Why Less is More in Graduate School (And Life In General)
Mark Levy shares a fascinating story in his book "Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content". The story is about a coach named Robert Kriegel, who was training runners for the last few spots in the Olympics. After he noticed that the runners were tense, he performed an unusual experiment. Instead of telling them to try harder, he advised them to relax and run at about 90% of their normal speed. The results were amazing. Each runner ran faster than previously, and one of them set an unofficial world record!
How does this story apply to graduate school?
Let's think about the path of a typical graduate student. Most first-years are enthusiastic and committed to making the next big discovery or designing the most innovative tool of the century. By the time students enter their fifth year, however, they are itching to graduate. They try to work harder, but many of them have lost their motivation. What happened?
In graduate school it is easy to get caught in the work hard-burnout-fall behind cycle (see diagram). Students have such expectations from themselves (or maybe their supervisors do) that they try to give everything 110% until they are too exhausted to work anymore, and burn out. Repetitive strain injury from excessive typing is a perfect example. If you type so much that you injure your arms, you will probably need to take a break from typing for several weeks. This will actually set you back more than typing less (or slower) because then you would not need down-time. When you are caught in this hamster-wheel, you try to work beyond your limits to catch up, but in the end you make little progress and have no social life either.
When I wrote my thesis, someone advised me to submit it when I felt it was 95% done. If I expected it to be done 100%, I would never finish, because there is always more to do. Whether you work at 90% or 95% efficiency (which is subjective anyway), your mentality shifts immediately from the self-defeating "I always have to give everything 110%". Suddenly, you give yourself time to take a break, to talk to your friends and family, and to exercise, all of which foster creativity and enhance your productivity overall. You are now aiming for excellence instead of perfection, with the permission to make some mistakes and to learn from them.
This principle also applies to writing papers and dissertations. Writing blocks occur when we are afraid of making a mistake on paper so we write nothing instead. If you let your guard down and just start writing, the ideas will come. Set your timer to 30 minutes, start writing freely and you will be amazed at your own creativity!
Wishing you the best,
Dora Farkas, PhD, Founder, PhDNet
Author: "The Smart Way To Your PhD:200 Secrets From 100 Graduates."
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