4.07 Why you need an instruction manual

When you buy something like a car or a piece of technology, you get a manual - it explains what you need to do routinely to keep the product running well and helps you troubleshoot common issues. Today we consider what would go in YOUR instruction manual - what does it take to keep you as a human being running smoothly during your academic experience and how should we deal with common challenges that come up. I help you identify what should go into your “manual” and how this can help us thrive in our studies and careers. 

If you found this episode useful, you might like this episode on what to do if you’re behaving like a toddler! 

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I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. Please make sure you subscribe, and I would love it if you could find time to rate, review and tell your friends! You can send them this universal link that will work whatever the podcast app they use. http://pod.link/1650551306?i=1000695434464

I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the PhD Life Coach Podcast. Now I have a confession to make if you've read the title of this episode. I have a complicated relationship with instruction manuals. You see, half the time, especially if I'm left to my own devices, is like instruction manuals don't exist, right?

I'm going to get that bit of kit, whatever it is. We just got a new air fryer 'cause we somehow broke the other one. I'm gonna plug it in. I'm gonna press some buttons. I'm gonna assume that I'm clever enough to figure this stuff out in my little non imposter syndrome anyway, and I'm gonna make it up as I go along and that means there's gonna be a whole load of buttons that I'm never going to use. Hello? Washing machine setting 10. Only one I ever use. That's fine. All good. That's half the time.

The other half the time, and this is where somebody else is involved. So my husband has similar opinions about instruction manuals. Just they don't exist, just crack on. However, when he says that, I suddenly [00:01:00] become the instruction Manual dictator. No, no. We have to read the quick start guide, darling. We have to do this properly. I dunno what it is about somebody else behaving the exact same way that I behave, that makes me suddenly want to be little miss organised knickers. But it does. So I have a complicated relationship with instruction manuals.

However, when it comes to looking after ourselves and trying to figure out how we are doing this whole life thing. I actually think they're a really, really useful analogy. So today I am gonna be telling you why you need your own instruction manual and like broadly what I think should be in it.

If you want more help building one, this is something that we are gonna be doing in quarter four of the PhD Life Coach membership, which if you're listening to this, live opens for new members next week. So check it out if you want more support on this.

 I also have to [00:02:00] confess that, when I'm recording this, it is the morning after I just watched the first episode of Celebrity Traitors uk. And for those of you who've been around here for a while, you all know I am a big big fan of the traitors. I have been rewatching lots of series in preparation to get myself in the mood ready for celebrity traitors.

It has got an amazing cast, so I'm a little bit over excited this morning, so I don't think we're actually gonna refer to the traitors in it at any stage, but I just wanted to warn you that I'm feeling kind of upbeat. It may get mentioned in future episodes. If you haven't seen it, I did do an episode a while ago where it's nine things or 10 things or however many things you could learn from the traitors. So if you're a fan too, make sure you check that out and make sure you're following me on Instagram 'cause I will be wittering pointlessly about traitors in a way that does not relate in any way to PhDs, but will be fun and distracting. So make sure you're following me there if you're not ready.

[00:03:00] So right. Focus instruction manuals. That is what we're doing today. Instruction manuals. Why do I think you need an instruction manual? Well, I think we often live our lives the same way that I approach machinery left of my own devices, which is we just kind of start using it. Okay? We're born into these bodies. We grow up, we, you know, we're socialized, we're trained with all those things, and we just sort of go with it, and we don't necessarily often really stop and think what works really well for us, what doesn't? People who listen to podcasts like this and people who engage in memberships like mine and things like that, we often get a little bit more reflective, right? We start thinking, oh, it helps when I do this. It's not so useful when I do that. We sometimes come up with lots of shoulds about what we should be doing, but we don't often take a minute to just stop and kind of condense that into something that is actually useful, right?

Because we've all [00:04:00] had these instruction manuals where they're like massive. They've got 47 different languages, which is wonderful, inclusive. Love that, but huge, huge documents, loads and loads of detail loads and loads of stuff that you don't need. We just don't need them, right? What we need is something that actually helps us get started, helps us figure out what we need to do to it regularly and helps us if something goes wrong. Those, to me, are the main things, right? Oh, and where to get further support. So let's say four things. How to get started, how it kind of, how we should help it run day to day troubleshooting and where to get further support. And I actually think those are the four things that we need in instruction manual for ourselves.

How to get started of a day or when you start your new project or whatever. What I need to run effectively week to week. You know, 'cause we've all got, are you one of those people I'm gonna. Are you one of these people who's like, never taken the fluff out of your tumble dryer, [00:05:00] or I shouldn't tell you, but a certain, a certain sister of mine never realized you had to empty your hoover. I dunno where she thought it was going. I hope she doesn't listen to this. Led to quite a messy mess in the end. So, lesson learned, you need to empty a Hoover. We need to know those things about ourselves. What do we need for our own basic maintenance? And then troubleshooting can be super useful. 'cause if something goes wrong, it doesn't have to be a massive disaster. As long as we know, do I need to turn it off, turn it back on again. Do I need to change something? Are there one or two things I could check to see what's going on? If we know what to do to troubleshoot in these situations, then it doesn't have to be a massive drama, we just follow those steps, and if we know where to go for further support, not only is that useful if we need it, but it's also just kind of reassuring to know it's there, right? That if all else fails, we've got something to fall back on.

So what I wanna do in today's episode is think through what each of those [00:06:00] sections might look like for a human being, a researcher, someone like us, if we were to write an instruction manual for ourself, now who is this manual for?

Before we get into the details, I want us to really consider who this manual is for , because you might be thinking, Ooh, I can give this to my supervisor. I can give this to my partner, I can give this to my friend, or whatever, and I'm gonna say maybe, maybe. Okay. We don't know necessarily how they'll respond to that. Some of you might know that they'd love it. There are specific circumstances, which I'll tell you about in a second, where I really think we should be sharing these things , but the main person that this instruction manual is for is you. If one person needs to know how to operate this human being, that is you, it's you, that sort of self understanding, that kind of clarity of thought will really help you navigate all the things that are happening in your life at the moment. So this, this manual is primarily for you.[00:07:00] 

The one time that I would highly recommend sharing it. Is if you are in a position where sometimes you can't advocate for yourself effectively. So if you have, um, let me think. If you have seizures, if you have periods of mania or depressive episodes, things like that. Firstly, you must be getting medical support for this. Do not take anything I say as alternatives for that. But if you ever, you are in a position where you have things where you're like, you know what, there are times when I can't implement this for myself.

Then it's useful for the people around you to have these things. If you are in that sort of situation, I want you to go back and check out an episode I did called How to Look After Yourself When conducting emotionally distressing work. I had Dr. Tina Skinner and Dr. Sarah Warbiss on to talk about this. They're experts in the area, and one of the things they talked about was psychological safety plans.

So this is for people who either have psychological conditions or it does translate to physical conditions. [00:08:00] Or who are doing work that is very distressing and having a plan in place as to how to look after yourself is really, really useful. This idea of an instruction manual for yourself is sort of an extension of that, where it's not just if you are in something that is sort of an objectively, always emotionally distressing situation. It's accepting that life generally can be challenging and distressing sometimes, and it's taking it further so that it's not just about psychological safety, it's about thriving and enjoying your life too.

The other thing I wanna say before we get into the details is I don't want you to take this too, too seriously. I want you to put fun stuff in this as well. So yes, we can think about what to do if you are feeling stressed. So troubleshooting when you're overwhelmed, for example. And we can think in terms of sensible things. We can think in terms of kind things, but let's also think in terms of fun stuff, right? Let's also think about silly [00:09:00] things that help you. So for me if feeling overwhelmed to the point that you can't work, stick her in front of an episode of the traitors. She will definitely feel better if you just stick her in front. That is essentially my, you know, restart the computer button. Put me in front of an episode of Traitors. I will come back with opinions about how they should change the rules, what they should have done instead of what they actually did do. Lots of very smug interpretations that absolutely ignore the fact that I would be terrible in the castle in real life. As a viewer, I'm amazing, so keep it lighthearted.

So let's think through what these sections could be. And for me, the first one is that quick start that I mentioned because often when I talk to my clients and my members, one of the biggest things that people struggle with is getting started on something. Whether that is getting started in the morning or whether it's getting started on a new project or getting started on [00:10:00] anything.

You know, going to a new art class. I just started a new art class. Did I tell you I like hobbies? So think getting started on anything new can be challenging for a lot of people. And so one of the things that's useful is thinking through what helps you to get started. If you wanna take this human being from not doing the project, to doing the project, what do you specifically need?

What is effective for you? So as an example, I would have in there something like the purpose and likely efficacy needs to be clear. So I am very bad as my parents and former employers would tell you at doing something just because I've been told to.

Just because of how it's how we do it. It's what needs doing. Yeah. I'm not so good at that. I need to understand why I'm doing it and why it's useful. Others of you, the quick start guide [00:11:00] might be really clear, step-by-step instructions. For example, I need that too. If, especially if there's a lot of steps in something, I need to know where to start.

I don't need necessarily lots of detail, but I do need to know where to start. I need, I'm ashamed to say the old diet cake is a very good way to kickstart me. So thinking through, what things do you need to get started? You can think about your physical environment. I don't need a tidy house to get started, which is good. 'Cause otherwise I would rarely get started. I do need a somewhat clear desk. If my desk is chaos, then I really struggle. If in doubt, gimme a piece of paper and a pen rather than a computer. Happy days. Let's stick that in as a quick start guide if you just want to get going on a project. Encourage me to write about it, encourage me to talk about it. So those might be things that would go into my quick start guide. I want [00:12:00] you to think about what would go in yours.

Now, I do have a cautionary tale for you. Those of you who spend too much time on self-help Instagram, and if you're here I suspect you might. If you spend too much time on self-help Instagram, what you might be telling yourself is my Quick Start guide is I need to get up at 5:00 AM and do three morning pages before meditating for five minutes, drinking my lemon infused water, walking for 10,000 steps, and doing my stretches and strength-based workout before the day starts today. If you are already doing all these things, happy days, I suspect you don't need my help. I love you. I'm glad you're here, but. For most of you, you don't need any of that stuff. You need one or two bits of it, maybe, possibly, perhaps sometimes, but that kind of notion of a perfect start is holding you back from starting. So emphasis on the quick bit of quick start. What do you need? Another example for me? Quick [00:13:00] start. You want me to get going? Stick me in a shower. Okay. If I get up and get in a shower. Get actually proper up rather than deciding that I can work in whatever I've just thrown on without showering, you are gonna get much better outta me. Okay? So I want you to think about those things. The kind of bare minimum, this is what would lead to a day or a project starting reasonably well.

That's our quick start guide.

Then second section is general maintenance. What do you need on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual basis to stay functioning broadly? This is not, again, this is not about, if you're on a big fitness improvement or a big self-improvement of whatever, you know, this is not where you're gonna put, I'm trying to read however many books a year or whatever this is what do you need basic maintenance. Okay, so here you might reiterate stuff [00:14:00] about, you know, how often you need showers, things like that. What sort of food keeps you broadly functioning, what sort of social things. Now, for some of you, that will be not too much. Some of you, the maintenance will be no more than one social night a week. Others, it'll be the other way round. Make sure you spend at least two nights a week doing something fun with friends. I'm at that end of things, right? I start to get miserable if I'm not doing things that are hobbies or social. So I need to make sure that even when I'm busy, that stuff gets prioritized in.

What else helps? For me, daily knowing what my tasks for that day are, and preferably having that set at least the day before helps massively. A to-do list that actually has everything on it. [00:15:00] Now if you want more information about my to-do list system, I have a whole podcast episode about how to use role-based task management, and that's still the system that I'm using miraculously three years later.

I haven't changed it for some new version, which I always used to do. Knowing that all the things I need to do in my business are in the same place, and, uh, kind of categorized and stuff helps me function on a day to day, week to week, month to month basis. I know that when I get overwhelmed, there's a tendency not to put everything in there just to think, oh, I just need to get on with things, and that's when it all goes a little bit wrong. So, in my manual, I would have stuff about my tasks needing to be in there.

Part of your regular care also includes things like sleep. So on a regular basis, by roughly when should we be putting this human being to bed? I stayed up late last night to watch Celebrity Traitors 'cause I'd been at my art class and so I couldn't watch it live and I had to watch it before I got back in case I saw spoilers online. Did I mention that I love [00:16:00] the traitors? Uh, so I stayed up later. Last night. I wasn't in bed till like 11, which for me quite late. I am a, tuck me up by nine 30, lights out by 10 kind of a girl. I am also a girl that sometimes feels like she wants to go to bed at eight when she's exhausted.

And part of my regular care instruction manual is do not let her go to sleep before nine. 'cause if she falls asleep at half past eight, she'll wake back up at half past 11 and be fairly confused and unable to get back to sleep. So think through what else would be in your kind of regular care stuff.

Personalize this. I cannot emphasize enough. Personalize this. If yours says, eat enough protein, get eight hours of sleep a night and walk 10,000 steps and do three sessions a week of strength training. These are all very worthy things and great. Brilliant. Let's try and do those. I am actually trying to do most of these things, but I want you to really personalize this to you.

Is it really eight hours? Does it matter whether it's late [00:17:00] or early, or what? When do you need to be in bed? When do you need to get up? How do we look after this amazing machine that is you?

Section three is troubleshooting. Okay? And troubleshooting is where we get to identify stuff that's likely to come up. Common things that affect you as an individual. And again, these need to be really specific to you. And I want you to think either about a challenging situation that often comes up. So for me, let's say feeling overwhelmed. Okay? Feeling overwhelmed or having too many tasks, and I'm saying too many tasks in like inverted commas, because how it needs too many, who knows?

But if it feels to me like it's too many, that's a common challenge that I need a response to. The second thing you can have in your troubleshooting guide is warning signs. Okay? Warning signs for me [00:18:00] starts canceling social things. If I start going, I just haven't got the head space to see my friends, we have a problem. That is a bad sign, that needs some support, that needs some help. Second one for me, if I start eating toast for multiple meals, we also need to intervene. That never goes good places. Okay? So if I'm deciding, you know, what, toasts good enough for lunch, toast, good enough for dinner, and I'm doing this in any sort of sustained way, then that, I'm gonna put that as a warning sign in my troubleshooting guide.

Okay? So first job is we get to identify and let's not overwhelm ourselves. Come out with 5, 6, 7 things that commonly happen to you, okay? And then we start asking ourselves in a loving, supporting, compassionate, curious way. And if you dunno how to do that, you need to join my membership. 'cause this is what we're gonna be working on.

What do we do in those [00:19:00] situations? Because for most of us, our solution to those things is I just need to get on with it. I just need to plan an evening out even though I don't need to, I just need to cook a decent meal. Whatever it is, I don't want it to start with the word, just because the fact you're finding this challenging means that there isn't a, just do this solution.

'cause just implies it's easy and we ain't gonna do that to you. You are finding this hard right now. However, what we're gonna do is try and make it feel as easy as possible by having something that's supportive but also helpful. Okay, let's take an example. When I am overwhelmed and I think I've got too many things to do, I need to remind myself that it's okay.

I need to remind myself that I've felt like I've had too many things for a long time. I need to remind myself that I am capable of getting stuff done quite quickly when I pick [00:20:00] and I need to pick one thing that I can crack through and get on with. Because there's nothing my brain likes more than some evidence and actually, and some momentum.

Once I get some momentum going on a task, I actually smash through things reasonably quickly. My problem is that freeze thing of where you look at all of them. So I need reassurance. I need kindness. Reassurance is that it's okay that you're stressed. Reassurance is not i'm sure you'll get it all done.

That. You are liable to get snapped at if you tell me, "I'm sure you are doing it. Oh, you always do." Shut up. Not helping. That's not what I mean by reassurance. Reassurance is, it's okay. You've got a lot of things. No wonder you feel overwhelmed. That's the reassurance. Yeah. But you are capable of doing lots of things. What's the one thing you're gonna do right now? Let's do that. That would be my little thing there.

The toast thing is one regular care. Have things that are easy to grab when you are feeling like you can't be bothered to make a meal properly that are [00:21:00] not just toast. So that would be in my regular care section. In my troubleshooting section, it's essentially, I'm gonna say this in a loving, respectful way to myself. Don't believe me when I tell you that I, I just really need toast right now. It's not true. It's not coming from the best part of me. It's coming from the carb craving can't be bothered to think part of me. Two solutions. One, somebody else cook something for me. Two, pick something that's slightly better than toast. I have a tendency to be perfectionist. I suspect many of you guys do too. I have a tendency to believe that if I'm not going to be just eating toast, I should be having a perfectly balanced Buddha bowl with a combination of proteins, carbohydrates, healthy fats, little snacky, crispy things on top of it, et cetera, et cetera.

Now, I have made it a lot easier to make those. I'll talk about that another time. But best [00:22:00] case if I'm tempted to have toast for dinner. Well, let's have fish, fingers, waffles, and peas. Okay. Actually, not that bad. Yes, it's oven food. Yes. It's probably got all the preservatives in it but it is better than toast and butter. Okay. It's got some protein in it. It's got some vegetables in it. It's vaguely got some fiber in it. Let's go. So thinking through for each of your troubleshooting things, what would be a kind and compassionate response? What would you want to do in that situation?

And then the final section, just a quick one, is further support, which is reminding you who have you got in your life and what are they useful for?

Because different people are good at different things, right? My husband. I choose, well, my husband's amazing. He can help me with absolutely everything. Other people, I have some friends that are really good at picking me up when I'm down because they'll make me laugh. They'll take me somewhere ridiculous, they'll distract me. It's amazing. Other friends are really good at helping me prioritize in my business if I'm trying to make a decision or whatever. I've got [00:23:00] people that I can go to and talk that through with. I have people who will listen if I just really need to talk something through without getting offered solutions and things like that.

And I can kind of, I'm not gonna name them now, but I can kind of picture in my head who these different people are. And so noting down who are the key people, who are the kind of support system here that if you are struggling, these are the people you can go to and what they're useful for.

So that's what I mean by an instruction manual is a guide to running you. We have to build it with compassion. This is not about making a perfect version of you that will always function beautifully. This is about creating routines and kind of emergency protocols to implement that will make this feel much easier.

As I say, make sure you don't limit it just to dealing with challenges. I want part of your self-care in there to be around how you make your life feel positive. What do you need in your life in order to thrive? Not just [00:24:00] cope with the things that feel difficult, what's stuff makes life feel really fun? We need all that stuff in there too, so that we can support ourselves to build the best phD academic life we possibly can.

If you want some support with that and you're listening to this live, make sure you go to the PhD life coach.com. Click on the membership. You'll find all the details. We are open for new members between the 20th, which is the Monday and the 21st, second, third, fourth, fifth. Is that right? 20th, first, second, third, fourth, Friday, whatever date the Friday is, we're open till the Friday. You can join in that time. It is three monthly membership.

You'll be in until the end of January. We are gonna be talking imposter syndrome, and we are gonna be talking identifying your strengths, figuring out how to look after yourself. We are gonna create our own instruction manuals with support so that you do it in a compassionate, non-judgmental, fun, and thriving kind of a way.

Come join us again and have a little look. If you get on the wait list ahead of time, you will have access to some discounts [00:25:00] and to some other little freebies as well. So jump on the wait list. Hope to see lots of you there. Thank you all for listening, and I'll see you next week.

Thank you for listening to the PhD Life Coach podcast. If you like this episode, please tell your friends, your colleagues, and your universities. I'd appreciate it if you took the time to like leave a review, give me stars, stickers, and all that general approval as well. If you'd like to find out more about working with me, either for yourself or for people at your university, please check out my website at the PhD life coach.com.

You can also sign up to hear more about my free group coaching sessions for PhD students and academics. See you next time.