These continue the first of year discussion for Masters and Doctoral Students on how the principles, and roles in our lives can drive our effectiveness and work-life balance

1. How to plan so that your graduate work blends easily with
your life

2. Goals for today… (amended)
Compare your experience with others using this
survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2018_general_5fs
Help ensure you have the tools/ideas you need to sail
through your graduate program this year.
A bit of planning, a bit of having the right tools on hand and
a good set of discipline and you are on your way!

3. Quotes from Stephen Covey
The more aware we are of our
basic paradigms, maps, or
assumptions, the more we can
take responsibility for those
paradigms, examine them, test
them against reality, listen to
others and be open to their
perceptions as well.
1
It becomes obvious that if we
want to make relatively minor
changes in our lives, we can focus
on our attitudes and behaviors.
Bit if we want to make
significant, quantum change, we
need to work on our basic
paradigms.
2
Highly effective people really do
not manage time – they manage
themselves.
3

4. Agenda: How to plan so that your graduate work
blends easily with your life
This Discussion
• the 5fs survey and what we know
• Principles / Roles / Centeredness
• The Covey Quadrant
• Taking proactive to a new level: win/win
• Now look at your life/work/graduate work
• What we can Influence
• Understanding before being understood
• Tricks to maintain work-life balance
• Planning your year graduate and otherwise
• Exercise
• Tools to help
• What’s New at MN & DN?
Comin Up Next…
• How to LOVE Your Masters or Doctoral Work in
2018
• Beginning with the end in mind
• What does it take to love something?
• Connections
• People
• Your field
• Others who like to think
• Conferences
• First things first
• Moving from individual to interdependent strength
• Dynamic or Static decisions?
• Centeredness, getting your needs met w/o
trapping yourself
• Synergy
• Sharpening the saw

5. What students say…
The 5fs survey

6. Remember…
Everyone taking this
survey has already been
successful at college
education

8. The Place to Start…
Principles / Roles / Centeredness

9. Principles
There are basic principles of
effective living, and people can
only experience true success
and enduring happiness as they
learn and integrate these
principles into their basic
character.
No enterprise or person can
become or remain truly great
without a core set of principles
to preserve, to build upon to
serve as an anchor, to provide
guidance in the face of an ever-
changing world.
Acting out of principle can be
preventative such as preventing
disease or problems by aligning
with you lifestyle with the
principles of harmony and
actions of good health

10. What principles guide you?

11. What roles are you responsible for?
• Parent
• Teacher
• Student
• Friend
• Boss or Employee
• Leader
• What matters most to you?
• Your family
• Your children
• Your work
• Your degree
• Your future plans
• Your friends
• Having a good time
Roles and Centered-ness

12. The Covey Quadrant
How much of your time is in #2?

13. Quadrant 2 = Less Stress and More Satisfaction –
Exercise at the End

14. Taking Proactive to a New Level:
win/win

15. • How can your behavior in those groups not
only advance what you need but he needs of
others?
• How can your behavior help everyone
succeed?
• How do your principles support those
behaviors?
• What roles are you fulfilling?
What groups do you work in?
Who do you work with?

16. Graduate / Postgraduate Work
Taking these ideas into…

17. For an example…
1. The principle of cooperation is
important to you
2. You take some extra time
relationship building (Quad 2)
3. You learn that
colleagues/committee chair have
deadlines coming up (their Quad 1)
4. So you negotiate a different
timing that you would have for your
review
Putting it together…

18. And what to do when we can’t
What we can influence

19. Seligman’s research has shown
that three people benefit from
acts of kindness. The person to
who was the giver, the receiver
and anyone who witnessed the
exchange.
Covey says: The challenge is the
same: how can we do the most
good for the greatest number
with the resources we have?
(Habit 2: Begin with the end in
mind)
Influence

20. Before Working To be Understood
Understanding

21. Self control
Circle of
Influence
Outside of
your
control
What you can influence & what you can’t
In the example used before….
Can you influence….
1. Your mood about turning in your work
to your committee chair?
2. Your relationship with your committee
chair?
3. The requirements of your university on
committee chairs?
4. Whether their review is helpful to
you?
5. Whether their review is turned right
around?

22. Self control
Circle of
Influence
Outside of
your control
1. Someone who is crystal clear about
what they want and why?
2. Someone who understands the full
dynamic of needs and desires of both
people?
3. Someone who knows the other is on
their side?
4. Someone who is suspicious that they
have to protect themselves from bad
attitudes in the other?
Who it the better negotiator?

23. Tricks to maintain work-life balance
And to the Negotiation that Makes it Work

24. Focus on What You Can Do, Negotiate the Rest

25. Exercises

26. Exercise One
Define for yourself…
• Which of the 5fs is most frustrating to
you?
• What principles are the most important
for you to live by?
• What matters to you most and how does
that sync with the principles you want to
live by?
• Which roles are in alignment? Which are
likely to interfere?
Spend time dreaming of ways in which
these come closer together?
Exercise Two
1. Look at Covey’s quadrant and plot your
weekly activities.
2. What negotiations can you make with
others to move more into quadrant 2?
3. Think about the people in your life…
What more can you understand about
them in order to deepen your
relationship?
4. What aspects of your life and your
relationships can you move to a more
win/win level?
5. What do you want to influence but its
outside of your control? What else can
be influenced to improve the situation
from another angle?

27. Tools: Planning Your Year
Graduation? Advancement? & Everything Else
For MN and DN Members

28. Tools for planning – sign onto your DN/MN Portal and then
add this ending to the url…
1. Just starting – see the maps first under each menu
• and milestones: https://resources.doctoralnet.com/other-resources/doctoral-milestone-
checklist.html
2. Backwards map from graduation backwards to now –
• Video: Strategic Planning for Graduate Students
• What Does It Take to Graduate This Year? Part One: Backward-Mapping
• Finish Your Dissertation in Two Years – Year Two
• Planning and Time Management
3. What skills do you need more of (on your resources menu)
1. Academic writing (new boxed set): https://resources.doctoralnet.com/boxed-sets/academic-
writing-tools-to-get-it-done.html
2. Writing habit: 30 day challenge https://resources.doctoralnet.com/optins/30-day-writing-
challenge.html
3. Work-Life Balance: https://resources.doctoralnet.com/optins/30-day-challenge-4-work-life-
balance.html
4. Motivation: https://resources.doctoralnet.com/optins/365-phd-motivation.html