Vikki Wright on career transitions, ADHD, and learning to manage yourself (CAL116, S6E10)

Vikki Wright is the director of PhD Life Coach and offers professional coaching and training for PhD students and academics. She also hosts the PhD Life Coach podcast. Up until 2022 though Vikki was a full professor of Higher Education at the University of Birmingham in the UK, with a research background Sport and Exercise Sciences, then shifting to more of a teaching focus.

Vikki shares her interesting journey from full professor to becoming a life coach. The conversation covers her career transitions, dealing with ADHD, the importance of self-awareness, along with self-compassion, curiosity and having realistic ambitions. She also shares role-based time blocking as an approach for effective self-management. These practical tools and mindset changes can be useful for us all to help us take more control of our lives and careers. Vikki also offers insights into her programs and coaching approaches for PhD students and academics.

Overview

00:00 Intro

00:29 Episode Introduction 

03:10 Guest Introduction

03:27 Academic Journey and Career Transitions

03:56 Challenges in Research and Shift to Teaching

07:29 The Teaching Path to Full Professor...and Pandemic Reflections

11:27 Discovering Coaching and Personal Growth

17:37 Understanding ADHD and Coaching Transformation

26:35 Balancing Ambitions and Realistic Goals

30:58 Self Understanding and Being Her Own Best Boss

37:25 Recognising and Addressing Student Challenges

41:24 The Role of Self-Understanding in Supervision

45:31 Self-Compassion

49:37 Curiosity

51:35 Balancing Ambition and Realism

01:00:04 Role-Based Time Blocking

01:09:52 Final Thoughts and Resources

01:11:36 Outro

01:12.24 End

Related Links

More about Vikki’s offerings:

‘The PhD Life Coach’ podcast

‘Be your own best boss’ course

Vikki’s podcast episode on ‘How to use role based time blocking’

The PhD Lifecoach ‘The Membership’ - sign up Jan 2025

Vikki's LinkedIn page

People:

Dr Alex Conner 

Other podcasts: 

‘I have ADHD’ podcast, Kristen Carder  

The Life Coach School, Brooke Castillo

Episode Transcript

Geri (00:05):
Welcome to Changing Academic Life.
I'm Geraldine Fitzpatrick and this isa podcast series where academics and
others share their stories, provideideas and provoke discussions about what
we can do individually and collectivelyto change academic life for the better.

(00:29):
Whether you're considering ateaching focused career path.
Or looking to move on from academia.
Or dealing with ADHD or withperfectionism and procrastination.
Or if you're trying to be abetter supervisor, Or you're just
wanting to take more control ofyour own life then I think you'll
really love this conversation.

(00:51):
Vikki Wright is the foundingdirector of PhD Life Coach.
And offers professional coaching andtraining to help PhD students and
academics, reduce their overwhelm,make progress and enjoy work and life.
She also hosts the PhD life coach podcast.
Up until 2022 though.

(01:13):
Vikki was a full professor of highereducation at the University of Birmingham
in the UK with a research backgroundin sport and exercise sciences.
In this engaging conversation, Vikkishares her unique career journey where she
started off in a research focused track.

(01:34):
Then shifted to more of a teachingfocus . And then later on, on the
basis of a group coaching experience,. She retrained as a life coach.
A recurring theme in all that Vikki sharesis about the importance of self-awareness
and following your strengths.
We see this as she shares anecdotesfrom the pandemic and her own

(01:57):
personal struggles with ADHD.
And she highlights the importance ofself-compassion, curiosity and really
having balanced, realistic ambitions.
These are some key mindset aspects oflearning how to manage yourself, or she
talks about in some programs that sheoffers how to be your own best boss.

(02:22):
Towards the end of the conversation Vikkialso shares with us a very practical
tool of role-based time blocking
And if you wanted to see more ofwhat she offers, I can point you
to her website which is www dotthePhDlifecoach, all one word, dot com.

(02:42):
Where you can find links to her podcastand to her be your own best boss course.
She also runs an onlinecommunity for PhD students and
academics call the Membership.
And this is really timely becauseapplications for the next membership
opens end of January, 2025.

(03:02):
You can sign up on thatwebsite page for the waitlist.
So hope you enjoy this conversationwith Vikki Wright I'm really
excited to have this conversation withyou, Vikki, because I think there's
going to be so much in it for people.
And one of the reasons why it'll bereally interesting to talk to you is that
you have an interesting career journey.

(03:24):
Can you tell us a littlebit of your background?

Vikki (03:27):
Yes, of course.
Thank you so much forhaving me here today.
So I.
Went to university at18, as most people do.
And I never left that universityuntil I was a full professor
25 years later, I think it was.
Um, so I went through the sameinstitution from beginning to end.

(03:49):
Did my undergraduate, went straightinto a PhD, got offered a postdoc
and kind of went through from there.
And the first big transition was when Irealized after about 10 years postdoc, I
guess, that I didn't really love researchanymore, which is a bit of a challenge
at a research intensive, big university.

(04:11):
And I thought it might be theend of my academic career.
And, um, I chatted with somewonderful mentors who said, no,
we need people who love teaching.
We need people who want to doleadership on that side of things.
And thankfully at that stage, myuniversity had a track all the way through
to full professor on teaching focused.

Geri (04:31):
Do you want to say what your research area was that you ended
up deciding you didn't really like?

Vikki (04:36):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
So I did a sport science degree,sport and exercise sciences.
My PhD was looking at how stressaffects immune function and how
exercise affects immune function.
And I loved it.
Don't get me wrong.
It's a fascinating topic area.
Yeah.
And I really loved supporting my PhDstudents and all that side of it.
But I had realized that in orderto answer the questions I wanted

(04:59):
to answer, I was going to haveto get down and immunology of it.
Um, I didn't want to be doing morecross sectional studies, looking at
how this measure of stress measures tosome basic measure of immune function.
And I actually went back and did apostgraduate qualification in immunology
and infection after my PhD in a kindof vague attempt to like retrain

(05:23):
myself into that hardcore immunology.
And I just didn't love theactual doing of that research.
I didn't enjoy being in a laboratory,particularly I didn't enjoy the kind
of careful methodicalness of it andthe making bits of kit work that
didn't work and all that sort of stuff.

Geri (05:43):
But you thought you would, obviously, to actually choose to
do another degree, another sortof, um, study program in that.

Vikki (05:52):
Did I think I would love it?
I don't know that I thought about that.
I think I thought I needed it.
I think I thought that in order toanswer the questions that I wanted
to, it was one of those decisionsthat was driven more by sort of My
goals than by a kind of understandingof myself at that stage I think

(06:13):
I think if I'd stopped and thought aboutwhat gave me energy and what I yeah Good
at naturally and what I like spending timedoing I would have realized So careful and
methodical is probably not it but Yeah,I don't recall thinking about that much.
It was more, right, if I'm going todo this, I need to do it properly.

(06:35):
I need to know how to do this.
And I love learning.
So doing the course was great.
Um, but I was getting to a stagewhere I was procrastinating writing
grants, not because I don't like, Iactually really like writing grants.
I'm a bit of a weirdo.
Um, I just didn't want to think aboutthe fact that I would If I got that
grant, then I would definitely bedoing this research in four years time.

(06:59):
And it was like, that's not a good sign.
That's not a good sign.
Because the worry is you might say,

Geri (07:05):
Writing a grant and submitting it, praying that it doesn't get funded.

Vikki (07:10):
I like writing about it.
I just don't want to do it.

Geri (07:13):
That is a good warning sign.

Vikki (07:16):
That was a good warning sign and thankfully that was one I actually
listened to and I got some good advicefrom people that there would be careers
in academia that didn't have to involvebeing a like superstar researcher.

Geri (07:29):
Which is amazing isn't it because there aren't many universities yet I
don't think that really value a teachingpath and provide people career prospects.

Vikki (07:44):
Yeah.
And this was 10 years ago, right?
So this is, this is not even now.
This was, so this is theUniversity of Birmingham in the UK.
And it was one of the things that Ithink they do really, really well.
They've had a path to professor forquite a long time at that stage.
And then about nine years ago, theyintroduced a Reader qualification.

(08:06):
So at the time there was, itwas lecturer, senior lecturer,
reader, then full professor.
And they didn't used to have thereader promotion on teaching focus.
You had to go straight fromsenior lecturer to professor.
So it was a route, but it was a big jump.
And just about the time that I wasdeciding that I wanted to go that
way, they introduced that interim, um,promotion, which was super useful as a

(08:28):
kind of structured career goal and things.
And yeah, they were brilliant.
So it took into account, um, notonly your own teaching practice,
but contributions to pedagogicliterature in some places, um, teaching
leadership within your institution.
So the sort of more organizationalmanagement side of it.

(08:48):
And also then kind of leadershipat a national and international
level so we're sharing good practicewithin your discipline, or, you
know, across more widely than that.
So that was what I ended updoing for, for the rest of
that academic bit of my career.
As I say, made full professor duringthe pandemic, which was, yeah, that

(09:12):
was a vibe, get finding that outwhen I was on my own in a house.

Geri (09:16):
So the champagne celebration on your own.

Vikki (09:20):
My friend, so one of my best friends, Helen, um, cause this was
right, this was like March 2020.
Um, one of my best friends, Helen cameround and put a half miniature size
bottle of champagne on my front door,retreated to the end of my drive.
Where she had one of those party poppersand sort of yelled, congratulations
to them, did a party popper.

(09:41):
And I sort of waved and took my, my minibottle of champagne and retreated in door.

Geri (09:47):
But that's still lovely, isn't it?
That, that someone actually cared and thatsmall gesture that you still like just
looking at your face and, it was special.

Vikki (09:58):
Oh, 100%.
I've still got the mini bottle upstairs.
Um, so yeah, and I was doing that.
And then.
Then it was the pandemic and I washead of education for my department.
So I was overseeing all the postgraduateprograms, all the undergraduate
programs, um, which as you canimagine, we had, we had clinical
programs and we have a physiotherapy,um, unit in our, in our department.

(10:19):
And so that was a whole thing, keepingthat running through the isolations
and everything, as you can imagine.
Um, and then we kind of came out the otherside of that to some extent, at least.
back to sort of normal.
And I was so like, okay, what's next?
Because that was like, headdown emergency measures, right?

(10:39):
There was no time to think aboutcareer planning at that stage.
It was just, let's get thedepartment through this.
And it was like, okay, I'm full professor.
That was my goal.
That's what I've been workingtowards all this time.
Um, what now?
And I was kind of on a trajectoryto do the senior education role.

(11:01):
So I probably would have gone for likedirector of education for my college and
then look at like pro vice chancellorfor education or something like that.
That was kind of, I thinkwhat people expected of me.
I think I was for good and bad.
I was seen as quite ambitiousand Yeah, and then I was like,
I don't want to do those things.

(11:23):
These jobs don't actually appeal anymore.
Um, and at the same time, I'd beenhaving coaching of my own in a group
setting and finding it absolutelytransformational and beginning
to think, Oh my goodness, the PhDstudents and other academics need this.
And so I trained as a coach alongsidemy job and Not really with the

(11:49):
intention of doing it full time.
Um, but because I thought it wouldbe really useful and interesting
that I could use it within my work.
And yeah, the more I thought aboutthe coaching, the more I wanted
to spend all my time on that.
And.
The pragmatic thing to do would probablyhave been to just tootle around my

(12:11):
academic job, keep it ticking over,take home my professorial pay, not
get too stressed out about anythingand do some coaching on the side.
I'm not very good at that.
I'm not very good at not kindof driving towards something.
So yeah, my personal life collided withmy real life and I met a wonderful man who

(12:33):
said that he could make sure I didn't diewhile I was setting up my own business.
Um, he would feed me and all that.
And so it sort of, opportunity conspiredto make it possible for me to just
go all in pretty much immediately,which is what I did two years ago.

Geri (12:50):
Brilliant.
So I want to come to that in a tick,but I'm really curious about the way you
talked about that pandemic period andyour role in the education and all of the
extreme pivots that everyone had to make.
I think that was sort of the area inuniversities that was most under pressure.

(13:10):
How did you come out of that?
Was it sort of like burned out andflat or how did you manage looking
after yourself during that time?

Vikki (13:20):
That, yes.
How did I manage looking after myself?
Well, to contextualize,I was living on my own.
So I went nearly three monthswithout touching another human being
at the beginning of the pandemic.
Um, while at the same time tryingto keep all this stuff afloat.

(13:41):
And it was really hard.
And this is what's led on, Ithink, to a lot of the coaching
stuff that I do now, because Iwas trying to balance continuing.
to ensure our students had access tothe courses that they had signed up for
and that they'd expected and that they'dpaid for and all of that stuff with
also all these really conflicting needsthat the staff had in terms of what was

(14:07):
realistic to ask them to deliver underthe circumstances they were experiencing,
you know, at home with their kids andoften sick family members and getting
sick themselves and whatever, and Yeah,I'm not gonna lie, that was really hard.
That was a really difficult balance.
And I spent an awful lot ofthat time beating myself up.
A lot, I think it's fair to say.

(14:28):
Because I just felt like Iwas letting everyone down.
Um, you know, the studentswanted more than we could offer.
The staff were thinking that I was askingfor more than was reasonable from them.
Because of all of that, I wasstruggling to stay ahead of myself.
I have tendencies towards ADHD.
I'm not diagnosed, butI kind of head that way.

(14:49):
Um, you know, I was regularly askingpeople for things with not very much
notice because, partly because theuniversity was, like all universities
was making up as it went along, Iwas getting stuff at last minute.
I was then not on top of things asmuch as I would want to be and then

(15:10):
asking up people for things in a hurryand feeling terribly bad about it.
I remember being in one meetingand I can't remember what it was
that I said that they needed to do.
And A member of staff, who can be alittle bit grumpy, but he's a lovely,
lovely fella, um, just said it wouldhave been nice to have been consulted
on this before the decision was made.

(15:32):
I was just literally like

Geri (15:35):
Just to interject because you can't see.
At this point.
Vikki does a very animatedmime of how she responded.

Vikki (15:44):
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Stittity!
So that was sort of like That wasa real, like, he just sat there,
and he was absolutely shocked!
He was just like, I'm doing my best, okay?
So,

Geri (16:03):
So just a total, like, that was the straw that broke, that broke you.

Vikki (16:10):
It really was.
And so I think I, I don't know, Ithink I have a, I was going to say
inherent laziness, that is not true,and I've got to stop speaking like that.
Like that.
I have I can't drivemyself into the ground.
My brain gets distracted and Ienjoy doing too many other things.

(16:31):
And so I think what saved me wasthat I have a lot of hobbies and
a lot of things I'm interested in.
And so whilst work was very much headingtowards burnout, I had enough protectives,
even when I was locked away like that.
Mm-hmm.
My various clubs and things hadonline things going on and stuff.

(16:54):
I had enough other protectivethings that kept me on the right
side of Broken . Yeah, yeah.
But I was definitely very, very exhaustedafterwards and my university were
wonderful once I kind of came to theend of my tenure as head of education.
They gave me a year where Ididn't have any major admin roles.
So I was just teaching my staff anddoing bits and pieces and recovering.

(17:17):
So they were wonderful.
I repaid them by leaving.

Geri (17:22):
That's really wonderful that the university, recognized and
valued that and gave you that space.
Yeah, because it is time torecover and just decompress a bit.
So I'm curious then, what was the triggerfor going into coaching for yourself?

Vikki (17:37):
Well, it actually came about because of a random conversation
with a gorgeous friend of mine.
So a guy called Dr.
Alex Conner, who worked in themedical school at the time at the
university, um, he very openly has ADHD.
He does a lot of advocacy workin ADHD and him and I were
good buddies for a long time.
And we were having coffee togetherafter the pandemic had sort of

(17:59):
slightly settled back when we wereactually allowed to see each other.
And yeah.
I can't remember what we were talkingabout, but um, he was just like,
so anyway, when were you diagnosed?
And I was like, hmm, diagnosed, what now?
What are we doing?
And he was mortified because he waslike, I never diagnosed, I never, it's
one of my things, even if I suspect.

(18:20):
He's like, I just had noidea, you didn't know.

Geri (18:23):
And did you know before he said that?
Did you have an inklingbefore he said that?

Vikki (18:27):
No, I just, No, I just thought I was, Enthusiastic and useless.
Kind of something that sitsin between those two things.
Um, and I'm still not, I'mmostly not, this is awful.
I'm not diagnosed because I got,um, got referred for diagnosis, um,
and got put on a list, and then theyasked me to set up a consultation and

(18:51):
I never got around to emailing them.
And so after a year I got discharged,which in my mind should be a diagnosis.
There we are.
Anyway, I'm mostly on the thing atthe moment that actually an enormous
amount of self compassion and supportat home has meant that the symptoms
are not Impacting my life in anyterrible way at the moment, so I've

(19:15):
decided that at the moment I'm good.
But, but that was where it reallystarted, him saying that, and me
being like, oh my goodness, I wonder.
And then I started listening toa podcast that I would recommend
to anybody who thinks they mighthave ADHD, called I Have ADHD.
Um, By a coach in the U.
S.
called Kristen Carder.

(19:35):
Um, and it was just brilliant.
And I just, from the off, I just,I like, consumed this podcast.
And she had a group coaching programcalled Focused for adults with ADHD.
And After quite a bit of umming anduhring, because it was, you know, it's not
super cheap, um, I decided I'd go for it.

(19:56):
And yeah, it was just transformational.
Sitting in these webinars, watchingher coach other people who were
saying things that were like mybrain out loud, was just amazing.
And, you know, obviously thetimes I got coached, Incredible.
But just hearing other people experiencingthe same things, and it not having to

(20:22):
mean that They needed to fix themselvesor be better or find a new planner that
would make it all okay or whatever.

Geri (20:32):
Which is often the recommendation.

Vikki (20:34):
I mean, seriously, yeah, I, that's, you know, this will be the year I'll stick
to this, this will be the year I do thator whatever had always been the thing.
And yeah, that was the one thatjust, and I'd had coaching before,
but it never, ever help because.
I would leave a session superenthusiastic with a plan.

(20:55):
You know, we'd gone through themodels of GROW model and all of this.
I've gone through my options.
I've made a decision.
I knew why I was doingit, blah, blah, blah.
I'd go off.
I'd come back the next time.
And they'd be like, so didyou do any of those things?
I'd be like, no, I didn't do any of them.
Why not?
And I'm like, I have no idea.
Um, and so they'd get cross with me.
I'd get embarrassed.
And.

(21:17):
Yeah.
So I'd never found coachinguseful before that.
And then suddenly I found thisenvironment where it was like,
Oh, this all just makes sense.
Just makes sense.
And that made so much difference.
That was the point where I decidedthat I wanted to train and that form of
coaching and, and do that sort of work.

Geri (21:36):
Make that difference for other people.

Vikki (21:38):
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
And not just people who've gotADHD or other neurodivergences.
The stuff I was seeing.
It was so translatable to somany people with academia.
There is so much, as you know, whereare the things that we're telling
ourselves are just making it somuch harder than it needs to be.

(22:01):
Um, and that's not to blame ourselves.
It's inherently a challenging system anda, you know, a competitive environment and
all that stuff, but we can end up makingit so much harder than it needs to be.
That was what I learned really.
. Geri: So the other coaching program, and you talked about you'd gone

(22:23):
through the GROW process and forpeople who don't know, it stands
for Goal, Reality, the Options, andthen having the Will to change or
motivating Why you want to change.
And so you got to all of that andyou went away with your option, and
you just said you didn't come back.
What do you think was goingon there for you with that?
What was it about thatapproach that didn't work?

(22:43):
I want to be careful because I want it, you know, different
coaches work for different people.
Right.
And I'm, this was just a onethat it didn't work for me.
And I think the reason it didn't workfor me was because the main things we
talked about is what we were going to do.
And I am, there's one thing I'm notshort of it's ideas, plans, ways to get

(23:06):
there, the exact steps I need to take.
And so I could say all the rightthings there in the session.
I could even believe.
I've got a plan now in the session.
I could, you know, but I didn't understandwhy I wouldn't then follow through.

(23:28):
And not only did I not understandit, I judged myself hugely for it.
So for the fact that I'd come up withthese plans, they sounded so reasonable.
They sounded like I, and I genuinelywanted to do them and I couldn't
understand why I didn't, and thatannoyed me because not understanding
things just frustrates me.
And.
I made it mean that I wasjust useless and lazy and ill

(23:53):
disciplined and all that good stuff.
And for me, the issue was thatwe weren't getting to why I
wasn't taking those actions
.And I know that's not something that's inherent to particular style of coaching.
So, you know, then there may be otherpeople who work with these models

(24:15):
who would've got to that stuff.
But for me, this notion of.
Partly the why being to do with theADHD, but the why also being to do
with all the thoughts and emotionsthat I was having about those actions
and us not really getting to thatmeant that nothing really changed.

(24:38):
Whereas The Focused Coaching Program usesa model called the Self Coaching Model
which originally came out of the LifeCoach School which Brooke Castillo, it
is just, she, she says it too, it's asmushed up version of CBT for a coaching
environment essentially, but it reallylooks at what thoughts and feelings you're

(25:00):
having and how that drives your actions.
And it was something, I don't know,people had probably told me stuff like
that before, but it was something that Iwas suddenly very able to go, Oh, right.
And for me, it was around things like thereason why I was making unrealistic goals.

(25:24):
Because I truly believe mythoughts were absolutely that
I should be able to do it all.
It was a massive problemif I couldn't do it all.
Um, and so then, I kind of alreadywas feeling overwhelmed and when
I was feeling overwhelmed, I wouldprocrastinate and I couldn't work out
why I was procrastinating because nobodyhad ever really talked to me about

(25:48):
procrastination being emotion avoidance.
Procrastination was always presentedas a kind of, well, you just need
to decide what you're doing andthen stick to it kind of thing.
Um, whereas, I was just getting intosuch a sort of an overwhelm of wanting
to do all the things and feelinglike I had to do all the things and
most of them were of my own volition.
This isn't me being a kind of agreeingto everybody else's stuff, this is

(26:11):
a me going I could do that and weshould do this too kind of thing.
Um, so it was all of my own creation.
And then procrastinating to avoidthose feelings of sort of overwhelm
and self judgment and whatnot.

Geri (26:27):
And were these to do with, sort of, actions to do with your
role as professor and educationstrand that you're working on, or?

Vikki (26:35):
I would, to paint the picture, I would be somebody who, you know,
fully believed that I should beable to be a senior leader at the
university doing all of that stuff.
well on time ahead of myself, consultingeverybody, doing all of those things.
And I should be a highlyeffective teacher.
And I should be doing pedagogicalresearch, which by the way, I'm

(26:57):
not trained in, in any level.
You know, I taught myself on a sabbatical,how to do qualitative research.
Um, I should be able to do all ofthat whilst also Paddleboarding every
week, going to my circus class everyweek, seeing my friends several times
a week, working on adventure races onholidays, competing in her adventure
races on the weekends, definitely goinghome to see my parents at least once

(27:21):
a month, dating regularly, um, art.
Oh, and writing the novelthat I has partway through.
And I truly believe that the reasonI couldn't fit that all in was
because I hadn't found the right.
time management strategy.
And part of me still does.

Geri (27:42):
I'm exhausted listening to that list.

Vikki (27:44):
But that was genuinely, I mean, if I showed you my photos from
2019 before the world shut down,yeah, that that was literally, I was
doing all of those things regularly.

Geri (27:56):
So, the shoulds though, you know, how do you reflect on the shoulds now?
Because obviously you can hear theshoulds yourself because, looking back.

Vikki (28:06):
Yeah, I think this is where I'm sometimes slightly different
from other people I speak to.
My shoulds were very self driven.
They were very, I believed,you know, I grew up as a
somewhat gifted kid and whatnot.
Um, and so everything came quite easily.

(28:28):
I was best in my classand did all of that stuff.
And so it was very much, you know,I have that slightly naive belief
that if I put my mind to it, Icould be a professional most things.
Not a singer, definitely not a singer.
But beyond that, you know.
I feel like I should beable to do those things.
And so for me it wasn't so much otherpeople, my expectations of myself have

(28:52):
always been inordinately higher thananybody else's expectations of me.
So, so yeah, in my case very muchinternal, I just should be able to
fit this in and life will be no fun ifit's not, if I don't fit them all in.
Whereas when I'm working with myclients, I often hear a lot more, you
know, my supervisor thinks I shouldbe able to do all of this, or my boss

(29:14):
does, or my parents do, or whoever.

Geri (29:18):
The blessing and the curse of actually being talented and being able
to do those things, or being gifted.

Vikki (29:26):
Well, one of the things I often talk with my clients about now, that was
a real kind of transformational momentfor me was thinking about a sort of
analogy between all the foods you like.
And a meal, right?
Because I believed that if I couldn'tdo all the things that I wanted to

(29:46):
do, that it would somehow be rubbish.
Except, when I was trying to do all thethings, and telling myself I should be
able to do all the things, I actuallyspent an awful lot of time stressed
and running around and feeling behindand chaotic and all of those things.
I had a lot of good times too,don't get me wrong, but there was
a lot of judgment going on too.

(30:08):
And what we often talk about in sessionsnow is how actually your life is a
bit more like a plate, it's a bit morelike a meal, and you can choose Things,
you know, I need this sort of stuffin my work life and I need that, you
know, extra carbohydrate or whatever.
I need this sort of stuff in my funlife, that's your protein, da da da.
And that actually what makes up a nicermeal is where you've selected a bunch

(30:33):
of things that kind of add up to a niceplate of food, rather than trying to
chuck in all your favorites at once.
And then you end up with you know,gravy over ice cream or whatever.

Geri (30:45):
Mm.
Yeah.
That's a lovely, it's a great analogy.
So, because one of the programsthat you offer that I want to talk
about is Be Your Own Best Boss.
And this is sort of like be your own.

Vikki (30:58):
It's like as your boss, you choose what you're putting on your plate,
essentially, whether that's your actualeating plate or whether it's the plate
of what you're taking on at any one time.
And when I'm talking about being yourown best boss, I'm not talking about like
my role as an entrepreneur, where I amnow, my own boss, I'm talking about all
of us having this role inside ourselveswhere we get to decide what things we

(31:24):
do and when we do them and what we'reprioritizing right now and how we're
organizing our week and all of thesethings and how often the way that internal
boss acts to us is way worse than wewould ever take from a normal boss, right?
You know, when I look back, my bossinternally back then was telling me.

(31:48):
Had to do all these things.
Don't worry, it will be fun.
If you can't fit them all in,it means you're a terrible
person, so just try harder.
Um,

Geri (31:57):
This is your, this is your boss in your head.

Vikki (31:59):
That's my internal boss.
Yes, not your real boss.
That's to myself.
I was giving myself veryvague instructions as to
what success looked like.
Um, I was jamming in way too many things.
Then judging myself for not being ableto follow my to do list, which frankly
made no sense in the first placebecause it had a thousand things on it.
You Um, and then would tell myself itmeant a whole load of things about me.

(32:21):
And often we focus on thelike implementer side of us.
How do I learn to follow my todo list, to follow my diary, to
do the things I intend to do?
And what we often don't do is sortof backtrack to, hang on a minute.
What about the bit of me that's makingthe decisions, the boss version of me?
Are they acting in my best interests?

(32:43):
Are they planning things in away that feels doable and fun?
Are they saying to me thethings I need to hear?
Because it's not justabout planning, right?
It's also, you know, When I ask peoplewhat things would you want your boss to
say to you, it's like I need to say thatthey believed in me and that they think
that with support I could do this newharder thing, but that we'll do it a bit

(33:07):
at a time, or that I don't have to doit all at once or these sorts of things.
Now I'm not saying any ofthose things to myself.
I do now, consciously.
But yeah, that's what I mean by this kindof being a better boss to yourself, is
choosing what's on your plate, choosingwhat you say to yourself, so that it's
then much easier to follow through.

Geri (33:30):
That takes a lot of self awareness, doesn't it?
That, your boss isn't alwaysgiving you the best advice.
And I, I mean, I'm wondering, You saidsomething that has not got your best
interest and I often sort of think thatit does have your best interest, it's just
not very wise in how it implements it, orlike the way it's going to happen and it
falls down a bit in that side of things.

Vikki (33:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
And often what it has is it sort of,I think of it when, when you're kind
of internal bosses a little bit.
I think what often happens is thatwhen it's thinking about you in the
future, it's either a bit hopeless.
I never really had that.
But I see some clients where it'slike, Oh, I probably will never

(34:14):
be able to blah, blah, blah, blah.
I never really have.
Mine was just a bit over ambitious.
It was a bit like, Oh, we coulddefinitely do this and this and this.
But then when it was managing me inthe moment, it was very, um, indulgent.
It was very sort of, Oh, youknow, you're probably quite tired.
You probably could leave thedishwasher till later or whatever.

(34:36):
Um, and yeah, you're right.
The notion of thinking about what Iwas saying to myself with a brain that
works at my ADHD speed just seemedcompletely, I didn't understand.
Yeah.
I've got a very good friend who'sa psychology professor in my
department and she used to talkto me about some of this stuff.

(34:57):
I was like, I don't understand.
You mean there's a stage beforewords coming out of your mouth
that involves thinking about them?
Is that real?
Are you lying to me?
I don't understand.
Um, But there was something, I think,about the group coaching, where I
was seeing other people's thoughts,that it was like, Oh, you, you're

(35:20):
just, you're, the way you're sortof bossing yourself, you're making
it really hard to follow through.
This is, this is not alwaysan implementation problem.
This is a, you're sayingreally mean things to yourself.
and making this a reallyhard schedule to follow.

(35:42):
And I just see that in so many academics.
People telling themselves they shouldbe able to write for eight hours a day,
and they should be able to produce adraft that doesn't sound terrible on the
first attempt, and all of these things.
And whilst also telling themselvesthey're not good enough.
So, like, this weird Perfectionism andimposter syndrome that coexist somehow.

(36:05):
Yes.
That I have to be better than everybodyelse and produce this in a way that
I wouldn't expect from anybody else.
And at the same time, I'm a piece ofshit who doesn't deserve to be here.

. Geri (36:15):
And I can't do it because I'm a piece of shit
who doesn't deserve to be here.
But I have to prove it even more.

Vikki (36:20):
Exactly.
Um.
And so

Geri (36:24):
Not logical for people who are working in the academic scientific space
is supposed to be able to think logically.

Vikki (36:30):
But we're all humans in that.
I think, I think sometimes, especially,you know, everyone I work with has
come through school as one of thelike brighter ones and all of that.
Mm hmm.
And they're used to being high achievers,and they somehow think that that means
they get out of having emotions andthey get out of not being perfect and
it's like, it doesn't work like that.
And so yeah, you're absolutely right.

(36:52):
It takes a lot of practice and support,to be honest, to be able to separate
out, um, sort of hearing what yousay to yourself and deciding to what
extent you want to reinforce that, orto what extent you want to go, yeah,
yeah, I know, I know you think that,but it's okay, we can do it anyway.

Geri (37:14):
Which is a boss who actually has the ability to stand back and go,
let me think about that for a minute.

Vikki (37:20):
Yeah, which hundred percent

Geri (37:22):
And make a choice about how to respond.
And I'm also hearing the way thatyou described your own drive as being
coming very much from you and selfdriven and you also pointed to other
people that you've worked with where thedrive is more because their supervisor
says so that should Has come fromexternal things and not measuring up.

(37:44):
And then there are the other peoplethat you talked about, who maybe have
more of a self confidence issue andjust don't feel like they're able to.
And in some ways, like thebehaviors can play out the same.
But where they're coming from is sodifferent and I imagine that how you

(38:04):
would approach dealing with them orworking with someone as they work
through that would be very different.
Do you want to say any more about that?

Vikki (38:13):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And I think this is a true As a coach,but it's also true as a supervisor.
So I do supervisor training as well.
And often supervisors are veryfocused on the behaviors, right?
And the outcomes.
They're very focused on, is mystudent turning up with the right
data or the right writing atthe times they said they would?

(38:35):
And if they're not, There's a problem.
And obviously people are getting muchbetter now at recognizing well being
problems and all that sort of stuff.
And so asking, are you okay?
But what we often don't get tois what is it that's making it
hard to reach these deadlines?
And often supervisorsrespond by being more strict.
They can respond by being morecontrolling and more like, well,

(38:57):
you know, show me as you go along.
Let's have more deadlines.
Let's have, you know, we'lldo it more supervised way.
Um.
When actually what's often happening isthat these students have got a lot of
thoughts going on about whether they're,whether they, you know, who are they
to make a decision as to whether toanalyze it this way or that way or, you

(39:18):
know, who are they to make an argumentor those sorts of things or they're
getting ahead of themselves into what'smy supervisor going to think about this.
And so often, as you say, lots ofdifferent reasons can come into play.
Culminate in that same behavior ofnot submitting something on time.

(39:38):
And if as coaches, but if as supervisors,we can't pick that apart or at least
recognize that there might be morethan one reason, then that kind of one
size fits all solution is, is just notgonna, it's just not going to get there.

Geri (39:57):
I think that's one of the most critical skills for
supervisors to learn, isn't it?
To stay open and curiousabout what's going on.
what's happening for this person.
Um, I was just in a mentor the mentorworkshop last week, and one of the
people there was talking more abouttheir supervisions, um, that they have.

(40:18):
And the story that they told, they hadtheir own sort of self awareness as we
were going along about, they were wantingthe other person to be a mini me.
And not, thinking about who were they,what was mini them and what did they
want and how could they support themand realize that a lot of the measures
that they'd implemented were whatthey would have wanted or what they

(40:40):
assumed was the issue because thatwould have been the issue for them.

Vikki (40:44):
Yeah, 100%.
So often I see supervisors saying,Well, if I'm taking a deadline
seriously, I always hit the deadline.
And so that means they must notbe taking this deadline seriously.
When in reality, often theproblem is that they're taking the
deadline way too seriously, holdingthemselves to a ridiculous standard.

(41:05):
And they're too scared to even startstart writing because they haven't read
enough and they don't know enough yet.
Yeah.
You know, I definitely can't writeanything until I've read all of this.
Um, so yeah, absolutely.
That kind of, just assuming thatpeople are like you and respond to
situations in the same way Can, yeah.
Can cause lots of problems.

Geri (41:24):
So if you are doing a supervisor workshop, how do you work with them to
develop different skills to do that?
What sort of core skills?

Vikki (41:33):
Well, the first thing is actually almost exactly the same
as I do with students, which isthat self understanding, because

Geri (41:39):
Yes, it's core to everything, isn't it?

Vikki (41:41):
Yeah, it completely is, because so often, you know, you can go to a
supervisor training where they say,what you need to do is you need to
stay in regular contact, providefeedback on time regularly to a high
quality, and adapt your behavior towhoever you've got in front of you.
And if as a supervisor, you're going,well, that's great, Very lovely, but I'm
teaching three modules this semester,I've got 10 PhD students, 30 undergraduate

(42:05):
project students, and I haven't seen mykids in a month, um, then they're not
going to show up like that, um, from aworkload perspective, but also from a,
if in their heads, they've got this,well, I need to get this student through
because otherwise I'm not going to getpromoted or I'll never get that grant if
we don't get this pilot data collected.

(42:25):
I want to be really nice to thisstudent, but I'm worried I shouldn't
have picked them in the firstplace, and da da da, all this stuff.
If we can't regulatethat for ourselves, Yes.
we start trying to control thebehaviour of others in order
to make ourselves feel better.
And so that's where a stressing supervisorwill often start being too controlling

(42:49):
over a student as a way of managing theirown anxiety about the student's progress.
And so that's where I start with it all.
We go into some quite cool stuff about howyou can use writing to build a supervisory
relationship and all these sorts ofthings, and some more specific kind of
task management tools that you can use.

(43:10):
But really the core of it isis understanding how your own
experience of supervision and yourown experience of being an academic
influences how you engage with allof your students and how your first
responsibility is regulating that bit.
And it's the same inany relationship, right?
This is true of parenting.

(43:30):
It's true of, you know,partner relationships,
friendships, all of this stuff.
If we rely on other people to regulateour whole emotions make us feel better,
or to get us to do particular actions.
Then everyone just starts beinga bit weird with each other.
We can take responsibility.
You know, my thoughts, feelings,actions, outcomes are mine.
Yours are yours.
But my job is to create an environmentin which you're most likely to flourish.

(43:55):
Um, if we can start from there,then everything gets a little
bit more straightforward.

Geri (44:03):
Did you develop those skills over time as a supervisor or have the insights
developed more deeply as you've moved intomore of this coaching role and working?

Vikki (44:12):
I'm definitely, yeah, I'm, I'd even go so, so far to say that
I'm mildly self conscious of exstudents listening to my podcast.
So I have a podcast, The PhD Life Coach,and I was, I was a good supervisor, I
think, in the sense that I was keen andhelpful and enthusiastic and engaged,

(44:38):
all of those things, definitely.
However, I was also definitely someonewho would lose track that something was
happening and then panic at the lastminute about whether it was or not.
So I would sort of not follow up withthem for a while then stress out
about whether it had been done ornot, things like that, definitely.

(44:58):
Um, depending, I, I supervise acrossa slightly silly range of disciplines,
just because I have a lot of interestsand an interdisciplinary approach.
And.
Yeah, there were definitely timeswhere, where I just didn't show
up as my best self, where therewere too many other things.

(45:20):
I don't, you know,nothing ever went wrong.
They all, you know,they were all wonderful.
They will still talk to me.
Um, but I definitely don't holdmyself up as being, you know,
I got it right the whole time.
Um, I sometimes wonder what it wouldbe like now to supervise PhD students
with it, how easy I would find it topractice what I preach, as it were.

(45:41):
Um,
but yeah, I think even just havingthat compassion on both sides
that not everyone shows up theway they intend to all the time.
Yeah.
It just.

Geri (45:54):
And we're all on a learning journey.

Vikki (45:56):
Yeah.

Geri (45:57):
We're all on a learning journey and that giving ourselves the
grace to be on a learning journey.
And we learn most from whenwe don't get it always right.
I don't, I can tell.
I think a lot of the stuff I do isdriven by the stories of what I did
that I now think, Oh my goodness, youknow, and I think one of the things

(46:17):
that I'm starting to believe more andmore and more is important as we have
an explicit discussion in any of thesesorts of relationships that we're going
to, you know, like the expectationthat we are going to get it wrong.
And what do we do?
How are we going to handle this together?
And your freedom to speak up andmy freedom to say, oops, sorry.

(46:39):
And how can we repair this?
And because I think inthe past, I may have also.
Tried to sort of, in the guilt thing of,I oughtn't to have done that, uh, almost
pretend it didn't happen or justifyit in different ways that are really
not, accountable when I look back.

Vikki (46:57):
Yeah, no, definitely.
And people, I think that'sone of the things that's
interesting with coaching, right?
Because I think people think thatif they do sufficient coaching and
they do all this kind of mindsetwork and stuff, that they just
won't make these mistakes in future.
Yeah.
And in my experience, that's not true.
We're laughing.
We, you know.
Maybe make them a bit less, but forme, the bit that becomes so powerful

(47:18):
is also how you respond after that.
So, for me, if you can do the kind ofgood self compassion piece, which is
something we work on a lot, then, um,after you've snapped at somebody or
given more critical feedback than youintended or whatever, not turned up for
something you were meant to or whatever,if you're not making that mean that you're

(47:41):
an awful person or you're not makingit mean that it's their fault because
they should have given it to you sooner,then it can be more of a like, Oh crap.
I was meant to do that.
Wasn't I?
The one for me was always, um, Ialways forgot things like my MOT
and my, for my car and my mum wouldalways remind me, she'd always say,

(48:03):
Oh, your MOT is due in about July.
Is that just a UK thing?
It's a car check.
It's a legal thing.
Your insurance is invalid without it.
So you have to go and have yourcar checked over once a year.
And I'd always forget when it was.
And my mum was like, I thinkyour MOT's due in July.
And I used to get so mad.
In my head, that meant thatshe thought I was useless.

(48:25):
She thought that I wasn't on top of it.
I'd be like, alright, it'sfine, I know, it's in my diary.
And then afterwards I'd be like,shit, it's not in my diary.
Wait, I don't know how to do it.
But I'd be so defensive with her.
Um, whereas, Once we can do this kind ofself compassion piece where it's like,
you know, I forget stuff sometimes.
I do.
It's how it goes.
Um, it's not that we don't tryand it's not that we don't put

(48:47):
systems in place to avoid it.
But if we can just, exactly,it doesn't mean a lot about us.
It just means we forgot that thing.
Then suddenly I can respondto my mum with that.
Oh, you're right.
Yeah, good shout.
I'll give them a call.
And similarly with students and whatever,it can be like, Um, I was meant to
give you feedback for today, wasn't it?
I'm so sorry.
I haven't done it.
Let me look at my diary.
We'll figure out a timenow that we can do it.

(49:07):
Whereas, if it's this big deal, weoften avoid it, or we get defensive,
or, you know, we just generallyexacerbate what was only a small thing.
And I think that that wassomething I was probably okay at.
I've never been a grudgebearing sort of a person.
So I think the kind of, certainly withtheir mistakes, I was pretty good at

(49:31):
kind of getting over that quite quickly.
Maybe not quite so goodwhen it was my mistakes.

Geri (49:37):
Because you're a harsher boss on yourself than on other people.
So it sounds like self compassion is oneof the key tools that a best boss brings.
What are some of the other aspectsof being your own best boss
that you think are really key?

Vikki (49:53):
So I actually, so I have a online course called
how to be your own best boss.
And It's kind of different sectionsin it, but the final section has 10
qualities that I think a good boss needs.
We always start with compassion becauseeverything else just doesn't work if we
can't start to develop that in ourselves.
Um, curiosity is, I won't do all10, but curiosity is a huge one.

(50:15):
That sort of, I wonder why.
I'm doing that.
Or I wonder why they might be doingthat and sort of being open and
non judgmental and just sort ofwondering what options there are.
Cause we often have quite fixedreasoning around why someone would
do something or what they should do.

Geri (50:34):
Even the emotions that you talked about before, you know,
being aware that curiosity aboutyour own emotions or reactions, I
wonder why, where's that coming from?

Vikki (50:45):
Why did that hurt so much?
Why did I get so defensivewhen he said that?
What was it that bothered me?
So in that meeting example where I, whereI exploded, the reason, you know, when I
looked at that with curiosity afterwards,it was because I thought that too.
I thought I should have consultedwith people too and I hadn't had time

(51:07):
and I hadn't been able to do thatand I hadn't prioritized doing that.
But that was why if he was askingme something that was stupid, I
don't think I'd have got so upset.
It was because I thought thattoo, that I got so upset.

Geri (51:18):
And so you're disappointed in yourself in a way.

Vikki (51:21):
But it was only through that kind of curiosity of, I get so upset about
that, that that became really important.

Geri (51:29):
Um.
Self compassion, curiosity.

Vikki (51:32):
Yeah.
I was just thinkingthrough which other ones.
So I think, so I have ambitious andrealistic, and I think those are
really interesting to hold together.
And that is, the ambitiousis around believing.
How much you can do and how manythings you've got ahead of you without

(51:56):
having to be this perfect being.
How far you can go with, without changingfundamental things about yourself.
Um, so it's sort of being ambitious andbelieving that you can get there, um,
but not in a kind of, What's the word?

(52:17):
Like a dream world kind of way.
If I can just find the perfectsystem, find the perfect whatever,
then I can just, I know, actually,I can get to these things I can do
more than I think I'm capable of.
Um, so that's the kind of ambitiousside, but then the realistic side
is around sort of recognizing thatyou are always going to be you.

(52:38):
You are always going to have.
Some of the qualities you have now,there are going to be things that
you're going to have to activelymanage for the rest of your life.
And often we need to be realisticmore in the kind of day to day
expectations of what can bedone in a short amount of time.
So it's sort of ambitious in the longerterm, realistic in the day to day, so

(52:59):
that you can you can kind of keep thingsmoving and keep kind of understanding,
you know, that whole kind of B minus workis good enough thing being realistic and
what quality something needs to be inorder to be meaningful and important.

Geri (53:16):
I was going to just say something very similar that is one of the key
skills in that realistic piece, isn't it?
Is, I don't know, being realistic aboutyou can't do the same high standard,
especially if you're someone who has highstandards and push yourself, that you
don't have to do it for everything andwhat is really important and worth it.

Vikki (53:39):
Yeah, 100%.
And it goes back to this notion of,you know, we're talking about the plate
and the meal at the beginning, um,is, You can have a high standard life.
You can have a high standard plate.
It doesn't mean that every singleelement of your life needs to
be done to a perfect standard.

(54:00):
You can have a high standard thesis,or research article, or whatever, which
has got a few clunky sentences in it.
It doesn't stop it being ahigh standard piece of work.
And I think sometimes we get fixatedon how every little bit has to be
high standard, rather than lookingat what makes a high standard whole.

(54:23):
And I see this a lot, I have a lot ofclients who are part time PhD students,
so they have other jobs alongsidetheir PhD, or I have clients who are
academics and also parents and thingslike this, and so they're sort of
juggling different roles in their life.
And a lot of the time they talk about thatthey're not performing highly in any one

(54:44):
zone of their life, you know, they're not,they're not a good enough academic because
they're a parent and they're putting timeand care into that, and they're not a
good enough parent because they're puttingtime and care into their academic life.
One of the things we try and think aboutis if we look at it as a life, rather
than as two other lives, like academia andparenting, for example, then we can say

(55:05):
what is a high standard academic parent.
What does the life of a highstandard academic parent look like?
And that can't be a hundred percent ofwhat a parent who doesn't got an academic
career and a hundred percent of whatan academic without kids looks like.
But what would it look liketo have a high standard?

(55:27):
academic parenting life.
And suddenly you start seeing thatactually how that is high standard is
by having some bits where it mattersand some bits where it doesn't.
Some bits where it's like, youknow what, if my kid is fed
tonight, that is good enough.
They will cope with a little bit oftelevision and something out the freezer

(55:47):
because they're entertained, they'realive, they're fed, happy days, that
is good enough, I need to do this.
Other times, It's, I'm not going tobe at that meeting because it's their
carol concert and I'm, I'm goingthat's, you know, and that's what you
then you're not judging yourself formaking, you know, entirely homemade
meal over here, judging yourself fornot going to that meeting as well.

(56:11):
It's like, on the whole, thisadds up to a high standard.

Geri (56:16):
I've almost got in my head a picture of, um, you've got
two bosses warring in your head.
You've got your academic boss andyour parent boss, and both of them
are trying to get your full attention.

Vikki (56:27):
And it needs to be just one boss.

Geri (56:29):
And you need to step into the middle and say, Yeah, you know, step aside.

Vikki (56:35):
Yeah, this isn't two separate things.
We have, we have one like, Idon't really like this notion
of like work life balance.
No.
We have, we have a life, and we arethe boss of that, and we get to decide.
And it's not always goingto look the same, right?
That's one of the things that asour own bosses we get to choose.
There's going to be times where it'slike, you know what, during this period

(56:57):
of time, This stuff's going to riseto the surface and I'm going to rely on
more family support or whoever we've got.
I know not everyone has that luck,that luxury, but you know, we're
going to rely on other support tohelp with family things, or I'm just
going to have lower expectationsof myself and they'll be fine.
And then other times, you know, work goesa little bit more on the back burner and
family stuff has to be higher priority.

(57:18):
We can change these things week toweek, day to day, or like phases.
It is.
Um, but it takes that little sort ofslight step back to be like, okay,
what could good look like here?
And how can I, how can I make upsomething here that sort of muddles
out on the whole be a good life?

(57:39):
Because chasing perfectand all of it feels crap

Geri (57:42):
And good is good is good, isn't it?
Sometimes people interpretgood as compromise or.
Not good enough, but it's good.
Yeah, it is good.

Vikki (57:54):
A hundred percent.
Because thing is, we're alsooften, we're choosing really silly
markers of what is excellent.
So like, I know people getthemselves, you know, they get very
caught up on, you know, I need to.
Homemade food, let's say that.
Whether it's for yourself, for yourpartner, for your kids, whoever.
Homemade food.
I need to be eating nutritiously andcooking most of it myself and da da da.

(58:15):
They'll get all caught up on that,um, and then struggle to balance
that with their academic life.
And if the attempt to do that ismaking you grumpy and obnoxious.
The overall picture is not better here.
It's like, we're attempting to eathomemade food and succeed at university
and the price of that is I'm snappingat everybody and judging myself.

(58:39):
I'd far rather you were only cookinghomemade food twice a week and eating
something out of a jar the rest ofthe time and being nice to yourself
and the people around you becausethat's going to add up to a much
nicer, healthier life than any kind ofperfectionist idea of like standards.
And the same is true with work, right?
I'd far rather that your lectureswere sorted and ready to go for the

(59:03):
term, than one of them was beautifuland carefully researched and put
together and the others don't exist.

Geri (59:14):
So there's, there's still the job of getting stuff done.
And, and the warring bosses in yourhead and trying to create the boss that
you want and getting it to stand up tothe others with compassion and curiosity
and care, and self awareness as well.
So, building on that, if we have those asfoundations and we're practicing some of

(59:37):
those things, how do we then practicallystill manage to get stuff done?

Vikki (59:43):
Yeah, it's such a good question because often I find that coaches
fall on one side of this or the other.
They're either all mindset and it'sjust, if you can get your thoughts
straight, then we'll be good.
Or they're very tips andtricks and technique focus.
Well, I try and balance the two andin the Be Your Own Best Boss course,
there's, there's elements of both.

(01:00:04):
One of the tools that I really, reallylike, and I've sort of developed
over the last couple of years iscalled role based time blocking.
So people will have heard time blockingbefore where you kind of plan what
blocks of time you're going to use,usually for specific tasks, right?
I'll write this in that blockand I'll do this in that block.
The idea behind role based timeblocking is that we all have a

(01:00:27):
variety of roles in our lives.
Now there might be some roles.
In your personal life, you're a parentor you're a partner or whatever,
but even within your academiclife, you have multiple roles.
You're a, you know, you leada particular module whatever.
You have an admin role.
You have a certain researchproject or whatever.
And even for PhD students, theearlier stage of this stuff,

(01:00:50):
they'll have a role of writer.
They'll have a role of data collectoror data analyzer or whatever.
And the idea behind this technique is thatwe get clear on what the different roles
are, and then, for like this period of ourlife, what proportional amount of time do
I want to spend in these different roles?

(01:01:11):
And so what we get to do is instead ofputting specific tasks on our calendars,
we get to put roles in our calendars.
So we get to say, between thistime and this time on a Monday,
I am module organiser me.
So I'm in teaching mode.
That's, that's where I do that stuff.
In this block, I'm indata collection mode.
In that block, I'm inwriting mode, for example.

(01:01:34):
And what this does is it separates out.
these different tasks so that youdon't feel quite so much like you're
having to be all things to all people.
In that block of time you aresolely a writer or in that block
of time you're solely a teacher.
And it also helps if one of the thingsthat people always criticize time blocking
for is not knowing how long things takeand not deciding how long things take.

(01:01:56):
Yes.
And what this get you get to do inthis is that it's a I haven't decided
exactly which of the tasks I'm goingto do, but it's going to be tasks
that are to do with the module I'mteaching this year, for example.
And so I then have a role basedtask management system as well, where
my tasks are divided out by roles.

(01:02:17):
So if I'm in a block where I'm thinkingabout being a Podcast host, for example.
Um, I have my to dos that are to dowith the production of my podcast.
And when my brain is going, as itinevitably does, Oh yeah, yeah,
but you, you need to contactthat client about whatever.
It's like, yeah, I'll do thatin my operations section.
That's on the list.

(01:02:39):
I'll do it when I'm on operations.
Right now I'm podcasthost and that's all I am.
Um, so we're just doing podcast jobs.
And having that sort of, it's like asort of in between time blocking where
we're not just having a complete freefor all do whatever, but we're not
plotting this exact task in this exactminute and then getting out of control.

(01:03:00):
Just hugely, hugely helps.
So to say you're kind of makes itreally clear, makes it much more
limited what things you've got to do.
In that block.
Um, and enables you to look atyour week and go, am I spending
this how I want to spend it?
Within the constraints I've got.
Yes.
Am I spending this proportionallywhere I want to be spending it?

Geri (01:03:23):
Yeah.
And where your energy is as well, like.

Vikki (01:03:26):
100 percent because, and that's really important because often people
say, yeah, but what if I come round tothe writing section and I don't feel like
writing, I'm just not there for writing.
Well, what we often do in thatis we go off and do some little
admin task and then wonder why wenever get any writing done, right?
Whereas with role based timeblocking, what the argument would

(01:03:49):
be is that you're in writer mode.
If you're not feeling like writing, okay.
Then we write slowly.
We write just a little bit.
We write with low expectations of quality.
We write something that's, youknow, at a very early stage,
so it's a really rough draft.
We still write.

(01:04:10):
We just change the way we show up forit, and we change the exact nature of it.
But we don't decide to go offand just do something different
because it feels easier.
Yeah.
And that can be a really good wayof keeping those important but
not urgent tasks ticking over andmaking it not feel like you've got

(01:04:33):
a thousand things to do because inthat block, you're just that job.

Geri (01:04:36):
I like the way you brought your, you illustrated again, bringing in your
own best boss, because it said to you,I know you've got this other work to do.
We'll get to it.
There's a space in the calendar.
You know, you can calm down.
Yeah, we've thought ofthat self reassurance.
It's now time to do this other thing.
I also like the way that it removes one ofthe reasons that one of the many reasons

(01:05:01):
that we can beat ourselves up about that.
You know, I, I'm terrible atestimating the time something
takes, which is what everyone says.
Everybody.
Yeah.
And the research backs that up thatwe are bad at estimating our task.
And I really like that it takesthe pressure off that as an excuse.
Like, yeah, you may not have,uh, You may have thought it would

(01:05:22):
take less time or more time, butthe point is you're in that role.
What you also indicated is that you,the value of doing that pre planning,
the scenario planning, the what ifplanning that some of the people talk
about of, if I have a writing blockin the calendar and I don't feel like

(01:05:45):
writing, then I will do slow writing.
Then I will Do something.
Like having pre thought what might be somealternative strategy so that you're still
standing in that role and you're beingrealistic again like you're realistic.
Yeah.

Vikki (01:06:04):
100 percent 100 percent and you know this.
The reason I do mindset with thesetools is you need both, right?
Because these tools only work if youcombine them with some self compassion,
some self understanding, someflexibility and all of these things.

(01:06:25):
Because otherwise what happens is, youknow, you listen, I have a podcast episode
about role based time blocking, you listento that, you try it, you don't stick to it
perfectly, you beat yourself up, declareit another failed system, and then don't
do anything for another couple of weeks.
Um, so the tools on their own don'twork, but if you have these sorts of
tools and then you combine it withbeing open to the fact that you're

(01:06:48):
gonna explore and be curious and seewhich time box do I stick to regularly?
Which roles do I find it easierto fall into more, more readily?
Which roles do I findmyself wanting to go to?
Which roles am I like crossthat I don't have more time for?
Um, you go into it kind of curiouslyand compassionately and understanding

(01:07:09):
that there's going to be times whereyou've got to kind of just sort of
reassure that little inner child thatdon't want to do the difficult thing
and just go, it's okay, but we aregoing to, because that's the role.
You kind of combine up thosesorts of cognitive emotional
tools in order to make it.
more effective.
And I always feel the need,I have to add this caveat.

(01:07:31):
I've been doing role based time blockingfor probably three years now, I would say.
I can think of maybe one week whereI have stuck to every block that
I said I was going to do with theexact role I said I was going to do.
Any sort of planning system is not about,no boss expect, no good boss expects

(01:07:52):
you to 100 percent stick to exactly whatyou do at all times with no flexibility.
There is an enormous amount of benefit toplanning, scheduling, trying to implement
the best you can and then reviewingafterwards that is hugely valuable.

(01:08:12):
Yes.
Even if you haven't stuck to it.
And I think that's one of the mostimportant things for people to recognize.

Geri (01:08:21):
Yeah.
Because it is that ongoing learning.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
And
you said about recognizing whatblocks come easier to you or
that you look more forward to.
And that connects back to what yousaid at the very beginning when you
started to realize that this isn'twhat you wanted to do in the research
because the energy wasn't there.

(01:08:42):
And then what a great.
tool for self awareness, because if youknow that there are some roles that you
particularly like, how can you shape yourtime at work to do more of that, or to
reserve your high energy, high qualitytime for that work that you love doing?

Vikki (01:09:00):
100%.
So that you're building on yourstrengths and trying to create a
career and a life that uses thosestrengths for As much as time possible.
I think that's, that'sall any of us can ask.

Geri (01:09:13):
Which is, I think the, the theme that's come through the whole thing is
you, you have to be you and it takeswork to understand who you are and not
who someone else is or not who yourunrealistic boss expects you to be.
But yeah, how do you do you?

(01:09:34):
And that means that you're a greatboss to be cultivated to do that.

Vikki (01:09:39):
Absolutely.
Yeah.

Geri (01:09:41):
So I will, I will link to that, uh, role blocking podcast
episode, because I think that willbe really interesting for people.
Perfect.
So any, anything to say in wrappingup and also, where can people find
out more about what you offer now?
Because we can hear the energyand the passion for what you do.

Vikki (01:10:03):
Yeah.
Perfect.
Absolutely.
The first place to start wouldbe the PhD Life Coach podcast.
Um, I've got ones, I've got episodes aboutrole based time blocking, about how to be
your own best boss, all sorts of things.
So definitely start there.
I have a free newsletter, which givessome summaries of the podcast and gives
you some reflective activities to doso that you actually start to implement

(01:10:24):
some of the things that I talk about.
And if from there, people want moresupport, I do one to one coaching
for PhD students and academics.
And I have a membership programfor PhD students where they
get access to the sort of groupcoaching that I talked about today.

Geri (01:10:38):
Sounds wonderful.
Thank you so much for your time, for yourgenerosity and sharing all this with us.

Vikki (01:10:45):
No problem.
Thank you for having me.

Geri (01:10:47):
Thank you.
Well, it wasn't that amazing.
So I'm curious.
What do you take away from this?
There's so much there aboutnavigating career transitions.
About knowing yourself better.

(01:11:08):
About offering some different mindset andpractical toolkit approaches for managing
our life and being our own best boss.
I point you again to Vikki's website,which is www.thePhDlifecoach.com.
And reminder that you can signup there to her Membership.

(01:11:31):
And the wait list for that is openingup at the end of January, 2025.
You can find the summary notes,a transcript, and related
links for this podcast on www.
changingacademiclife.
com.
You can also subscribe toChanging Academic Life on iTunes,

(01:11:53):
Spotify, and Google Podcasts.
And I'm really hoping that we canwiden the conversation about how
we can do academia differently.
And you can contribute to this by ratingthe podcast and also giving feedback.
And if something connected with you,please consider sharing this podcast
with your colleagues together.
We can make change happen.