Skill set to crack your research

After I finished my research work – a frustrated but crackly interesting brain process happened within self, pushed me to write this article.  According to me, research is not just few data analysis and vetting on suggestions we made for the thesis to be completed.

Any doctoral degree (in any discipline) has two parts – One from your past and another for your future.  Let me discuss the first part – how past influences our research work in this article.  Here the past connotes your

View on Research

1. Attitude,
2. Study Skills,
3. Self Esteem,
4. Soft Skills,
5. Time mgt.
6.  Professionalism

and many more.

Adding values to your past i.e. what you already have will definitely help you to optimize your output from the research.

If you say “Let me do my research for making money” – then gonna! You have to change your attitude first.  Research involves too much of synthesizing process, which has the tendency to get affected by money - minded.  Do not look up the expenses you have to make – then you cannot make any printouts, photo copies, buy subject related books.

To get profit, you have to invest your capital first.  Expense first; income next – Be cost conscious, but not too much. Spend your money in technologies and get yourself updated.      

ATTITUDE:

At the starting point most of us doubt ourselves.  We do not know the power of our brain and mind.  Even I was in that attitude of can I?  When I started my research work due to this doubting attitude, I started but my task neither Continued nor completed. This attitude went for five to six months at the beginning of my work. Suddenly one morning I realized that I have to change my self, my attitude I want to stop blaming others.  I took a paper and a pen; I do not remember what I wrote.  But at the concluding paragraph, I got character clarity, resulting which changed my attitude and in turn motivated me to relax myself, do my research work in a phased manner.

MORALE:   

1. Be yourself.
2. You have to live for yourself.
3. Admit that you are capable of doing it.
4. Sit and talk to yourself.

STUDY SKILLS:

I confers that I never ever made written notes for my subjects neither during my school days nor my chartered accountancy course.  The reason is simple – I thought that notes making is waste of time I am bit over confident about my memory power and my study technique.  But this overconfident back fired me in my research work.  The research work involves a lot, lot of writing process and requires multiprocessing.  Without writing your thought process, the information you receive, the connectivity your brain neurons creates, the ideas you get out of the blue - you cannot just do multiprocessing without catching it in black and white.

MORALE:

1. Train up your brain for multiprocessing.
2. Immediately catch up your ideas what you get.
3. Always keep a pad and pencil with yourself. (I tend to get most interesting ideas while I bath).

SELF ESTEEM:

Along with your research work, spend some time on building yourself.  ‘Ego otherwise called as self esteem’ is the secret of any character building (This is my own experience).  Before satisfying others - your mom, dad, friend, any body; you have to satisfy yourself, your own head and heart need.  You are doing research in your subject for yourself, not for others’ creed and greed.  The subject knowledge which imbibes within you is not a process of two or three days work.  It came within you by many years learning. Make that learning process more powerful by your super power self esteem.

MORALE:

1. Even if the universe is against you have full right to stand on your side.
2. Be deaf, when others talk ill about you.
3. Strongly believe that you are working for a noble cause.

TIME MANAGEMENT:

Time management has to become your second nature.  You have to work like a clock.  I remember one of my teachers’ words. “Learn to utilize your toilet time properly”. Do not giggle. The time you have in front of you is just not enough for your research work.  I bet that set manageable pressure on you, because we work better under pressure.  Let me tell the truth that we have trained to study for exams, not for ourselves since our childhood.  Hence have a time management diary and try to be on the track.

Of course time management has its own displeasures.  When you start follow your own time schedules, you feel lost, irritated and sometimes frustrated. No one else other than you can find a solution to all these displeasures.

MORALE:

1. Do not be too rigid.
2. Let your time schedule contain block to spend time for your self.
3. Have a good family support and spend quality time with them.
4. Get organized and prepared for uncertainties.

Finally either study or research, whatever may be, it should be fun.  After all, we all have a single life and are going to do only one research work (Ph. D) in that single life.  Enjoy the search journey and complete it successfully.  Best of luck for your research.

NOTE:

To boost up myself, I require your valuable comments friends.  So please comment or criticize on this article.  Let me meet you on the future part of the same.

Thanks

Mithra