As an undergraduate, pulling all-nighters to write a paper or cram for an exam may have gotten you decent grades. But grad school is different. Much of the academic work needed to earn a masters' or doctoral degree is self-directed and dependent on meeting longer-term goals and deadlines.
That means the less-than-ideal routines that might have worked for you before are unlikely to lead to success, says Wendy Wood, PhD, a professor of psychology and business at the University of Southern California.
"Most graduate students are pretty good at studying for exams, but the basis of evaluation shifts as you move into graduate school, and you're expected to give talks and write a lot," Wood says. "These things are not always ingrained habits for many students when they start school."
Add stress on top of that, she says, and students will fall back into old patterns, "and it's hard for them to learn new ones."
In a 2013 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology study, for example, Wood and colleagues found that students in the midst of exams had less willpower and motivational energy, reverting to habits they had developed earlier in the semester. For example, those who tended to eat a healthy breakfast stuck with this behavior even under stress, while those who reported often eating an unhealthy breakfast during nonexam weeks continued to do so during exams.
"The key to meeting your goals is establishing good habits from the very beginning," Wood says.
Wood and other experts share these six tips for helping graduate students adopt healthy habits that will help them in school — and in life.
Create a new habit in 66 days
Forming a new habit is all about repetition, Wood says. In a 2010 study led by University College London psychologist Phillippa Lally, PhD, researchers followed 96 volunteers over 12 weeks as they adopted a new health habit, such as drinking a bottle of water with lunch or running for 15 minutes before dinner. Participants reported each day whether or not they did the behavior and how automatic it felt. The researchers found that it takes 66 days on average for these simple behaviors to become habits. While the length of time can vary widely depending on the person and behavior — anywhere from 18 days to 254 days, according to the study — people who repeated a behavior every day were more likely to make it a habit quicker.
Embrace a routine
When developing a new habit, it's also important to tie it to a particular context, Wood says. Find a time and place where you know you do your best work and build it into your schedule every day.
"You don't want to have to constantly be making decisions about whether you're going to write now or in half an hour," she says. "You want contexts to cue the decision to work, so find a place that works for you to write and go there on a regular basis."
Over time, she adds, you'll find that you're struggling less and the context starts to cue the behavior that you've engaged in in the past.
Find a way to enjoy your work
People aren't going to automatically do things they don't like, Wood says. So, if you are dreading studying or writing, for example, you have to figure out a way to look forward to some aspect of the job. If you're the type of person who craves social connection, for example, get a few members of your cohort together for a "writing date," and spend an hour writing and then take a break to have coffee and discuss your work.
"Recognize what's appealing to you and use that," Wood says. "Otherwise, you may need to find a new career — something that you do find fun."
Rewards work, too. Promise yourself that if you get a certain amount of work in, you will treat yourself to Facebook time, TV watching or whatever guilty pleasure may motivate you.
Take breaks
More than 50 years ago, sleep researcher Nathan Kleitman, PhD discovered the "basic rest-activity cycle" — the 90-minute period at night during which we move progressively through five stages of sleep, from light to deep, and then out again. He also observed that our bodies operate by the same 90-minute rhythm during the day, moving from higher to lower alertness. In essence, our brain functions better if we allow ourselves times of highly focused work as well as times of rest. Now often referred to as "pulsing" by productivity experts, adopting the habit of performing tasks in 90-minute increments, with rest breaks in between, can help you focus much better than trying to work for hours on end. Brigid Schulte, author of the 2014 book "Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time," turned off her phone and email for 90-minute increments throughout the day to research and write the book.
"It was easier to stay focused on work knowing I'd given myself a grace period to get to the pressing home stuff later," Schulte wrote in her book.
Develop realistic goals
Graduate students' goals often tend to be "too vague and mushy, like ‘work on my thesis' or ‘design that study for my dissertation,'" says Paul Silva, PhD, author of "How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing" (2007). Yet 30 years of research by psychologist Albert Bandura, PhD, shows that self-motivation is best sustained by having a clear, long-range goal that can be broken down into a series of specific, attainable smaller goals to guide one's efforts. Chicago clinical psychologist Alison Miller, PhD, author of "Finish Your Dissertation Once and For All: How to Overcome Psychological Barriers, Get Results, and Move On with Your Life" (2008), suggests students aim to break down milestone goals like writing a literature review into actions that can be completed in less than two hours, such as reading a journal article or writing a first draft of a subsection. She also recommends connecting goals to specific days of the week.
"Knowing when you wake up in the morning what you're supposed to do that day helps you avoid wasting energy trying to figure out what you need to do," she says.
Turn off your smartphone
At the end of the day, it's important to psychologically disengage completely from work and school, says Russell Johnson, PhD, a professor of management at Michigan State University. That downtime helps people recover cognitive and emotional resources that were depleted during the workday. In a 2014 study in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Johnson and colleagues examined the effects of technology — including late-night smartphone use for work — on sleep, morning energy levels and work engagement throughout the day. They found that late-night smartphone use for work interfered with sleep quantity and quality, and left workers more depleted in the morning and less engaged at work the next day. Johnson recommends that students turn smartphones off in the evening and keep them out of the bedroom so there is no temptation to check work or school email.
"Fatigue can have detrimental effects on people's engagement, learning and performance at work and school, and this stress can also spill over to negatively affect people's personal relationships and their sense of well-being," Johnson says. "Although it may be difficult sometimes to ‘turn off' work and school, mental respites and breaks really are good for us."