial and error I’ve managed to come up with several ways to cope with working from home.
Find a workspace
This is crucial. Don’t sit in bed or on the sofa trying to work. You won’t be in the right mindset and you’ll likely end up getting distracted far more than normal. Set up at a desk or a table, and make sure your chair, keyboard and monitor are all at a comfortable height.
If you’re living with other people, try and avoid common areas. Friends and family walking past your desk can be a constant source of distraction, so work in your bedroom, a spare room, or a dedicated office, if you have that option.
2. Set targets
Short term targets and objectives are vital in keeping yourself in the right mindset. They make sure that you are working efficiently and can help to maintain your work/life balance. Longer term objectives are useful for tracking the progress of your work, but on a day to day basis, knowing what you need to get done by the end of the day or week can really help focus.
You can even use a daily objective as your end of day marker, allowing yourself to finish early if you’ve done the work you wanted to in that day. Remember to be sensible with these targets, although nobody is monitoring your work hours, the quantity and quality of the work your produce will be indicative.
3. Be flexible
While the targets and routine can be very useful, it is important to be flexible. The most important factor in times like this is mental health. If you are having a bad day or even week, don’t beat yourself up about missing a target, take some time to get better, make whatever changes are necessary and come back ready to hit the ground running.
4. Keep in touch with supervisors
Keeping in touch with your supervisors can be invaluable, they are best suited to helping you through problems or simply letting you vent. Organise a regular weekly or fortnightly catchup if you can, as this can really help to give you a target for getting work done. Work on developing targets with your supervisors in these chats, as well as talking about your project and running through any problem you have faced.
Try to be as open as you can about your mental health, your supervisors are there to mentor and support you through your PhD, no matter the scenario. Ensure that you set aside time for general conversation as well as worked focused talk; remember that your supervisor is probably struggling with working from home as well!
5. Keep in touch with friends and colleagues
While you can’t go to the pub or other activities, there are still plenty of ways to keep in touch with friends and loved ones. Make sure you take advantage of these as much as possible and encourage others to do the same. Keeping in touch with the rest of your cohort (or just other PhD students) can be really helpful for improving morale and sharing tips and tricks for keeping focused.
Sometimes general conversation can become stilted (let’s be honest none of us are doing anything exciting at the moment) so try introducing games that can be played over the internet. Several options are available, but I have included some links I have found very useful at the bottom of the page
6. Don’t expect too much of yourself
Working from home is hard to start with. You will ease into it and become more productive over time, but at first it can be frustrating. Many of you will have other things on your mind, the health of friends and family as well as some pretty severe cabin fever.
It’s important to remember that everyone is going through the same stuff, and your supervisor will understand. Although it seems insurmountable at times, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and you may even begin to enjoy the freedom you can have when working from home.
In reality you’ll need to find your own techniques and strategies for maintaining focus and motivating yourself, but I hope the principles of my experiences have been helpful. Keep focused, stay social, recognise your limits, and most importantly, stay positive.
Starting a PhD in lockdown may seem like a daunting task, and of course it does raise many difficulties; however, your path to becoming a PhD student has been littered with challenges, and this is just another one along the way.
- Jamie
Jamie Davidson is a First Year PhD Student at Imperial College. His PhD involves the investigation of Tungsten Boron (W-B) Composites for Fusion Reactor Neutron Shielding.