PhD Submitted

My thesis has been submitted and is now under examination. Yay!
There is still work to be done and lots of opportunities coming up to apply my research in consultancy roles and pro bono work with my state, national and international affiliations with Home Economics Victoria, HEIA and the International Federation for Home Economics.

Getting things done or 'Combining work, family and post-graduate work ' - here we're talking about work life balance!

TOPIC: THE THESIS WHISPERER


I came across this brilliant gem The Thesis Whisperer created and maintained by RMIT lecturer Dr Inger Mewburn.
Topics such as 'How to Win The Three Minute Thesis", 'Write that journal article in 7 days' and more


Here's more...

The Thesis Whisperer is a  ‘newspaper’ dedicated to the topic of doing a thesis. 

Newspapers need more than one journalist so we are looking for collaborators! Would you like to write for the Whisperer? Here’s what we want to do:
We want to be concise. PhD students have to do a lot of reading so no posts will be longer than 1000 words
We want to learn from people’s stories about doing a research degree – but we don’t need to hear about your topic. There’s enough journals out there for that.
We are not a ‘how to’ guide to doing a thesis, but we are happy to dish out practical tips and techniques that work for us.
We don’t want to just talk about writing – successfully finishing a thesis or disseration is about more than that. But we don’t want to be sued, so we are going to always keep it nice.
We want to stimulate conversations so our posts will always be opinionated, hopefully without being obnoxious.
We want to hear your voice. Doing a thesis can take the fun out of anyone’s writing. This is a place you can relax because there is no examiner watching.


TOPIC 2: THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE


One of my latest favourite top tips from The Thesis Whisperer is finding out about the time managment app 'Pomodoro' - available for  for free at your local App Store.
It sets a 25 minute countdown for you to focus on one task for this time. It's achievable and purposeful - set your self a doable task. It might be something as simple as updating your database alerts, refining a paragraph or two of your latest journal article edit or re-formatting a table ...I have achieved all these tasks with the help of my trusty timekeeping tomato!


Read more about the Pomodoro Technique - time management technique

TOPIC 3: NINE THINGS SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DO DIFFERENTLY
And on the topic of success I came across Heidi Grant Halvorson's blog - she outlines the Nine Things Successful People Do Differently. (Click on this link to find out more...)


TOPIC 4: MINDFULNESS
Keeping on track and in the highly focused zone, mindfulness can assist us with keeping focused.
We have been fortunate here at school to have the opportunity to partake in an 8 week Mindfulness training program under Monash University's Dr Craig Hassad.


What is Mindfulness? ..find out more from

Jon Kabat-Zinn (né Kabat) (born June 5, 1944) who is Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Short intro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoLQ3qkh0w0

And a longer presentation (1 hour) to Google employees

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc

Mindful Eating
..and Kirsty Costa from Vegematarian writes in her latest posting about Mindful Eating.
Invest the time to enjoy your food- eat mindfully and invest the same time it takes to produce your meal to enjoy eating it...preferably with family and friends!
Kirsty includes this link to the Centre of Mindful Eating ...visit her blog to read more.

TOPIC 5: USING TECHNOLOGY IN YOUR PHD
In the latest posting in The Thesis Whisperer, Dr Inger Mewburn included some useful information from PhD researcher Ted Vickey,  at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at the National University of Ireland at Galway (NUIG) whose research involves physical activity and how mobile technologies can increase exercise adherence.
In this posting, Ted Vickey outlines how he uses his IPAD to screen read and peruse journal articles (via Good Reader) as leisurely bedtime reading!
He also discusses some uses of Dropbox , an app that saves your documents and then automatically sychronises them with your pc.
I have used Dropbox successfully and would recommend it as a good way of saving documents on the run or as a backup, as you would a USB stick.
Ted Vickey also uses Iannotate 'that turns your iPad into a world-class productivity tool for reading, annotating, organizing, and sending PDF files. Join the 100,000s of users who turn to iAnnotate for their PDF annotating needs'.
I haven't used this app but you are welcome to have a sandpit play yourself and let me know what you think.
I am still having a sandpit play with Evernote a file manager and a mind map tool, image keeper all-in-one... 
Kudos: For more information visit the latest posting on The Thesis Whisperer

TOPIC 6: ECO-STATIONERY (GO GREEN)
For those of you are environmentally conscious (aren't we all?), you can even go green with your stationery items - visit Go Green Solutions. Thank you to Kirsty from Vegematarian who recommends the eco-stapler ($6-50) and the text pencil highlighter ($3-95)  (that never dries out)!