Riflessioni sul dottorato
When I started my bachelor’s in engineering I had no idea of the real study load I would have to carry. I kept trying my high-school strategy: cram everything in the 2 days before the exam. Needless to say, you can’t win a marathon by sprinting only for the last two minutes… Despite this recklessness, though, I’d picked up a habit that was, to put it mildly, paradoxical: I always carried my backpack full of books with me, like a little ballast, a constant thought. Maybe it was a sign of something I’d only understand later on — “laying the first stone.”
It took me about two years to figure out what actually made sense:
Being consistent with studying, trying to study lesson by lesson; During exam sessions, building in ‘cushion’ days of nothing, because you never know when you’ll wake up with your neurons short-circuited; Not bringing the backpack along if you know you won’t actually get to study.
And so (thanks also to a formidable study partner) I found a “stable equilibrium point,” where I could sway back and forth and hold up against outside disturbances.
Well, lately I’ve realized I’ve gone back to carrying a ballast around: the laptop. Because there’s always a bug I could fix, some code running that needs checking, a deadline I risk missing. It doesn’t matter if that day I’ve already worked 5, 8, 12 hours. If it’s needed, the laptop is with me — except now it’s no longer dead weight, because I often end up turning it on anyway. To fix that bug, to check the code, to finish writing the paper due for a conference. Even if I’ve already worked 5, 8, or 12 hours. Even if my neurons are short-circuited. Sure, I also make time for basketball, cooking dinner for friends, doomscrolling, writing on the blog. But it weighs on you. Self-management isn’t easy when you know that in your line of work, generally, ’the more you do, the better.’ The more you read, the more you analyze, the more you write, the more you publish, the better you are — the better you become. And who doesn’t want to be good at what they do? I’m lucky, because I actually enjoy what I do, and I know that’s not a given. I believe this thirst will never really go away, but I’d also like to have my evenings free again and still be good at what I do. Like when I studied for my master’s with my study partner. Every day from 8 to 7, with a walk outside during the lunch break, a coffee or two, the occasional confidence shared — and the discussions about whatever each of us had understood in her own way.
Maybe that’s exactly the secret to surviving self-management: it’s better if you share it with someone.