Science is hard, PhDs are hard, and it is easy to unwittingly make it harder for yourself than it needs to be. This article is about developing useful practices and a positive attitude to your work.

These tips assume that you have started your PhD, have chosen supervisors and are ready to get to work. As with all advice, you should interpret it in the context of the person advising you. I am white, British, and have mainly connected with academics based at UK, USA and Australian Universities. Science is done by people, and cultural norms will always be at play. However, I have tried to make this advice as general as possible.

Some tips are based on things I have done, and others use the lens of hindsight. The advice is particularly relevant to the fields of experimental psychology and neuroscience.

Lots has already been written elsewhere about how to choose the right programme and supervisor for you, and I would highly recommend thinking about these things carefully. These tips are also not about how to have a successful PhD in terms of explicit outcomes – you should listen to someone else who managed to publish more than me about that – but they will hopefully make it a more manageable and dare I say, enjoyable experience.

1. Ask questions, and don’t be afraid to be wrong.

Asking questions can be scary, especially in a public talk. What if you say something wrong? It might feel safer just to keep quiet, but this can lead to restricting your learning and growth. In my high school chemistry class, there was a girl who constantly asked questions. Constant questions. Does she not understand anything? How does she have the confidence to show how little she knows? I swear she got the highest grade in the class (and that girl was me… no it wasn’t. I was sat at the back scratching my head over molecular mass) Worrying about being wrong, and simulating all the possible embarrassing scenarios you could find yourself in, is distracting and reduces your ability to focus. Often the person who asks the simplest question at the beginning, asks the most interesting question at the end.

If you don’t feel able to ask questions in public, write them down during the talk, and ask a colleague what they think later. Depending upon the question, you could email the speaker. I have had some really exciting discussions when I did this, which sometimes led to opportunities for future projects and positions.

2. Talk to people about your science while you are doing it, not just when you finish it.

During my PhD I had some theoretical ideas about reinforcement learning and mood that I was excited to include in my thesis discussion. When I sat down to write it I realized, I had no idea how to build the argument. I sent a draft to a colleague and received a polite “this does not make sense”. I had kept these ideas largely to myself, and when it came to it, not having talked them out for me meant not having thought them out.

My whole perception of academic discourse changed when I flipped from feeling defensive and stressed out that other people could come up with interesting points I would never would have thought of, to thinking - awesome I just learnt more cool stuff and ways to think about things.

Simple things like emailing colleagues after you give a talk to ask what they thought (particularly if they asked a question) can improve your science. Embracing questions and critiques about your work as opportunities to improve can help you advance a project at critical stages. I once gave a presentation to my PhD cohort and a group of PIs about a concern I had about whether I could make a particular inference with my model. I received probably five times more emails than I would usually receive after a talk with useful suggestions and more questions about my work.

3. Yes, you can cold email people.

Why on earth not? I often hear from other PhD students that they feel uncomfortable doing this if they have no connection to the recipient. Most people are very excited to talk about their science with others, and it’s always nice to know someone might want to join your lab!

I once received an email about a paper I had written from a masters student I had no connection with, in a country I had never visited. My first thought was not dang why is this random person emailing me, do they think I have time for this??? It was OMG someone read my paper and cared enough to want to understand it more.

The worst that can happen is that you don’t get a reply to your email. Well then, yes, obviously you have to immediately leave the field and live as a hermit for 10 years until everyone has forgotten about it– or maybe you don’t?

If you don’t get a reply, this could mean a range of things. They might be waiting to reply till they have more information about your request, or they could simply be too busy and have forgotten. It is absolutely fine to send a follow up email if they don’t respond after a couple of weeks.

This advice comes with the caveat that my advisors were broadly known in my field. This is likely to mean my cold emails have a higher base rate of success. Irrespective of this, I believe it is always worth trying.

4. Set clear and consistent boundaries about your availability

Starting your PhD is an exciting time, you may want to throw yourself into it completely and work all day and night. I don’t recommend this, but if you really must do it, the key is, not to have others expect you to do this.

You’ve heard the age old adage you teach people how to treat you. Don’t be surprised the more you show that you are totally happy to work at the evening and weekend, the more things people will ask you to do so, and the smaller window of time you will get to do it in. Before you know it, things will start becoming urgent.

Very rarely are there actual emergencies in science (particular in psychology/neuroscience). Where there are emergencies, consider whether those situations were because they assumed you would be available at the last minute. Think of it this way, you plan to start a DIY project next Saturday. It’s now Thursday, you review the equipment you need and realise you are missing an essential tool. No problem, hop on amazon prime – uh oh it’s out of stock. Now you have an emergency on your hands! Your weekend project is ruined! This emergency was created because you assumed resources would be available to you at the last minute and you were wrong.

Now consider someone who has a conference abstract due on Monday, and they need feedback from two colleagues. One colleague answers their emails at the weekend and the other logs off on Friday at 5pm. Whose advice would be sourced earlier in the week, and who is getting the red flagged email on Sunday with a coinciding WhatsApp message? You want to avoid being both the person sending and receiving that email, which you can do by being clear about your availability, and planning for others not to be always available to you at the last minute (it goes both ways).

You’ll often hear people say one of perks of an academic career is its flexibility. This may be true, but your time should be flexible to you, and not for others to flex it for you.

When you are working on your science out of traditional office hours, consider if you really need to be available by email. Even if you receive an email from a colleague that you could answer in 10 seconds – email is an asynchronous medium and it can wait until tomorrow. Okay, repeat that to yourself again - email is an asynchronous medium. Say it in the mirror every morning, get it tattooed on your butt, and have it inscribed on your grave. Whatever it takes.

5. Have short term goals outside your research projects, and use them to build confidence.

PhDs are a time to learn new skills, and often you are the smallest fish in the lab. It’s easy to feel out of your depth, and a lack of confidence about your abilities compared to others who have been working on similar problems with much more experience. You can work through this, but it’s going to take time (maybe years!). In the meantime, having another activity in your life that allows you to complete short term goals of which you are proud of will increase your self-esteem, and allow you to bring that confidence to the lab.

During my PhD, I was involved in art based public engagement projects – something I had previously worked in semi-professionally. In this space I was still learning, but I felt confident and knew I had important expertise to share. As a team, we created some awesome work. This made me happy. Happy people can better navigate challenging situations, and take negative events on the chin. Some of your experiments on which you worked really hard aren’t going to work out as you hoped, you will need an emotional buffer for this.

Your alternative project doesn’t have to be big or complicated. It may be best if it isn’t! You could try a new skill which keeps your hands busy (e.g. window box gardening, crocheting) or something which takes you somewhere else for a few hours a week (e.g. a dance class or volunteering). Being happy and confident has benefits outside your academic productivity, but if you find yourself feeling guilty for enjoying your own life, you can remind yourself it is helping you achieve your professional goals.

Doing a PhD is a weird time. You exist in the centre of the Venn diagram of student and staff. You are responsible for your own work, but don’t always get the autonomy to take things in the direction you want. So many parts of the experience will be out of your control, but the things you can try and control include your attitude to learning, how you respect your own time, connecting with colleagues and building your own networks. Keep an eye on these: they will help you to become a better researcher and colleague in whatever career you choose next.