Recharge Your Research! Building a Focused, Energized, and Effective Workflow

Aims

In this workshop, we will take a fresh look at your PhD project and analyze your individual work routines. Together, you will identify personal distractions and obstacles that may be limiting your productivity and progress, with special attention to the challenges of today’s digital workspaces.

You will be introduced to practical strategies from time, self-, and project management to help you tackle your research tasks and academic responsibilities more effectively. By setting motivating, achievable goals and developing a personalized workflow concept, you will be able to concentrate better, sustain your motivation, and approach your research with renewed energy.

By the end of the workshop, you will have developed a customized toolkit of practical methods that you can immediately apply in your daily work to advance your PhD project in a healthy and productive way.

Content

The PhD journey is full of competing demands, whether you’re pushing to move an important paper forward, dealing with last-minute changes to experiments, or juggling work, family, and downtime.

Digital work environments add their own difficulties. It’s easy to lose focus after hours at the laptop, with back-to-back Zoom calls breaking up your day, countless open tabs, and constant email notifications pulling your attention away.

This course tackles both major issues: managing your PhD project over the long term and streamlining your day-to-day (digital) workflow. You’ll master practical strategies to identify, plan, and implement the next steps in your research, and discover how to enter a state of deep work—an energized flow without distractions.

Across three sessions, you’ll develop your own personalized workflow concept to (re)gain focus and momentum for your research. After each session, you’ll immediately apply what you’ve learned to your daily routine, transforming insights into practice.

Ultimately, this course aims to help you establish productive and sustainable work habits tailored to your individual needs and the demands of modern academia. You’ll select and adapt the methods and strategies that best fit your discipline and working style, benefiting from collaborative problem-solving as well as peer feedback in a supportive group setting.

Workshop topics include:

• Analyzing your current PhD situation and work routines
• Cultivating deep work, eliminating nudges, and managing your attention
• Identifying distractions and overcoming productivity blocks
• Setting clear and motivating goals
• Managing your energy and taking restorative breaks
• Using tailored tools for time, self-, and project management
• Planning and prioritizing tasks (e.g., ALPS method)
• Putting your personal workflow strategy into practice

By the end of the workshop, you’ll have created a practical action plan to support your continued success in research.

This workshop is for all doctoral researchers, whether you want to further optimize your organizational and time management skills or break out of unproductive routines. Take the next step in managing your PhD with confidence by registering and developing a workflow that fits your life and research.

Methods

The course is highly interactive and dynamic, combining in-person sessions with online meetings via Zoom and Miro. You can expect a blend of focused input and hands-on activities—working individually, in pairs, and as a group. There’s plenty of space for sharing experiences and open discussion.

The workshop is structured around three live sessions with all participants and the trainer, each followed by a self-paced learning phase where you’ll put new strategies directly into practice. Throughout, you’ll explore a practical workflow model and adapt it to your own needs. You’ll also receive a comprehensive handout, a visual summary of the group’s work, and a certificate of participation.

No prior knowledge is required—everyone is welcome!

Target Group

All doctoral candidates

About the Trainer

Dr. Daniel Kunzelmann is a certified digital media trainer who offers evidence-based, practice-oriented workshops on stress, resilience, time management, and self-leadership. Since 2013, he has been teaching and conducting research at the University of Basel, with a current focus on the negative impact of digitalization on satisfaction, well-being, and productivity. His interactive training style emphasizes real-world application and is tailored to participants’ needs, continuously integrating the latest research and best practices.

Workload

Total 30h

Day 1, October 15, 2025: 6h (in person, Universitätsbibliothek Basel, GRACE Raum 306)
Self-paced learning phase I: 5h
Day 2, October 29, 2025: 4h (Zoom)
Self-paced learning phase II: 5h
Day 3, November 12, 2025: 6h (in person, Universitätsbibliothek Basel, GRACE Raum 306)
Self-paced learning phase III: 4h

Feature

Once registration is open, applications will be collected for 24 hours and course places allocated by lot. All registrations received after the initial 24h period will be put on a waiting list and assigned on a first come, first served basis.

Course places/places on the waiting list will be confirmed by e-mail. Course registrations can only be canceled before the registration period ends (send an e-mail to grace@unibas.ch). Full course attendance is mandatory. Participants who fail to attend a course without prior notification or withdraw after the registration deadline are subject to a fee of CHF 30. In addition, participants who cancel their course registration at a later point in time, are absent without an excuse or do not attend the entire course will, for reasons of fairness, not be considered for course registration in the following semester and will be removed from other courses offered in the same semester. Please find the detailed regulations on the Transferable Skills Homepage.