 Starting a PhD position after years of being a student and worrying only about attending lectures, doing your homework, and studying for your exams can be detrimental to your productivity. Not having a strict schedule or a boss hanging over your shoulder telling you to do this, finish this by then. And being in research means that, well, we know research takes time. Nobody's expecting you to have something done by the end of the day. But if you take your time on plunge, if you do a lot of coffee breaks with your colleagues, and generally dawdle, you might get to the end of your research position and wish that you'd spend this time differently. So I'm here to give you some time management tips for new academics. Number one and most important is create a schedule and stick to it. There's nobody who is going to hang over your shoulder until you need to work these eight hours a day. But you're an adult, you have a job, it's your responsibility to make sure your PhD is as successful as it can be. So create a schedule, stick to it, do your daily hours of work. You'll be happy that you did it, throw it down the line. If this doesn't work for you, number two, use pomodoros. Pomodorot technique is a very, very simple method of managing your time. You set a timer for 25 minutes, or pick a different time if that works better for you, experiment a little. You set a timer, and during that time, whatever thought comes into your head, oh no, I have to send that email, scribble it down, forget about it, focus on the task that you've chosen to work on for these 25 minutes. After it's done, check all the things that you thought of and that you urgently had to do. It can wait for these 25 minutes. And you will have had a nice window of time where you can focus on things that you might not want to do otherwise. If self-management isn't the easiest thing for you, what I always enjoy doing is creating a reward system. So, number three, a reward system can be as playful as you want it to be. It can be, I'm going to work 40 hours this week, and I'm going to buy myself a chocolate sundae, or I'm going to finish this paper, and then I'm going to take a weekend trip to a neighboring town. Or maybe I get a cookie once I'm done replying to this email from my supervisor. It can be anything you want it to be. There are even online services such as Habitica that help you manage your to-do lists, and checklists, and every single scheduled item that you have to do can be gamified. You can collect points, compare yourself to others in a similar position, and in fact a lot of PhD students do that to make their lives a bit easier and to feel a sense of community. If you want to make it a little bit more modern, you can also use a Kanban board. Create a big board on a poster. You can probably get an extra poster from the printing staff at your institution, and just put some sticky notes on them to decide what belongs to which project, what you need to accomplish, what you're doing right now, and the most important bit, what you've finished to make yourself feel good. Look at all these things you've done. It really does help and pushes you forward. And then just focus on one little post-it note at a time. If you're struggling with writing, then number five is writing tips. There are again many online services that may help you with this. A very popular website is writeordie.com where you can reward yourself for every let's say 200 words you write. You get a kitten gift jumped out of you. Or perhaps if you don't write any words in 20 seconds, they'd start getting deleted. It's a little bit of a reward and punishment system, but if you really need that extra boost, that extra help, it might help. There's also a really nice website called For The Words where you get to gamify your writing process, fight monsters, be a part of an RPG community. I know these things may sound silly, but they do help you. Every one of them helps you a little bit and your goal of getting further along with your writing. Number six are browser extensions. Now I know we live in an era of the internet and you are watching this video on the internet, but sometimes you should really stay away from YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and news portals. There are many browser extensions for your browser of choice that will block all these social media websites from you and at the same time allow you to browse papers and online resources and databases. Consider using one of those during your working hours. It's cruel, but it'll make your working hours much, much more productive. Number seven music. Now, there's a lot of research that says that music does make you happier and makes it easier to work. However, when you're trying to focus on something and work on something mentally exhausting, research says that music doesn't help. It makes it harder to focus. So if you're dealing with something very stressful, feel free to turn that music on. But as soon as you get to an important part of your daily work, shut it off, focus, turn on a Pomodoro and get on with work. And eight, and I think most important, is be comfortable. There's all these little things in your office that might bother you. Maybe it's the noise from the neighboring offices. Close the door. Perhaps invest in a pair of noise-canceling headphones. Maybe you don't feel all that comfortable with your desk. Ask around. Maybe it can be lifted up or put down a little bit. Spend five minutes adjusting your chair so that you don't end up with back pain after a full day of work. And if you're a woman, perhaps you're cold in the winter months. Maybe what works for me is I invested in a pair of fingerless gloves and an office blanket. So when my male colleagues lowered the temperature in the office, I still get to be comfortable and keep writing and keep working. So these were my eight tips for time management for new academics. I hope they help you and I hope you have a very productive time.