# 10 Tips for PhD Time Management and Choosing a PhD Supervisor

> How hard can it be to finish a PhD in 3 years and 1 month? Well, there is no one-size-fits-all solution that suits every single person.

- Address: https://scrintal.com/blog/10-tips-for-phd-time-management-and-choosing-a-phd-supervisor
- Blog post by Arda Ertem, published by Scrintal
- Published: 2021-10-12
- Topics: Academia, Research, Research Methods, PhD, PhD Student

> **An Interview with Dr. Sana Malik, PhD in Housing Studies**

***How hard can it be to finish a PhD in 3 years and 1 month?*** Well, there is no one-size-fits-all solution that suits every single person. However, you can become a more productive PhD student and finish your PhD faster by getting advice from others in the field

![Dr. Sana Malik, PhD in Housing Studies](https://scrintal.com/__l5e/assets-v1/b73fb1e2-0c92-47df-82ec-78b9b566c1cb/10-tips-for-phd-time-management-and-choosing-a-phd-supervisor-1.webp)

*Dr. Sana Malik, PhD in Housing Studies*

In this interview, we spoke with a special person — **Dr. Sana Malik**. Coming from Pakistan she is currently an Assistant Professor in Architecture & Planning at the University of Management & Technology in Lahore, and Director at Housing Research Centre — UMT. She decided to pursue a PhD after quitting her full time job to focus on her studies while raising her new-born child.

We sat down and had a discussion with her about PhD life and her frustrations and challenges. Of particular interest was her path to choosing a PhD Supervisor, and her method for PhD time management.

Here is the full interview with 10 tips to optimize your PhD time management and choose the right supervisor for your PhD studies.

![](https://scrintal.com/__l5e/assets-v1/db388589-e07e-40e8-b570-2cce3f5e22bd/10-tips-for-phd-time-management-and-choosing-a-phd-supervisor-2.webp)

## PhD Time Management
> **You finished your PhD in almost three years while teaching and being acting director, so my question is, how did you manage and organize your time? Especially for something that requires a consistent disciplined action over a long period of time?**

**Dr. Sana Malik:** Oh, yes. As I mentioned, I was not working during this whole time. But being a PhD student is not only about being a student, you know you’re expected to work as a researcher by your supervisors as well and you also want to do something during this time period. This is not a short period of time, it spans the work of years, like for three years. So in a period of three years, it is very difficult to keep yourself motivated.

> ***I believe that in my case, one of the motivations is my daughter, because I believe that family really motivates you to complete things on time.***

![](https://scrintal.com/__l5e/assets-v1/012df8c7-9e08-42ff-bd7f-99f448d9108c/10-tips-for-phd-time-management-and-choosing-a-phd-supervisor-3.webp)

The other thing is that it was in my nature that I was committed to this. If you keep on doing the things on time, you can manage it \[a PhD\]. But if you’re just waiting for the last year or the third semester or the fourth semester to formally start \[your PhD\], no! Because even if you write something wrong in your thesis, you know that is going to give you a different direction later on.

In the first semester after 6 months, I just presented my proposal. I knew that it was going to be rejected. I knew this, but I just wanted to present it so I know what my loopholes and where I have to work harder. So they are giving me that role even though I didn’t pass and get the approval, I got rejected but still that rejection worked me as a stepping stone towards moving and getting the approval of my research proposal after one year.

> ***So I managed according to that because I believe that year one is your exploration year, you keep exploring your research objective and your research question, and the direction of your literature review changes. So it is like exploring yourself.***

![](https://scrintal.com/__l5e/assets-v1/6fa51a49-807d-44e8-942d-313e5028925c/10-tips-for-phd-time-management-and-choosing-a-phd-supervisor-4.webp)

Then in the second year you know what you want to do. It should be like this. If you want to complete in time, then you must. You get all the things you know settled in one year’s time. You should be done with your research proposal approval, and know where you are going to conduct your study, what are your methods, and who will be the respondents. So because the year two, you know. Ah, it’s like, you know, conducting the whole thing that you have in your mind and it is not an easy task because you have been doing the field research, you are doing the pipe work studies and then especially if you have a qualitative research, then you have long interviews and you’ll have to analyze them.

## PhD Time Blocking
> **Did you, for example, have any established focus hours like time boxing where you said “okay, this time I will not check anything.” How did you manage that?**

**Dr. Sana Malik:** Again it depends from person to person, people can have different timings. So in my case, I knew that I had my daughter, and I had to go and then keep her with my mom. So I always managed by starting at 9 or 10 in the morning and then ending at 2 in the afternoon, and I have to work during this time.

> ***Because of that \[time\] pressure, a good pressure is always, you know, positive. You have sometimes it must be there because that pressure pushes you to work with what is expected from you.***

When I started my PhD, I made a word document and I mentioned years; year one, year two, and year three, and then months.

![](https://scrintal.com/__l5e/assets-v1/4fa1e7ab-429f-465d-8e18-3cdb7777437f/10-tips-for-phd-time-management-and-choosing-a-phd-supervisor-5.webp)

And then I was keeping goals, in this month, in this year and in this month, I will be doing this. Maybe in this year or in this month, I’m going to this conference. In this year, I will be writing up and publishing a paper. This time check, going through spending that time and when coming back to that document, reflecting on yourself, you know? And if you have achieved that, because it really makes you feel productive.

## In Summary, PhD Time Management involves:
- Finding what motivates you to do your PhD from your personal life, and focus on that
- Staying committed to your work and complete tasks on time
- Taking strides to formally start your PhD research early, and make exploration and failure part of the learning process
- Giving yourself a time pressure to keep you committed to doing your work effectively and on time
- Using time blocking and a timeline to manage what you should be delivering along the way of your PhD Journey

## Choosing the right PhD Supervisor
> ***In regards to supervisors, people have been either complaining or have been very happy. It’s like there is no middle; it’s always this way or that way.***

> **So would you have any suggestions as to what a PhD student in the beginning of their journey can maybe look for? How can you make sure there is a good fit between the supervisor, who they can work with for the next 3–4 years?**

**Dr. Sana Malik:** In my case, he was my teacher for masters. I knew because in my master’s, I was not married, I was not a mother, so I explained everything to him before starting my PhD that these will be my restrictions, that I will not be living for the whole time in Malaysia, and that I’ll be visiting Malaysia twice a year. Otherwise, we will be keeping in touch in email, because in my university, it is totally research-based.

![](https://scrintal.com/__l5e/assets-v1/64126e0f-1459-44a8-add2-e36d20e86c04/10-tips-for-phd-time-management-and-choosing-a-phd-supervisor-6.webp)

So I have this opportunity and I planned accordingly. I guess most of the students don’t plan and they keep the academic and personal life very separate. However, they are interconnected, even our professional and personal lives are very interconnected.So we shouldn’t hesitate or feel shy to talk about it.

> ***I mentioned everything to my supervisor that this will be my condition and I knew that if I am going to do a PhD in this mode, I will be needing a very supportive supervisor because I will not be there physically and he understood everything.***

There are little things that you need a sign, you need a signature, you need some recommendations for something, and you must go for a young supervisor as well, because they are more active. They are more active in sharing ideas with you. You’ll ask them something and they’ll reply to you instantly rather than making you wait for months, days, and weeks.

I applied to two universities in Malaysia. One university was the number one university, the University of Malaya, and this one \[I attended\] was 3rd or 4th. If I wanted to go for the number one university, I would not have supportive supervisors.

> S***tudents what they do; is they go and see the researcher profile, Google Scholar profile of the professor, and they get impressed by the citations. But this is not always the best, because those citations are not going to give you a smooth journey of research.***

> **In my case, I knew him before, but th**e ***other students what they can do, they can take the reviews from the people who have done PhDs and were supervised by the person they’re looking at as a future supervisor. That feedback can help them to select your supervisor.***

So I guess in the start, communication you are also going to have an idea is this person accommodative or supportive or not. Or does he just, you know, snap out of things when I share my personal things, like when I share some things that I’m not good at. Because supervisors expect you to be good all the time. So I guess look at the human part as compared to the citation and age index and Google Scholar, I would advise this. This is really important.

## In Summary, when choosing a PhD Supervisor:
- Don’t get too impressed by the popularity of a potential supervisor — e.g. the number of citations, publications, or the scale of their research
- Get feedback from earlier students
- Value the human part — can you connect with that person on a personal level?
- Find compatibility between you and the supervisor — The relationship between a PhD student and supervisor plays a key role in the process of research. The most important thing to consider when choosing your PhD supervisor is the compatibility between the two of you
- Seek out a helpful supervisor — At the end of the day, this is a relationship that should last for some years more than anything. Besides, a supervisor should be the person helping you navigate the PhD life

Specific to choosing the right PhD Supervisor, you can see this portion of the interview [**here**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Ror0ACoyQ):

[Watch the video on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Ror0ACoyQ)

Be sure to check out the full interview for more PhD tips and advice, broken down by sections here in the following [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHh-bXDqI9Y&t=1405s):

[Watch the video on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHh-bXDqI9Y&t=1405s)

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