Owlstown Newsletter #5: 234 Weeks

Hello Owlstowners!

I saw this tweet from @erinkburrell: “A #PhD takes the average person about 234 weeks to complete. I’m doing a weekly photo log of my progress. Welcome to week 21 with a fresh new look.”

It reminded me of 3 things:

• Your Life in Weeks: All the weeks in a human life shown in one chart (by Tim Urban).

• The Life of Buster: Buster Benson shows the milestones in his life in graphical form.

• These are all examples of self-tracking! A topic which I’m very interested in (and studied in grad school).

This inspired me to make some charts for self-tracking. But instead of a whole life, these charts are for the duration of a PhD.

• My PhD in Weeks: Similar to “Your Life in Weeks” but for your PhD.

• My PhD Milestones: A sheet to record your milestones during your PhD.

Print them out or share them with someone you know. A PhD is a long journey. When you start out, the journey seems insurmountable. But as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.” Each step is small, but each one counts. These self-tracking charts can help keep you mindful of the progress you make through your PhD.

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Ian