PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: Time management essentials for researchers

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

Good planning is the key to a successful PhD... The old adage still holds true, and regardless of the stage of your academic career you are in, planning and managing your time is essential if you want to deliver your work on time.

During your studies, you might be able to pass a class by cramming for the exam a few days before the exam, and then forget about it. A PhD doesn't work like that: you can't lollygag for 3,5 years and then push out a thesis (even though there are online services that claim they can write a 10k word dissertation for you in 2 days *__* ). Research is a continuous process, and in order to stay on top of your game, you will (and I'm repeating myself here ad nauseum) learn to manage your time.

It might come as a surprise to you, but I had to learn how to divide my time and plan for my studies as well (during my studies in Brussels). As I got away with studying maximum 20 minutes a day during high school, I had to learn the hard way how to chew my way through pages and pages of coursebooks. So if you are one hell of a disorganized mess, don't worry - that level of chaos does not need to define you. You can learn how to manage your time - not overnight, but by incorporating time management elements bit by bit, and morphing towards a system that works for you.

In this post, I will focus on concepts and tools. I will explain you basic time management concepts, and then the tools you can use for it, so you can go ahead and try this out yourself. I will also refer you to some previous posts of mine on the discussed concept, for further reading. We will start by reviewing some basic concepts, and then look at planning: from long-term all the way down to your tasks in a given day.

Concept: Measure how much time your work *really* takes

Before you can start having realistic estimates of how much time you need to reserve for carrying out a task, you need to know how much time things take you. To learn to quantify your time in detail, I recommend you record your tasks and how much time you spend on time. You might be surprised that, while you think you spent an entire day working on something, you maybe only really worked 5 hours on it, and spent the rest of your time replying emails or answering the phone.

The tools: You can record your time by hand, by using an Excel spreadsheet, or, my favorite, by using software like ManicTime.

Further reading: Here you can read about how I was using software tools to track how I spend my time. Note that I am not doing this anymore - by now I have a good understanding of how much time certain tasks take me.

Concept: Learn how to prioritize your tasks

Let's assume that you've already figured out your tasks (we'll talk more about knowing what you need to do everything by going from long-term planning down to daily tasks lists). And let's say that you have a lot of things on your plate in a given week. Now how do you prioritize your tasks? Organize your tasks according to the urgent-important matrix:



Spend more time on tasks that are important but not urgent - these are the tasks that tend to slip between the cracks if you do not consciously make time for them (such as writing your journal papers, which don't have a deadline).

The tools: Pen and paper works well for this, or you can assign a priority level to tasks in an app that manages your tasks, such as todoist (my favorite task list app).

Further reading: Read more about the urgent-important matrix here. Learn more about dead work in this post. An application to the responsibilities of a junior faculty members can be found here. And, often it comes down to finding time for writing (and guarding this time for dear life).

Concept: Don't plan more than 75% of your time

Whenever you make a planning, allow for some air in your planning. You need to move from one place to another. Sometimes you need to stare at the wall. Sometimes you need to sit in silence for 15 minutes over a cup of coffee. You need to pick up the phone sometimes. All these small tasks are things you can't expect to have in your planning. To avoid feeling rushed and stressed all the time, add extra time to your schedule. If I know for example a certain task is going to take me 1,5 hours, I will put 2 hours for it in my schedule.

The tools: You can either plan your day by using a paper planner, or by using a calendar application like iCal or Google Calendar.

Further reading: In general, my days looked like this during my PhD.

Concept: Reverse-plan from a deadline

If you have a given deadline, don''t just think you will handle it once the deadline starts to draw near. Instead, start to plan for a task right when you learn about a deadline. Say you need to submit a conference paper in 9 months from now - that does not mean you can twiddle your thumbs and ignore the paper for the next 8 months. What I usually do, is to try and have the first draft of the paper ready 2 months before the deadline (or earlier, if it suits my paper planning schedule). From my self-imposed deadline, I count back and calculate the time I need to drafting the text. If all research is done and I have a research report available, I will typically need 2 weeks for this, writing 2 hours a day. I also need to count in 4 hours for brushing up figures and about 4 hours for proof reading and making changes. All in all, I typically would start scheduling in time about 3 months prior to the deadline, so that I can get my draft to my coauthors 2 months in advance.

The tools: For keeping an overview of the papers that I need to work on, I use a designated "Writing papers" list in ToDoist. To reserve time in my schedule, I put blocks of time in Google Calendar.

Further reading: Here's how I keep track of my papers in progress.

Concept: Plan long term

For a long-term project, like a multi-year research project or a PhD project, it is good to have a general overview with different milestones. You want to have a vague idea of which subtask you want to have finished in which month, and you want to have enough buffer at the end to catch unforeseen circumstances (they always show up - you can foresee that the unforeseen will make itself seen...).

The tools: For a PhD project of 4 years, I like Klaar in vier jaar (ready in four years), a tool to help you plan for the 4 years of a PhD by identifying milestones and placing air and holidays into your long term planning. Other good tools could be a big chart that you put on the wall, or a gantt chart in Excel.

Further reading: Here you can read about how I planned towards my defense.

Concept: Make a semester overview

Let's zoom in a bit more. Now that you've defined your major milestones, you can see what needs to be done in each semester. Before the start of a new semester, list your tasks and estimate how many weeks you need to spend on each. Then reserve your required number of weeks for these tasks.

The tools: I like doing a brain dump before every semester just with pen and paper to list the major research tasks that I have in a semester, the papers that I want to write, the service responsibilities that I need to take care of, the teaching activities that I need to plan in and the conferences I will travel to (i.e. weeks in which I do not plan to work on the other tasks). Then, you can select in for example Google Calendar the number of days/weeks that you plan to work on a certain task, to have this show up in the month view of your calendar.

Further reading: You can find an example here about how I outline my semesters. Read this if you are new to research.

Concept: Make a weekly schedule to fit all your tasks

If you know which tasks you need to work on during a semester, you can start playing time Tetris to make everything fit. Allow for buffer time. Plan in time to eat, plan in time to reply emails (it takes me 1 - 2 hours a day). I recommend you do not plan to have more than 50 hours in your schedule. If you start with 60+ hours in your schedule, and have some work flowing over into your "spare" time, you will end up with nothing but eat, sleep and work. And I know very few people who function well on such a schedule.

The tools: Here, either a template in Excel or using Google Calendar or iCal works great to divide your time into time slots of a weekly template to make everything fit in. I like using different color codes: red for general work, light blue for research, dark blue for teaching, yellow for personal, pink for the blog and green for sports - so that in a quick look I can know how my day is split among my major tasks.

Further reading: Read here on how I try to balance teaching and research. I've written about my experiences with a weekly template as well. Read here how I deal with email. Oh, and we are all different - some people need more room for freewheeling. If you're new to teaching, this post might help.

Concept: Know what you need to do in a day

Once you have your weekly template, you might need to tweak and twist it a bit on a weekly basis to fit in meetings and special occasions, and to add which research in particular you will work on, or which class prep task you will tackle in a given "class prep - teaching" time slot.

The tools: Once you have the weekly template, you an easily have an overview of your different tasks in a day through Google Calendar or iCal. Additionally, I use ToDoist, with an overview of the smaller tasks that I need to do in a day (i.e. drop off a form to the secretary, put anti-flea stuff on the cat), or to check off tasks that I want to do on a daily basis (meditate, work on paper X). In ToDoist, I like adding a due time: if I need to take care of things on campus, I will but the due time shortly after class. If I need to do things at home, I will put a due time of 9pm. ToDoist has the neat feature that it then will show an overview of your tasks for the day sorted by time, so you can see what needs to be done when during the day.

Further reading: This post describes what my time management system looked like in 2012. One year later, it had morphed into something different. Nowadays, I basically fully rely on Google Calendar and ToDoist, and then pen and paper in a notebook to outline my major tasks for an entire semester. Read here for tips about using lists.

PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: How to get the most out of career events

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

Continuing with the career theme, we are going to look at career events today. While this post is written from the perspective of you, a prospective PhD student or post-doc, who is visiting a career event, you can also apply these tips and think about these elements when you go to visit the exhibition area of a conference and talk to possible future employers.

You might think that in the 21st century, your future job is something you will arrange all online. But good old career events are still a very popular choice for job seekers and employers to meet each other. One of the big advantages of going to such an event is that, while strolling along the stands and talking with representatives of different companies and universities, you might actually learn about option you would have never thought about.

I think back to the first career event I attended. While I was hoping to land a scholarship to go and do a second Master's degree in the United States, I was also keeping my options open to find a job. I signed up for a presentation of a company randomly, sort of thinking it would be not the type of company I'd be interested in. But their presentation was informative, showing cool construction projects, and they explained that in their company, engineers work on a project through all stages. Virtually every where, you pick your part of the construction process, such as design, and stick with that. But they had a different philosophy, their engineers work on the bidding, design and planning of the project in the office, and then put on their boots and go supervise the actual construction of the project. I talked to them afterwards, inquiring about international opportunities, and was happy to hear that they have offices all over the world, and would certainly consider sending me a couple of years to, say, Denmark. Even though I ended up getting funding for my studies and becoming an academic, this experience taught me to have an open mind and explore opportunities at career events.

So, say you are somewhere half-way your PhD program. You might have a feeling that you'll never graduate and that you still have a mountain of work to overcome, but in reality, it might be a good moment to just start informing about career events. There's not a career event every Tuesday on the town's market square, so you might want to inform about the interesting events in the upcoming year. If you've found a career event that you want to attend, don't wait until the day of the actual event to go play tourist over there - plan, and make sure you can get the most out of it!

Before the event

As I said before, if you want to get most out of the event, make sure you plan ahead. Don't just take the train and show up, but do these few things in advance:

1. Revise your resume: make sure you have your full academic resume up to date. With full resume, I mean a resume that describes you in a paragraph, has your educational background, your work experience, your publications, your professional membership, your committee appointments, an overview of the journals you are a reviewer for, other service appointments, and perhaps something about your additional personal interests. Don't forget to mention your blog if you have one!
2. Summarize your resume: A full resume can go on and on for pages - nobody who gets introduced to you at the first time would be interested in reading the entire thing. Put yourself in the shoes of the exhibitors at career events: they get stacks and stacks of resumes. So make sure you have a shortened resume - maximum 1 page, I'd say, but a resume that highlights your biggest achievements. Print a large number of copies of this document!
3. Check your online profiles: If an employer is interested in you, chances are he might Google you. If you are months before a career event, you have plenty of time to revise your online profiles, see what Google finds about you, and course correct if necessary. Check out an earlier blog post about online branding for scientists if you want to change what can be found about you online.
4. Read the descriptions of the employers and institutions in the exhibition: Learn who will be there. It might take an entire afternoon, so go somewhere comfortable, get a coffee, read through the descriptions of the employers and institutions and look online for further information about them. Take some notes (thank me later).
5. Identify down the 10 most important booths to visit: Go through your notes, and see which are your top 10 exhibitors to go and visit. Check out the map of the exhibition area, if the venue is large, and highlight the booths you need to visit. If you think you'll be short on time, make an itinerary.
6. Identify your networking options: Will there be a drink at the end of the day? Can you meet up with a certain group for lunch? Make sure you take advantage of your time at the event to network.
7. See if there are presentations: I highlighted the importance of presentations in which companies can show what they are actually doing and give you a hint of their workplace culture. If there are presentations, make sure you can attend some of these. If you're interested in a company, don't be afraid to ask questions at the end of the presentation and follow-up with the presenter. You can't wish for more direct access to the company.

During the event

1. Hand out your resumes: You printed a good number of your short resumes? Good! Now don't be afraid to hand them out to people at their booths.
2. Hand out your cards: Your resume is not something you put into every one's hands, so make sure you also carry cards. If you make new acquaintances, it's good to have cards with you and hand out your contact information.
3. Talk to people: You're at the event to shine. While for some of us, talking to people you don't know is very intimidating (for me that sure is!), conversation is nice. It can be awkward, but most often it is not. Just ask questions, and get people to talk about what they are passionate about, and the awkwardness will be gone soon. If you are scared, think of the powerposing trick.
4. Don't be scared to have a quick chat with booths that might not interest you: You never know what you might learn from these booths. They might not directly be the holy grail for you, but they might have something interesting to share with one of your friends or colleagues.
5. Politely walk away from booths that are a disappointment: If a company you were really interested in, seems to be a disappointment once you start to talk to them, you don't need to keep talking to them. Find a polite way to back off, and go. If a company, for example, seems to have different rules for women (i.e. tell you, as a woman, that they "can't" send women out to projects in the field), then you have no reason to keep talking to them. Just thank them for the explanation and back off.
6. Enjoy the networking events: Enjoy the time of the drinks, meeting cool young people, and loosen up a little bit. A career event might be stressful (and trying not to spill your coffee all over yourself equally stressful), but at the end of the day you can take a breath, have a drink, have a chat with people in the same situation and stop holding your breath.

After the event

1. Write thank you emails: If you had a nice talk with an exhibitor or with a fellow young job seeker, don't be afraid of sending a short email to thank them for the good conversation. When I get a thank-you mail after a conference, it always brings a smile to my face. There's nothing intrusive or wrong about sending a kind message
2. Archive your information: Archive flyers and information of interesting companies. If you need to take action on something, do so before you archive the information. Thrash what you don't need anymore.
3. Connect with new contacts: If you met new people, for example during the networking events, you can see if you can connect with them on LinkedIn, ResearchGate or Academia.edu.
4. Follow-up: If you left your resume, and an exhibitor told you he/she would contact you, but you haven't heard from them, say, after a month after the event, it can simply mean your one sheet of resume got lost. Don't be afraid to send an email to follow-up and inquire if there is still interest from this company to see your possible future options with them.

These are a few elements you can think of the prepare for a career event, take full benefit of it while you are there, and then make sure you take the right steps when you get home. Good luck in attending events and finding your next step in your (academic) career!

PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: Career opportunities after the PhD

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

While you might read the title of this post as something that has "after the PhD" in it, and you might think that is a problem to address once you have the date of your defense in your planning, it is never too early to start thinking about what you want to do after you graduate.

In the months around my PhD defense, I have blogged extensively about my experiences in finding a job, and I've tried to make the voices of others, who made other decisions, heard as well. I also got interviewed about it.

In today's post, I will go through the different career options you have. By now, you will already realize that not every PhD student continues on in academia. People with PhDs are needed at different places in society, and your academic skills prepare you for a wide array of challenges. And of course, prepare well for your job interview, for the job you are actually interviewing for.

So let's look at the different options and paths that you could walk upon finishing your PhD:

1. Academia: post-doc

Landing a post-doc position is maybe the most traditional step in academia. Post-doc contracts have varying lengths (between 1 year and 4 years, typically). One option is to stay at the institution where you got your PhD, and get a continuation project on what you did for your PhD. You can use the years of your post-doc then to publish the work you did during your PhD and grow your research network.

2. Academia: faculty position

Some people skip the postdoc step and land a faculty position right away. If you become a faculty member on a tenure-track program, fresh out of graduate school, you might be in a slightly disadvantaged position, because you don't have the post-doc years to up your publications. Typically, as a young faculty member, you will spend quite some time on teaching.

You might be thinking of landing a faculty position at the institution where you obtained your PhD, and you might know that the number of openings are very limited. However, if this is the career path you are seeking, and you are willing to make a move and become an academic nomad, then you might find that other parts of the world are desperate to hire people with a PhD title to join their faculty. Developing countries are a good bet for this option. John Laprise wrote about his experiences in the Gulf in a previous post.

3. Academia: adjunct position

Adjunct positions are other non tenure-track positions at universities. While some universities abuse their adjunct faculty and overload them with educational responsibilities, other institutions treat their adjunct faculty as they are supposed to be treated: faculty members who deliver valuable contributions and have opted not to pursue tenure and the title of full professor.

4. Academia: teaching at an undergraduate institution

In the Netherlands and Belgium, undergraduate institutions are called "Hogeschool": these institutions only deliver undergraduate degrees, and carry out shorter research projects that have a direct application into the industry. In other parts of the world, you find similar systems at institutions that are mostly teaching-oriented colleges.

These institutions need people with PhDs to make up their teaching staff and carry out practical research. The ties between the industry and these institutions are typically more direct than at larger, older universities.

5. Industry: your field of specialization

Joining a company in your field of specialization (in my case, that would be anything from a bridge design company to a large contractor) is an option. While some people tend to treat the PhD as a useless extra degree, and a waste of time (you could have gained practical experience in this time period!), most companies do agree that employees with a PhD bring additional value to the company, and can be set to tackle more complex problems or to put their highly refined skill set to work.

6. Industry: adviser to policy makers

The link between the researchers and the policy makers is a person who is familiar with the technical literature and recent research, and at the same time can communicate these results to policy makers and politicians to assist them in their choices. We want to carry out research to make this world a better place, but we also want our research to be actually put in practice. For this step, consultants to policy makers come into play.

7. Industry: business consultant

You might have a PhD in neuroscience, thinking business is nothing for you, but large consultancy firms hire graduates with a PhD from all different fields. If you know how to manage large amounts of data, these companies will be looking out for you. If you want to get acquainted with the work of these companies, you can typically join them for a weekend in which you are challenged to solve a business case.

8. Industry: become an entrepreneur

Why not start your own company and turn your research into a marketable product? In Delft, there is Yes!Delft to help you get started with your project, and other universities have similar initiatives.

You can also start a company that is not immediately related with your PhD research. PhD graduates start companies acting as professional proofreaders, as technical translators, as independent researchers and as career- and/or research-advisers to PhD students. Check out the interview I did with Dr. Ryder on this topic.C

For more on transitioning to industry, read this guest post of Dr. Chris Humphrey. Read here for 7 tips to transition to the industry. I also conducted an interview on finding employment out of academia.

9. Government

You could be actually doing the research (academic jobs), you could be the link (nr. 6: adviser to policy makers), or you could decide to go in public service and use your knowledge in a government institutions. You could be working at one of the ministries, where your understanding of complex problems helps making informed choices. In transportation, for example, a good understanding of a complex transportation system is necessary to make the right choices (remember that research has shown that building more roads only leads to more traffic and does not solve complex traffic problems). Or you could use your keen mind to work your way up in a political party and serve your country as -eventually, hopefully- a minister. Belgium's former prime minister, who is praised for steering the country through the Euro-crisis, holds a PhD in Chemistry.

10. Science communication and science journalism

Do you enjoy explaining your friends and family what are the broader implications of your work? A career in science communication or science journalism might be for you. Universities need science communicators, who are the link between the researchers and the broader public. Newspapers and magazines rely on science journalists to keep up with recent publications, and turn these into a lighter and clearer read, focusing on the impact on the world around us.

11. Whatever you wish

You have the power to build your own career. You don't need to make one single choice (academia or industry), and stick with it for the rest of your life. You will make a number of job and career changes throughout your life. Pursue your interests. Follow your nose. Enjoy the ride. Build a career, as Dr. Kelly explains in this interview.

To learn more about how to do the necessary soul-seeking to find what you want to do, check out this post. As I explained here, it's not up to me to tell you what is the "best" job (hint: it's different for everybody anyway).

PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: Online resources for scientists

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

The past few months, we've been looking at social media and internet-related topics for scientists. I wrote about how to use Twitter as a scientist and about online branding for scientists. These topics dealt with scientists and academics taking on an active conversation among themselves and with the general public to shine some more light in this world (which, by the way, really is not flat - as scientists have convincingly explained).

Today, we are going to talk about the places where you a scientist can find information online that can be helpful. We're talking about a more passive role here: which websites are great sources of information, and which social media accounts are must follows?

I've divided my top-follows into different categories, and in each category I give you my recommendations:

1. Blogs

For those of you reading this post via PhD Talk, you can find some recommendations on the right side of this website, with my blog roll showing up. My favorite picks are the following blogs:

The Thesis Whisperer: I you read only one blog during your PhD, let it be Inger Mewburn's Thesis Whisperer - the home of all excellent advice for PhD candidates.
Zen Habits: If you want to find more peace and quiet in your busy head, this website can become your go-to resource.
The Self Help Hipster: Good advice on life and productivity, served up in a hearty sauce of biting Dutch sarcasm: what's not to love about this blog? Even if you do nothing with the good advice, you can have your lolz when reading the posts.
Get a life, PhD: If you want to know how it is possible to win at academia while working 9 to 5, you need to read Tanya Golash-Boza's blog. Her productivity skills are out of this world.
Noeska Smit - PhD student in Delft, who happens to write really well. She talks about her research and explorations in productivity.
Raul Pacheco-Vega: Professor in Mexico, with a writing work ethic that inspires us all. His writing schedule and weekly template schedule have influenced my planning a lot.
Tenure, She Wrote: A blog where women on and off the tenure track write about their experiences anonymously. Heart-breaking, honest, frustrating, enlightening and encouraging at times, this blog is talking about important topics.
Stylish Academic - Because we want to learn how to look good after living in ripped jeans and hoodies during all our years of grad school...
Matt Might: Blog which combines academic advice and computer science,

2. Twitter

Several categories of interesting tweeps are out there for you to follow and learn from. First of all, there are the university accounts. There are too many to name, but just but the universities you worked for or studied at in the search screen, as well as the university who are doing a lot of progress in your field to catch snippets of their research.

Then, there is the higher education news. My favorite accounts for this topic are:
@GdnHigherEd - news from the Guardian about higher education
@insidehighered - higher education news
@hetlportal - higher education teaching and learning (you might like to check out their LinkedIn group as well)

A third interesting category is people who tweet about academia and research:
@thesiswhisperer
@researchwhisperer
@PhD2Published
@raulpacheco
@Julie_B92
@neiltyson
@CitizenAcademic
... Really, there are too many people who deserve to be on my list. If you want some inspiration, check out the #ScholarSunday hashtag

A fourth category are the Twitter accounts of companies and professional organizations in your field. Think of the societies of which you are a member, and follow them on Twitter for their latest news. You can also follow conference accounts (who typically are only active before, during and after the conference).

3. Facebook

While I use Facebook less for my outreach activities, there are a number of good blogs and star scientists out there that keep you updated on their latest work through Facebook.
Piled Higher and Deeper: one day, during your PhD, you'll read every single comic on this page and full totally not guilty about it.
Dr. Sustainable: A blend of environmental activism and academia - and the former supported by the latter.
Next Scientist: Information on how to transition from a PhD to the industry, as well as on how to use digital resources in research.
Lifehack.org: a wealth of articles about all possible life hacks. Be selective in your reading.
Greatist: on how to become your best self in terms of fitness and health.

4. Online tools

My last category is a modest attempt at pointing scientists to the possibilities out on the internet to make their lives easier:
Conversion tools: If you type into your Google search box "Convert 15kN to kip" it will make the conversion for you. Recently, the conversion possibilities have been extended, so you can now convert even more complex unities in the blink of an eye.
Scopus search: one of the typical resources for finding publications in many fields.
Web of Science: Another online tool for finding articles. The advantage is that here you can download Endnote references of articles, so you don't have to manually add all the information in your Endnote database.
Scimago Journal & Country Rank: Are you doubting where to submit your paper? The metrics of this website might be helpful to make a choice.
Todoist: I use Todoist for all my reminders and for my daily task lists. There are a number of similar websites out there, but I like Todoist's clean interface.
YouTube tutorials: computer problem? software difficult? In most cases, somebody already had this problem in the past and might have made a YouTube tutorial about it.
Coder fora or mailing lists: Are you learning a new programming language, and having a hard time with some of the details? Internet fora and mailing lists of coders can be a good place to ask your questions.
Google Scholar: another search engine, which searches not only for peer-reviewed papers but can also dig up reports and the like. Make sure the curate your profile here.
Academia.edu: A social media platform for scientists and researchers.
ResearchGate: Very similar to Academia.edu, with a bit more interaction between the members.
LinkedIn: I mostly use LinkedIn as a digital box of business cards - whenever I need to contact somebody, I typically have the connection on LinkedIn, independent of possible job changes.

PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: Online branding for scientists

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

Today, we continue where we left of last month, when we talked about how to use Twitter as a scientist. Now we are going to look at the entire perspective of using the internet to show to world who you are.

When I mention online branding, often researchers shoo away. Branding is for marketeers, they tell me, and I have no need to brand myself at all. I myself don't like the term "branding" that much (I don't like the associations that branding call for, such as commercialism and consumerism). But let's be scientists and call it branding, because that's the definition somebody gave it some time ago. I could wonder why creep (the fact that concrete, and structures made with concrete, have deformations that increase over time when stresses remain the same) is called creep, and I find it a creepy word, but it is what it is.

So now that we -hopefully- have your fear and repulsion for this marketeer language out of the way, I can introduce you to what we are actually talking about: having an influence on what the internet shows the world about you. If you are not active online, or not conscious about your online activities, you depend on other people. If you do not manage your online profiles, perhaps only irrelevant information about you might be available online, and give people the wrong impression of you.

Let's do an exercise - right now. Go to Google and type your name in the search field. What do you find? What are the 10 first results that show up? Here's what I find - and it is indeed the information in a nutshell that I want to show up when somebody googles me:



If your search returns the fact that you won the lottery of your local baker, some emotional comment you once made on a news article or whatever random stuff you are trying to sell online, it is time to get some grip on your content. If future employers look you up online, you want Google to take them gently by the hand and bring them straight to your important information.

You might say that it is easier for me, since I have the curse and blessing of a unique name. There's only one other Eva Lantsoght active online, and she is a translator in Prague, so it is very clear for whoever looks me up online that we are two different people. If you have a very common name, you might need to repeat the exercise by googling your name together with your current institution, and see what shows up then. For consistency, just as with your journal publications, you might want to add the first letters of your other first names to your online content. Because my name is so uncommon, I use just Eva Lantsoght online, but I do use Eva O.L. Lantsoght for all my publications.

What should I do to get grip on the online content that is available about me, you might ask now. Well, let's break it down into several steps. Remember that once you start to take action here, the irrelevant stuff will start to sink down to the bottom of Google's search results and your important information will be right there at first glance. Here are several actions you can take to curate your online profile:

1. Using Twitter

Here's our favorite blue bird again. If you don't have a Twitter profile yet, check out my post from last month to help you in getting started. You can also find some inspiration on who to follow and who to look for on Twitter in this post that I wrote a while ago. In terms of showing up in your Google search results, Twitter will only provide one entry. However, if you think you are able to post something on Twitter every now and then, keeping in mind that is a very fast media source, then it is certainly worth the time and effort. And with "time and effort" I am expressing myself strongly: I feel that using Twitter is a gentle form of distraction that can lead to interesting professional results.

2. Using LinkedIn

LinkedIn is your online resume. If you don't have a profile, you need one (much more than you need a blog or a Twitter account).

If you don't have a LinkedIn account, carve out 2 to 4 hours some day to get this thing up and running. Take the summary from your resume, and add it to your summary. Use a recent photograph. Transport all the categories from your resume into LinkedIn, and make sure your information is up to date. Then, start connecting with people you know. Typically, LinkedIn will suggest people you know to get started.

If you have a profile, give it a serious look, pretending you are an outsider (say, somebody who would be interested in working with you). Do you like what you see? Is your information up to date? If not, it's time to clean ship and give your profile an overhaul.

3. Writing a professional blog

I've blogged extensively about, well, blogging. Blogging in academia and blogging as a scientist is what I particularly have been writing about. If you are not sure on how to start blogging, here is the introduction manual I wrote not so long ago. It is my opinion that blogging is for every academic, but I also understand that time is a valuable resource for all of us. You can learn a lot from it. Even if you don't have time to run your own blog, you can always contribute as a guest author to other blogs. Just make sure your byline gets your name and information correctly, so Google can find you.

4. Finding your brand

If you start to use several social media platforms and other online sources, you might want to start thinking about what is really the main thing about you that you want others to see. I'm not talking about holding up a rosy image of your life (let's leave that to some Instagram accounts, where all food looks perfect and everybody is always in the sun). Authenticity online is something I care deeply about. What you want to share online depends on what you are comfortable with. Nobody is forcing you to post sarcastic tweets, or to retweet political things. I do, because I guess it's a GenY thing, and I've always embraced the internet as a means to communicate with the rest of the world. But nobody is forcing you to do so; it is perfectly fine if you only tweet about your field and your current work.

5. Finding your tribe

Once you start using social media platforms, you can start to form bonds online. Through the blogging and Twitter community, I've been reaching out to fellow academics over the last 6 years, and I have gained a tremendous amount of insights. I learned a lot of tips and tricks from fellow researchers during my PhD, and learned how to manage my time and plan accordingly. My tribe, as such, has been generally academic. Your tribe might be more specific to your field - whatever you are comfortable with, and whatever feels like developing meaningful connections. Make sure you reach out to others by leaving comments on their blogs, replying to tweets and interact in different ways. Once you have found your community, you will hopefully see the benefit of putting some time into your online profiles, and Google will show information that you yourself provided to the internet.

PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: How to use Twitter as a scientist

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

Those of you who not only read my blog, but follow my through other channels, might know that I'm quite active on Twitter. I joined Twitter in Spring 2010, and I've been enjoying it ever since. Quite some time ago, I wrote a post with my favorite tweeps. I also shared some results of research with marine biologists, that showed the benefit of using Twitter in science.

But if you are a scientist, with "joining Twitter" and then "doing stuff with Twitter" on your To Do list, you might feel a little intimidated by the long list of possible people to follow. Moreover, following @CNN and @BarackObama might be the first thing you do, and might be suggested to you, but these are not your main sources of scientific joy and information.

So let's take this step by step. Let's go from setting up a profile, following people to building an academic network on Twitter. I don't want this to become like a tutorial (there's plenty of videos on YouTube to take you through any step you might have difficulties with), but I want to give you some tips and tricks at every step along the process.

1. Crafting a bio
One of the first things you need to do when you sign up on Twitter, is to put a bio. I recommend that you make your Twitter profile publicly accessible instead of private. If you join Twitter to enter the realm of scientists on Twitter, you'd prefer them to be able to find you and follow you. Make sure your bio mentions your field and institution(s). You can add a warning that Retweets are not Endorsements, but, really, most of the Twitterverse is aware of that.

Keep in mind as well that Twitter is a lighter type of platform. There's no need for you to cite your recent publications in your bio. I like to add a bit of lightness to my bio by adding "Blogs. Pets cats. Drinks tea." I'm assuming that also sets up people for the fact that besides the concrete and the science, I could blurt out the odd complaint, random observation or retweet cute cat pictures if I feel like. Does that make me unprofessional? I'm on the border of Gen Y and I don't think so...

2. Choosing a profile picture
Your standard profile picture is an egg. Whenever I get followed by an egg, I don't even take the effort to read the profile description of this person, because the sole fact that he/she didn't even finish his/her profile, makes me doubt this person has any real interest in interacting on Twitter.

Since Twitter profile pictures show up very small, I recommend you use a headshot. If you put a full body picture of yourself presenting your work somewhere, you'll be reduced to the size of a stickman in people's timelines. Use a clear, recognizable headshot, so that the odd fellow researcher might be able to recognize you at a conference.

3. Following people
So now that we have the basics covered, let's start to move forward into the actual use of Twitter. Your first recommended people to follow will typically be @CNN and @BarackObama. While I like using Twitter as a source for the news, I'm going to assume you came here in the first place for the scientific community. How do you start following people?

Here are a few types of accounts that you can/should start following:
- the accounts of your university and department. These accounts will also retweet tweets from fellow academics at your institute.
- the accounts of universities and research groups worldwide you are interested in.
- the accounts of academic publishers
- the accounts of news websites and blogs related with higher education, such as @insidehighered
- make a search for your field and see what and who shows up
- organizations in your field
- Twitter lists about your field or with people from your institution

Keep in mind that, just like growing followers, growing a list of interesting people to follow is something that happens over time. You might see a retweet of somebody, check out his/her profile and then decide to follow this tweep. If you start aggressively following a lot of people in a short amount of time, Twitter will ban you from following more people anyway.

4. Creating content
Now you can start creating content. You can tweet about your recent publications, retweet information from the accounts you follow and more. If you have a blog, Twitter is an excellent place to share your recent blog posts. You can also tweet series of posts (indicated by (1/3), (2/3) and (3/3) if you distribute it over 3 posts, for example) of the contents that you want to share is too long to squeeze into 150 characters.

Some ideas on what to share with the world:
- tweet about the topic you will discuss in class
- tweet about the conference you are planning to attend
- share your progress in writing
- talk about a recent publication
- join the discussion about higher education policies (I know you have an opinion - we all do)

5. Getting the discussion started
If you see a topic of your interest, you don't need to wait for anyone to invite you to take part in the discussion - you can imply barge right into it. You wouldn't do it in real life, but on Twitter, nobody knows you are reading along. So comment to what fellow researchers are sharing, ask for ideas and opinions and interact.

You can also tag people in a post by adding their @name when you share an article and ask what they think. In this way, you can as well get involved in the academic online discussion.

6. Using hashtags
Hashtags, those #selfie #dinner #random stuff that you see showing up around most social media platforms come from Twitter, where feeds and discussions center around certain hashtags. In the academic world, I recommend you to check out #phdchat, #ecrchat (for early career researchers), #scholarsunday (on Sundays, to learn who to follow), #acwri (for academic writing) and #acwrimo (in November, the month in which academics worldwide pledge to get their manuscript out and post their daily word counts).

Some hashtags have a weekly fixed hour to chat. Other hashtags are continuous streams of information. Figure out what the important hashtags are in your field and in academia in general, listen in and contribute.

7. Saving conversations with Storify
If you had a particularly interesting conversation on Twitter that you would like to save for future reference, you can use Storify. Storify is a website on which you can save stories, by adding social media content. You can, for example, add tweets and replies to tweets in a logical order, to save a discussion you had. Once you finished compiling your story, you can share it again through social media. Stories also remain saved and accessible for the future in Storify.

8. Curating content
Retweeting, sharing articles, hosting people to write on your blog, ... all these activities are related to curating content and broadcasting it to your audience. I enjoy interviewing fellow academics that I meet through Twitter. I post the interview then on my blog, and share that link on Twitter (going full circle). From a number of newsletters that I read, I also share articles and interesting documents. Find out what type of content you and your followers find relevant, and start distributing interesting information.

PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: 10 Reasons why I love Academia

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

If you read some academic blogs and Twitter, you might think that the life of an academic is miserable. Tons of stress, tight competition, never-ending funding cuts - we all know the drill.

But in spite of the difficult moments, I think academics should sometimes complain a little less, and be more aware of their privileged position. Because, at the end of the day, a career in academia is different from a career in the industry. And the advantages of academia are important to recognize as well.

To celebrate the special position academics have in this world, and the benefits this brings to ourselves and our lives, I have compiled a list of ten reasons why I love academia:

1. You work on things you deeply care about
Unless somebody or some strange force pushed you through your PhD, you probably care deeply about your research and your field. While in most other places you might be working on your topic of interest for only a limited amount of time, in academia, you can devote all your research time to fleshing out problems related to your interest.

2. Freedom to set your own schedule
In companies with strict working hours, you need to ask permission to leave and take your cat or child or yourself to the doctor. If you are an academic, you can simply go and do what you need to take care of, and catch up with work on a later moment. If you are lucky, you can also indicate which hours you prefer for teaching. I, for example, prefer to teach in the afternoon, and reserve my mornings for research and writing. At times, I work from home, from my university office or from a café - I don't owe anyone an explanation about where I am and what I am doing, as long as my output remains high.

3. Freedom to determine your own research lines
Only in administrative terms you have a boss to listen to. When it comes to decide how you fill in your time and what you focus on, you are completely to yourself. While that might sounds a bit scary, especially for PhD students transitioning to independent scholars, it is both a blessing and a large responsibility. What I dreaded most about working odd jobs as a student, was having to follow orders of a Boss, and always having to go and ask a superior "what do I need to do now?". Think of the luxury you have in academia where you can set your own lines of research.

4. Summer holidays
Unless you teach over the summer, the summer semester is all up to yourself to fill it in as you please. In most cases, that does not mean that you are lying by the pool and getting a tan, but you have the possibility to spend time at another lab, to write a book chapter or work on another major project. And since major projects come with major results, you typically will feel major satisfaction as well. Even though I fly out to The Netherlands right after taking final exams to dive into research there, which is rather tiring, I am glad I have this arrangement and can spend my entire summer on research.

5. Conference travel
While most conferences mean you are in a hotel somewhere from 8am in the morning until 10pm at night, you often are able to find a few hours to leave the conference and learn something about the city where your conference is held. And even if your schedule is so packed that you can't see anything of the city (happens to me more and more), you still will enjoy the fact that you are out of your regular environment for a moment and get to talk to people in your field, and listen to their presentations.

6. Mentor your students
Another source of satisfaction in academia, not from research, comes from identifying exceptional students and mentoring them. You can help them in their orientation for graduate school, help them find financial support for their future studies and write their letters of recommendation. If their work is good enough, you can also encourage them to submit and abstract and then write a paper together for a conference. Instigating a bit of the joy and pleasures of academia into my students, and seeing them take off into the world, is something I take deep pride in.

7. Change the world for the better
Unless you are involved with some evil research scheme to destroy the world, we can safely say that your research is likely to change to world for the better - even though the change might be very small. If you see the broader scope of things, the change might be small, but in your field, the change might be significant. And overall, each little push to make this world a better place is worth the effort.

8. You work with special people
Academia brings special people together - and I've often felt very privileged to work under the guidance and supervision of famous professors. Not their fame itself is so special - but usually spending 20 minutes talking with them, will fill your brain with fresh ideas and enthuse you to tackle your research problems with new energy. But not only the senior professors count as the "special people" - some devoted students will pour a lot of their heart and soul into their work, and will make you see certain topics in a new light.

9. Most campuses are pleasant work environments
Labs, restaurants, parks, bars, small shops - most campuses nowadays are self-contained little towns. Working there, and being able to come out during lunchtime and grab some food or sit in the park, is often quite pleasant. Moreover, the energy and vibe of students is mostly positive (only during exams, sometimes you can feel a wave of tension ripple through campus). Often, university campuses are also a center of social movements and action, and a genuinely inspiring environment.

10. You can develop yourself and your interests
A life in academia is the very opposite of a mind-numbing conveyor-belt type of job. You can learn new things whenever you feel like. Sometimes you have to learn something new when you have to teach a course that you took yourself too long ago (or maybe even never). Sometimes you will feel the need to learn a new skill, such as a new programming language. You will also keep learning about your field as you read the recent publications. All in all, you are in for a life of study and enrichment.

PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: How to transition from PhD student to independent scholar

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

During your PhD days, you might have the help and protection of your PhD advisor. He can give you ideas to further develop, he can tell you where to publish and which conferences to attend, and he will teach you the ropes of the research trade. But once you graduate with your doctoral diploma, you are on your own. You might benefit from the protection of your alma mater a bit if you decide to stay at the same institution, but for those of us who moved away after getting the PhD, it is time to grow up and become an independent scholar.

As an independent scholar, your peers will not see you as "the PhD student of Prof. Advisor", but they will now see you as Dr. Yourself, with your own field of expertise and your own network.

To reach this position, you will need to establish yourself as a researcher with a clear focus. This clear focus does not mean that you have to focus on a single topic. No, within your area of study, you are encourage to branch out: participate in projects with the industry, carry out desk research on tangentially related fields and broaden your scope.

To develop your own network, you need to attend conferences and industry events. Publishing helps as well, as you will typically be invited as reviewer for the journal in which you published - a way to establish yourself more as an authority in your field as well.

In the following, I've gathered a few tips and things you can think of when it comes to growing roots on your very own plot of the forest and becoming an independent scholar:

1. Collaborate with other institutions

While it is nice to keep working together with the researchers and professors with whom you worked during your PhD, it is time to discover other horizons as well. This certainly does not mean you should burn your bridges with your alma mater behind you, but it is time to broaden your scope. These institutions can be situated somewhere else in the world, could be public research institutes or could be industry partners. To more varied you can develop your collaboration portfolio, the better.

2. Outreach

You could consider outreach as a time-consuming fringe activity, but it certainly can be quite rewarding. Outreach can be blogging and tweeting about your research, it can be volunteering for charities, or it can mean getting involved in student support groups and on-campus networks. Consider outreach as an opportunity to show to world the value of your research and how your work makes this world a better place.

3. Write your own research proposals

It's time to figure out what you would like to work on further, identify the needs in that regard, and turn these needs into research proposals. It can be frightening to start your very own line of research, as you might feel inexperienced, but once you get working on it, you will feel how rewarding it is. And think of it - you can fully choose what you find interesting to work on now, without having to explore ideas that might have been imposed onto you by your advisor.

4. Become active in your research community

Review papers, participate in committees, publish your work, attend conferences - you know the drill, so do your part and volunteer to move your field forward. Showing up and working hard will show your peers that you are serious about your research field and willing to moving things forward.

5. Read a lot

Keep a finger on the pulse of your field by reading recently published papers on a weekly basis. Try to set aside a few hours a week (I know it is hard, but it is necessary) to read recent publications. Follow the important journals in your field, and read them to get an overview of which topics are being explored, and who is working on what. Then identify the papers that are of particular interest for you, and read these in more detail.

6. Pick your fights and carry them out

What makes you really thick? Canalize your energy and devote time to the causes that you think are important. Pick your fights wisely - you can't take all the worries of the world on your shoulders. Do you want to raise your voice in the way women are undervalued in academia? Would you prefer to put energy into the guidance of first-generation students?

7. Develop your own writing voice

Practice makes perfect, a saying that holds particularly true for academic writing. We could also say that practice molds your voice. You will notice that, as you gain more practice writing papers, and will receive less and less feedback from your coauthors, you will start to feel comfortable writing about your research in an authoritative voice that is distinctly yours.

PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: How to start blogging as a researcher

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

Maybe you heard from a fellow scientist that to be a researcher of the 21st century, you should have an online presence. Maybe you enjoy reading blogs of other academics and would like to share your two cents with the world too. Maybe you have other reasons for being interested in starting a blog, such as wanting to document your research and reflect upon it.

Whatever reason attracts you to blogging, you might feel intimidated by the task at hand. If you want to start writing on the internet, here are some of the steps you could consider taking.

1. Write a guest post

If you are not sure if blogging is for you, or that you would have enough time and material to keep a blog of your own, you can always test the waters by writing a guest post for another blog (feel free to pitch me if you'd like to share your story and experiences on PhD Talk). When you want to write a guest post for another blog, reach out to the editor of the blog, explain what you would like to write about (consider this your short abstract), and how your post could benefit the readers of the blog you are reaching out to. A clear, concise e-mail could secure your little spot on the internet. Typically, the editor will get back to you with some guidelines for posting on the blog, which you can consider similar to the paper formatting guidelines for a publication, and possible thoughts on how you can develop your topic further into a blog post.

2. Start or join a shared blog

If you feel ready to write on a more regular basis, but don't want to commit too much, you can join a shared blog, such as GradHacker, or start a collective blog for your research group or project. Sharing responsibilities can be an excellent way to grow a blog as a project without having to carry all the responsibilities yourself.

3. Select a blogging platform

If you are ready to start a shared blog, or perhaps a blog of your very own, you will need to think about the following:

- Where do I want my blog to go on the internet?
Do you want your blog to be part of a website or do you want it to stand on its own? Do you want your own domain, or are you fine with a blogger or Wordpress account.

- What will the name of my blog be?
Once you know where you want your blog to appear on the internet, you will need to select a name for your blog. Do you want to use your name, or do you want to give the blog a name of its own?

Once you have these questions sorted out, you can sign up and register for your place on the world wide web. From then on, you're all set to start writing or to start tinkering with your layout.

4. Write about your weekly experiences

Now that you have your space on the world wide web, let's discuss some topics you can write about. One way you could be sharing your research experiences is by writing a weekly update about what you are working on, what you have been doing for the past week and what caught your attention on the internet about your research topic or academia in general. While I do not keep logs like this on PhD Talk, I do really enjoy reading these kind of longer status updates from researchers whose blogs I follow.

5. Share your publications and presentations

Your blog is an excellent place to share your publications and presentations. While a blog solely consisting of entries with abstracts of papers of yours when they are published might be too niche for your (future) readers, you can write short posts in which you bring together some information about the conference you attended, the abstract of the paper you presented, and a SlideShare presentation of your slides. You can see an example of how I share my presentations after conferences here, and how I write about recently published journal papers.

6. Explain your research

Your blog could as well be a great place to write about your science in a more popular way. You can find some of my tips on how to share your research with friends and family in a previous post of mine. You could share videos of your experiments online - something you cannot do in your journal papers. You can make a series of photographs with explanation about steps you go through in the laboratory - again, something we do not have a set medium for in our scientific community.

7. Share what you learned

Once you publish research in a paper, you mostly published the results of the technique that actually worked. I've suggested blogging in the past as a possible means to tackle publication bias - and eradicate the skewed version of reality we sometimes find from research because of publication bias.

If you do not feel like sharing online what did not work for you in the laboratory (although I think you should; we can only disrupt higher education and academia once we truly embrace open science), you can also share stories about little hacks and things that work for you in the laboratory or in your research. Over the years, I've mostly focused on this type of posts, since I like writing these and enjoy reaching out to a broader academic audience. An example of this type of posts is this article in which I share how I write my abstracts.

8. Critique another article

You might read a blog post by another academic, and realize that in your field, reality is different. You can react to the author by writing in the comments section of the original post, but you could take it one step further, and write a full reply on your own blog. Note that with "critique" here I mean a civilized critique and not a complete bashing of someone else's opinions. An example of this type of posts is my (very old) reflection on a list of things to let go of in 2011.

9. Describe how you implemented another article

Did you read about someone's experiences (the type of post from number 7, for example) and decided to try it out? Why not write a post about your experiences after trying a certain technique for some time? Especially when it comes to hacks and productivity tricks, you can try out what other bloggers recommend, and see how it fits your field of work and activities. You might run into problems that are typical for your field - write about how you solved these. You could find that some methods feel too rigid for you, and discuss how you blend these methods into the messy reality of daily life.

10. Link to videos or Storify

Did you film some of your research and experiments? Upload it to Youtube, and write a post about what you were testing and what you found.
Did you have an interesting discussion on Twitter with fellow academics? Make a Storify out of it and share it on your blog.
An example is my post on Gender in Academia.

With these ideas you can get started - blogging as a guest author, blogging on a collective project or blogging on your own blog. Let me know where you will start writing, and what type of post from this list you will try out!

PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: How to outline a planning for a semester

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

If you live on the northern hemisphere, the days are getting shorter again, and summer is ever so slightly coming to an end. The long holidays are over (or the quiet semester with less lectures and responsibilities is over), and the buzzing of Fall semester can be heard in the distance.

And now that the Fall semester is drawing near, it might be a good moment to set goals for this semester, and plan accordingly. In this post, I'll guide you through the steps that will make Fall 2015 your most productive semester ever.

Ready for the challenge? Here we go.

1. Outline your major goals for the semester

Before you go into more details for the semester and how everything will fit in, time-wise and all the nitty-gritty, PAUSE and focus your thoughts:

What are the five most important things that you need to do this semester?

If you don't like lists, you can journal about it - either via 750words.com, a document in Evernote, or by writing long hand. Just find the red thread throughout your semester - this is the clothes hanger on which you will build your semester (don't you think Dutch expression translated can be very informative?).

Once you have outlined these five tasks (or even less, if you are working on a very large project such as your dissertation), try to identify when during the semester you will work on each project/task.

Will you work a few hours a week on each project, to make sure all projects move forward at the same pace?
Will you tackle one project at a time?

Identify how you will work first, and then map these tasks onto a plan for the semester. I like to use a monthly overview in Google Calendar, and select all the days that a project will be running (this is the approach I used in the past), or I put daily/weekly reminders in my ToDoist for the period of time that I plan to work on this task (my current approach).

If I want to study Spanish every 3 days during the semester, I'll put such a reminder in ToDoist. I also put a reminder of when I plan to start drafting a paper, when I plan to have the first version finished and when I plan to submit it.

2. Make a weekly planning

Now that you have the big rocks of your semester identified, you can zoom into your semester and try to fit all the bits and pieces of work that need to be done on a daily basis into a weekly schedule.

The elements that you need to fit in are (among others):
- teaching
- class preparation
- research
- writing papers
- reading papers / keeping up with the output in your field
- faculty responsibilities (such as, directing a lab)
- service on committees and other regular meetings
- office hours
- time to reply e-mails
- admin time

As you can see, I filter out e-mail and admin, and bunch all these small tasks into an hour of mail/admin a day (even though that hour sometimes expands beyond its limitations). I'm not replying to every single mail the moment it shows up on my phone (I typically stow away my phone in the drawer and close my mailbox anyway), and e-mail has a low priority for me: I'd rather miss my daily hour of replying e-mails than my daily hour of writing papers. Because papers are fab and emails mostly flab.

Once you have identified your building bricks, you can start to construct the framework of your semester. First, think of how many hours a week you are willing to work. 30? 40? 50? I don't recommend that you plan to work more than 60 hours a week, because your brain needs to refresh and refocus from time to time as well.
Then, distribute the hours that you have over the different categories. Typically, your time can be divided along the different categories (just giving you some rough estimates - things might look very different for you if your responsibilities are different):

- teaching: the number of hours you are actually in class
- class preparation: 2 hours per hour of class if it's a course you've taught before; 4 if it is a new course
- research: a few chunks of 2 hours throughout the week
- writing papers: at least an hour a day
- reading papers / keeping up with the output in your field: at least twice a week an hour
- faculty responsibilities (such as, directing a lab): at least three times a week an hour
- service on committees and other regular meetings: as scheduled
- office hours: depends on your university guidelines
- time to reply e-mails: about an hour a day
- admin time: half an hour a day

The details of setting up your schedule for the semester are in a previous post from this series.

3. Make a semester planning

You have already identified how your Big Rocks are taking up time and space in your planning for the entire semester. Now, you can weave your other responsibilities around it.

Sounds vague?

Here are a few things to identify:

When will homeworks be due, and when will you take midterms?
What are your important self-imposed deadlines for your research?
What are good times throughout the semester to follow-up with (international) collaborators?

Have these elements sorted out, and add them to your planning.

You will see that, as the semester progresses, your weekly schedule will serve as a guide for you, but it shouldn't be a terribly rigid plan. You are able to, and allowed to, move some blocks of time around in your schedule as necessary. Similarly, you can identify weeks where your schedule might be disrupted because of conferences or other special activities. Make sure you already build these elements into your schedule for the semester.

4. Plan personal activities

So important - don't forget to plan activities that you find important into your weekly and semesterly schedule.

On a weekly basis, you might think of planning time for workouts, social activities, date nights and other "regular" activities that you want to do repeatedly during the semester. Make time for them, and put them in your planning. You will feel much better when you arrange quality time for yourself (whether that means an evening of reading a good book, taking a bath, or crushing a damn-hard workout), than when you just stick around the house after work, eat and veg out on the couch (not that you are never allowed to do so and always have to be productive, but that in-between state is just not good for you when you stay in that state for too long).

Then, on a semesterly basis, plan out a few cool things you want to do. It's OK to spend an entire weekend working, if necessary, but don't do so the entire semester - you might want to have something to look forward to on a shorter notice. Decide what you want to do with your semester breaks: work on a paper, or get out to the mountains and hike - both are great options. Sleeping in, trying to "write a bit", replying emails and watching Netflix - not so good, too much in that half-working half-relaxing kinda state.

5. Focus

Now that you have your schedule figured it, it's time to put your ass in your office chair and grind. Or at least, ideally. In reality, there are a ton of social media platforms, the news, food, internet, your phone, your puppy and your mother-in-law that all want your attention. So remember your Big Rocks of the semester, and focus on those. I recommend you check out my guideline for better concentration in five steps, to help you sharpen your focus.

Remember that you feel much more successful if you've spend a day pomodoring through a difficult task, with short breaks for coffee, walks, bathroom and all of that, than when you try to do a bit, then go to check Instagram, do a little more, then read a blog post and so on (guilty as charged - I admit!).

Focus, focus, focus - try to think of what you will remember of this semester in two or five years from now. It won't be that BuzzFeed video - I'm sure.

6. Reward yourself

If you work hard, you gotta pat yourself on your back. Nobody will come after you to pat you on your back, so you have to take care of it yourself....

Finish a paper on time? Go get yourself a massage.
Submitted your research proposal? Head to the beach for a weekend.
Graded all those exams? Time for a movie.
Got a paper accepted? Go out to dinner and celebrate.

Life is to be enjoyed - and as academics, we're often too hard on ourselves (we little club of perfectionists...). So take good care of yourself, and put a bit of sparkle into your semester. This bit of magic will make your semester so much more balanced and enjoyable.

So, go ahead, get started with planning your semester - both in terms of work and fun - and get back to me to tell me what your semester will look like!

PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: 20 things you need to do when living in the Netherlands

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

This summer, I am focusing on topics related to moving to, living in and working in The Netherlands.
Why? To celebrate the release of FactCards.nl! On this website, you can find all information you need as a foreigner coming to do research in The Netherlands. And even for me, coming from neighbour country Belgium and speaking the same language (well, sort of...), those FactCards would have been really useful and could have saved me from a few headaches...

In this post, I share with you the 20 things I enjoyed most about my time in The Netherlands, and things that I still enjoy when I come back for my research stay during the summer.

1. Bike

Who needs a car if you can bike your commute? When you live in The Netherlands, one of the first things you need to look for is a decent bike. Your bike doesn't need to be a shining new one, but you do want to have a bike that is right in size for you, and that has some gears to help you bike up hills/bridges. Get yourself some bike bags to transport your groceries on your bike, and you're ready to go!

2. Visit Keukenhof

If you are in The Netherlands during spring when the tulips are in bloom, you just need to go and visit Keukenhof. The wealth of flowers in and around the Bollenstreek is simply overwhelming. I just wish I'd gone more often during the years I was in The Netherlands (I did go 2 out of the 4 years I lived in Delft).

3. Visit Amsterdam

The iconic capital of The Netherlands has much more to offer than drugs and the red light district. It's a stunning city with beautiful architecture and charming canals. The museums are world class, there are plenty of great places for dining, sipping coffee and hanging out, and of course you need to enjoy the presence of the water everywhere.

4. Travel to the neighboring countries

The Netherlands is very well-connected to its neighboring countries. You can take the train right into Belgium, France or Germany, or take the boat to the United Kingdom (or connect in Brussels to the Eurostar train) (keep in mind that you might need an additional visa for visiting the UK!). Snatch a cheap flight on Ryanair or EasyJet and go explore another city somewhere in Europe. Enjoy it where you are there, in the center of Europe!

5. Buy yourself some flowers

Flowers are cheap in The Netherlands, so indulge and get yourself some flowers every now and then to freshen up your house. Tulips in spring, roses in the early summer - you might want to buy them from your city's market to get a great deal.

6. Swim in the North Sea

Ah, the North Sea - there is not a sea or ocean in the world that smells like the North Sea. It's not the beautiful Mediterranean sea, but there is nothing like walking on the empty beach in November or swimming in the very salty water of the North Sea. Enjoy a day at the beach, and enjoy all the attractions of the beach towns.

7. Sample international cuisine in Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the melting pot of the Netherlands. While Rotterdam might not have come out of the wars of the 20th century without wounds, it is arguably the city with the most modern feel of The Netherlands. Marvel at the highrises, then go sample some international cuisine - Rotterdam caters to all tastes.

8. Go to the Hoge Veluwe

The Veluwe feels far away from everything else in The Netherlands, and it makes for a perfect weekend getaway. Stay close to the national park, bike around the park and visit the Kröller-Müller Museum. Watch the wildlife and hills that are so distinctly different from the flat and mostly urban landscape of the rest of the Netherlands.

9. Sail

Head to Frisia, hit the lakes and sail - or learn to sail. Water sports are the most popular sports in The Netherlands during the summer. Head out for a day and sail the waters, feel the sun on your skin and the wind in your hair - sailing might be one of the most relaxing activities you can do.

10. Go to a summer festival

Europe and summer festivals - it's a match made in heaven. Chose a summer festival according to the style of music you like best, camp out and feel the unity in music while rocking out to one of your favorite bands.

11. Join a sports or hobby club to make friends

While making friends in The Netherlands might take a little more time than in other parts of the world, you can help your luck a little bit by joining a sports team, a music group or by singing up for evening classes.

12. Go watch a soccer game on a big screen

The Dutch go crazy when their national team plays - especially in the world cup or Eurocup. If it's a sunny game day, don't miss the atmosphere and go watch the game on a big screen. Have a beer and enjoy the orange madness.

13. Travel by boat or bike

The Netherlands are an excellent location for slow travel. Towns and cities are close to each other, so you don't need to worry about long stretches without shops or restaurants when you travel slowly. Travel by bike along the excellent biking facilities of The Netherlands, or travel by boat along the rivers and canals.

14. Walk in wooden shoes

Just because we need to throw in a little cliche here too: go for nostalgia and get yourself a pair of wooden shoes and walk around in them, reminiscing the old days.

15. See the windmills of Kinderdijk

Now that we're talking about the typical Dutch cliches, we can't miss the windmills of Kinderdijk. Maybe a little bit too much of a touristic location, but hey, you just need your picture with the windmills to show your family back home that you really are in The Netherlands.

16. "Terrasje doen" in summer

When the sun's out, you gotta join the locals and sit on the terrace of a pub with a beer or soft drink. It's called "terrasje doen" (doing a terrace), and we even talk about "terrasjesweer" (terrace weather - when the weather is good enough to sit outside).

17. "Gezellig" in winter

The days are dark and short during winter, so it's the perfect time of the year to cuddle up on the couch under a blanket or spend evenings playing board games and indoor grilling with friends - all of it at a slow pace, with smell of comfort food around. "Gezellig" we call it in Dutch, ad it loosely translates to "cosy", but it's much more than that - you need to experience it.

18. Fine dining in Brabant and Limburg

The Southern parts of the Netherlands are closer to the Burgundian Belgians, so they know more about good food and fine dining (not saying this because I am Belgian...). Maastricht is a lovely city in Dutch Limburg, close to Germany and Belgium, where food is plenty and delicious. The same goes for Brabant, famous for baked goods, such as Bossche Bollen, and more extensive meals than the rest of the country.

19. Take a mountain of sandwiches for lunch

How does lunch look like in The Netherlands (and often Belgium too)? Well, you take a loaf of bread, take at least 4 slices of them, and put something between two slices. You can for example put cheese between two slices of bread and you have one "dubbele boterham" (a sandwich). Jam is a popular choice for breakfast (yes, you can just do the same for breakfast).

20. Visit a spa

Did you know we call a spa a spa because of the city Spa in Belgium, a famous bathing place for the rich and famous? Spas in this part of the world a luscious experience, with pools and saunas to enjoy (absolutely something I miss when I am in Ecuador). Perfect for a cold winter days, to rejuvenate and heat up in a Finnish sauna.