Happy New Year 2021! 🎉 I wish you all the best for this new year, lots of success, great science, and a good health!! 🤞
A new year’s starting, a new year into your PhD…
Here an easy thing to start and to help in keeping a healthy work/life balance in 2021: write down all your university public holidays into your calendar!
Why?
If arguing that it is your right to take days off isn’t enough for you, let’s try this one: to avoid unnecessary frustrations!
How showing up at the lab while it’s a public holiday and you completely forgot can bring a lot of frustrations? In my experience, while doing a PhD in biology in Switzerland (2013-2017):
- closed university doors… don’t have the key or don’t have the right access card for that stupid door between you and the confocal microscope? Arg!!
- no cafeteria, and most shops are closed
- no secretaries and admin staff
- no anybody who has kids, ’cause schools are closed
- no lab tech
- no chemistry shop to get that reagent you need for that experiment
- delayed delivery of that reagent which needs to be kept cold
But most of all: realizing that you are completely out of “normal people” world…
But well, maybe you‘ll also have no traffic jam and no annoying colleague 1, so it might turn out good! ;)
Let’s start the year in a good way: write these public holidays in our calendars now, see when it might be good to plan some full holidays or to just enjoy a sleep in, let’s just be ready for it 👍
Thanks for reading this easy tip for a good start into 2021, I hope you’ve liked the read! 😊 Maybe you’ll be also interested into this article about planning realistic To Do lists!
Wishing you again all the best and health for the new year, you’re very welcome to sign up here to get my next blog post directly in your inbox 🎉
