By Emily Azevedo-Casey, PhD student
In my last column, I provided practical tips to stay on track with your academic and personal goals during summer through reflection, planning, and celebrating achievements. Let’s build on that by focusing on wellbeing, since how good we feel is closely linked to our conceptions of productivity. Summer offers unique opportunities to practice wellbeing that can better set us up for the fall semester and beyond.
- Conduct a wellbeing check-in. What’s been working for you this summer, and what needs improvement? Approach your check-in with understanding and non-judgment. Recognize we are all doing our best and can make changes that will feel good for us. Think of wellbeing as your overall quality of life. Dimensions of this include emotional, physical, financial, environmental, occupational, intellectual, social, and spiritual health. Look out for signs of wellbeing issues like isolation, skipping or neglecting personal hygiene or work commitments, and impulsive or disordered actions that influence your relationships and environment.
- Prioritize one or two wellbeing goals. Consider which welbeing goals seem most important, doable, or interesting to practice for the next four weeks. What goals can serve dual needs? For example, getting outside and connecting socially have overlapping benefits. Spending time in nature improves mood, stress reduction, and physical health. Plus, a 2019 study found experiences in nature provide benefits in cognitive function and flexibility, including working memory and creative problem-solving. More people are out and about in summer, which means more opportunities to build a social network that combats isolation.
- Create your own routine. Without institutional deadlines and structures, we can feel both fearful and empowered to make schedules and routines that best work for us during the summer. Consider your wellbeing priorities and understand which deadlines are fixed versus flexible as you craft an ideal schedule for these last weeks of summer.
Wellbeing is a consistent challenge throughout graduate school, and it also plays an important role in how we assess our productivity. It’s important to remember that some challenges in graduate school are persistently uncertain and out of your control. These tips can allow you to focus on aspects of wellbeing and productivity that are actually within your control. Using the last month of summer to reflect and take action can help lay the foundation for a successful fall semester.
Tips for Grads is a professional and academic advice column written by graduate students for graduate students at UW–Madison. It is published in the student newsletter, GradConnections Weekly.