Tag Archives: work life balance

Vacation in the Times of Corona

Written by Ebru Ece Gulsan, Ph.D. student in Chemical Engineering

I was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, and spent over 20 years there before moving to the states and becoming your favorite Mediterranean in the midst of lovely New England weather. My family owns a summer house, as many Istanbullu families do, in a small coastal town right by the Aegean Sea. The town is called Geyikli, which literally means “the place with deers,” yet no one has ever seen a single deer so far. We used to go there every summer since I was 5. It is a place where locals make their own olive oil and wine. Everybody knows each other. People grow their own food in their backyards, share their highest quality produce with their neighbors, make canned tomatoes and pickles for the upcoming winter. My family and I enjoy taking the ferry to Bozcaada (Tenedos in Greek), a charming little beautiful island with its old rustic homes and colorful windowpanes, spending the days in deserted sandy beaches; and nights in local vineyards and traditional meyhanes or tavernas.

Bozcaada, photo by Ebru Ece Gulsan

The older I became, the less time I spent in Geyikli. While I used to stay there for the duration of an entire summer in early 2000s, as I grew up, I had to prioritize summer internships and jobs over beach time. But I made sure to spend at least a few weeks to soak up the sun and reset my body before the next academic year, until 2020.

Due to some obvious reasons, I failed to visit home in the summer of 2020, the year when avoiding a visit to your family means love and respect, rather than hugging them. I missed out on not only connecting with my family members, but also the opportunity to reset myself and start fresh for the upcoming fall term. It would have been a much-needed break during this extra stressful academic year; writing my thesis proposal, battling with quals, cancelled conferences and meetings, then rewriting my thesis proposal, all peppered with the flavor of a global pandemic felt like they would never end.

I was desperate to have a beach vacation. I ended up dragging my poor boyfriend to the local beaches every single weekend, but it was not enough. It did not feel like a vacation with all the planning, remembering our masks, hand sanitizers, packing our food, and answering emails from my Principal Investigator and students.

I realized over time that what I needed was not the beach itself, but the “forced restfulness” that came from lying down under a beach umbrella with my loved ones, where my biggest concern is what to eat for my next meal, all day and every day. I needed to disconnect – whether it was on a Mediterranean beach or at my own porch in Medford.

It is especially difficult now to plan a trip to another city or get together with friends to blow off some steam. The places we can go and the people we can see are very limited, which is not what most of us expect when we need a break; so, I had to re-learn the idea of vacation and construct myself a 2020 version of it sponsored by COVID-19. Instead of thinking “what I can do in a very limited radius,” I switched my focus to the questions of “what would make me feel good about myself at this very moment” and “how I can do these things.”

Bozcaada, photo by Ebru Ece Gulsan

I started with planning a break. I know it sounds counterintuitive; you are seeking for ways to escape from this planned work/study life of yours in the first place. But planning your breaks helps you complete your tasks in a more timely manner. Once you have a set deadline, you are more likely to get things done and feel accomplished, which helps you perceive this upcoming break as well-deserved rather than feel guilty for taking some time off.

Then I took some time to structure my break and made sure it is purposeful and enriching. Think about what kind of a break you need. Are you sleep deprived or physically exhausted? You might need some extra days to sleep in and rest your body. If you are mentally tired, it might be a better idea to choose another fun activity that suits and benefits you. For example, you can attend online events of Tufts Art Galleries or follow virtual concerts organized by the Music Department. If being outdoors energizes you, plan a hike to a less traveled mountain to disconnect from your daily life. Watch the movies you have always wanted to binge on. Schedule virtual meetings with your friend who studies abroad. Check out AirBnB live experiences. Your favorite chef might be hosting an online cooking class. The point is that scrolling through social media does not count as a break. Choose something that is entertaining yet valuable and put that on your calendar as motivation.

I added some new activities to my routine to make that break count. As graduate students, we constantly deal with projects that do not even have a set end date, and sometimes (OK, maybe most of the time) they do not go as expected. That ambiguity can be frustrating and demotivating. Hence, it is important to have some other tiny achievements in our lives. Choose some minor activities that are different from your work, such as taking a dance class, volunteering for a cause you care about, learning another language or getting into painting to remind yourself the feeling of accomplishment. Share this idea with your friends and suggest starting together. It always increases your motivation to have a buddy right next to you, even though they are connecting with you via Zoom.

Taking a vacation (even now) is so crucial for our physical and mental health, but it is so easy to overlook. It is one of those things that we know it is good for us, but we fail to actually commit to it, just like eating celery (or collard greens, or okra, you name it). We all need to relax and it is not as hard as we thought. Taking that well-deserved break will make you more efficient and productive at whatever you are doing, so go ahead and plan your next vacation in the times of Corona!

The Side Hustle

Ways to earn extra money as a graduate student

By Abigail Epplett, M.A. student in Museum Education

Are you strapped for cash? Do you feel buried in debt? While these side gigs may not make you a millionaire, they will help with your monthly bills. Here are some ways I have made extra money — and you can, too!

Write Guest Blogs

Many organizations, including Tufts Graduate Admissions Blog and some programs and departments, have blogs where they disseminate information to their members or followers. There’s a wide range of pay for these blogs, and some don’t pay at all. If the blog is part of an organization that you admire — like the blog for your department (see my posts with the Tufts Museum Studies Blog here and here) or an association that has helped you on your career path (see my post at Personal Historians Network Northeast) — you may not mind working “for exposure,” especially because these are great pieces for your portfolio. However, if you need cash fast, it’s best to work with an organization that you trust, has good paths of communication, and is upfront about their rates. For example, the Tufts Graduate Admissions has a blog, and in connection to my main job as an Office Coordinator (i.e. layperson manager) for a church, I’ve also blogged for Back to God Ministries International (BTGMI), which pays $125 for a four post set. The work at BTGMI was much more technical and required several revisions, which accounts for the difference in price.

Teach a Class

You are learning so much in your grad school classes. Why not share it with other people? I currently lead Study Groups with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), which has a branch at Tufts. This program is for retirees who want to keep learning at a high level. It’s essentially a snippet of grad school level courses geared towards people ages 65+. These groups are typically hosted on campus, but due to COVID-19, they are currently held online.

So far, I have taught two study groups. I used research I conducted for the course “Exhibition Planning” in Spring 2020 and my Practicum in Summer 2020 to create a study group called “Abby Kelley Foster: Freedom, Faith, and Family” in November 2020. I also used my knowledge from my Practicum and a lifetime of living in a national heritage corridor to create “The Industrial Revolution and the Blackstone River Valley” in December 2020. In January and February 2021, I hope to “switch gears” and use my knowledge from competitive athletics to lead “Exercise: Theory & Practice,” a mix of gentle exercises and kinesiology geared towards senior citizens.

Sessions for these courses typically are 2 hours long and run once a week for four weeks, but they range between one week and eight weeks in length. Study Group leaders are paid $25 per hour. If you want to learn more about leading groups with OLLI, contact the director of OLLI at Tufts once you matriculate into your graduate program.

Transcribe Audio

Are you a fast typist and a good listener? Do you have a niche interest? Maybe you speak multiple languages? Audio transcription might be a good job for you. I work as an independent contractor with Audio Transcription Center in Boston (ATC). It’s easy to apply online, and you will receive a sample test within a few weeks. Once you are a contractor with ATC, you’ll receive emails about available transcription jobs and can email the office to request work. ATC pays $60 per audio hour. An hour-long job will take between 3 and 6 hours, depending on the worker’s experience and the material given. One learning curve in this job is that you need to use Express Scribe, a free program that allows users to play, stop, rewind, skip ahead, speed up, and slow down audio, just like on a cassette tape. Once you have gotten the hang of this program, transcribing will be faster and easier.

Sell Designs Online

While this method of work is not as reliable as being paid by an organization — like what happens as a guest blogger, teacher, or transcriptionist — if you are an artist, you can make extra money selling your art online. Although many online marketspaces exist, and I have tried several, I’ve personally had the most success with Society6. Once I upload my designs, I don’t have to worry about fulfilling orders; the company takes care of that for me, and payments are sent automatically to my PayPal account each month. The profit margins are small, but it’s a good way to test which of your designs are saleable if you’re interested in opening an independent business in the future.

Pet Sitting

If you love cats, dogs, birds, or any other of the many animals that people keep as pets, this is a pretty good gig. Pet sitting comes in many different forms. Dog walking might be a daily activity lasting over several months, while vacation sitting will last between five and ten days. The price of pet sitting varies depending on how much care an animal needs, and how long it needs to be watched. In my area, $17 for a walk and $20 for a day of mealtime drop-in visits is fairly standard. Although pet sitting apps exist, I do not use them and instead rely on word of mouth. That way, I already have a connection with the pet owners, which makes communication and negation easier, and they’re more likely to trust me with their “furbaby.”Make sure you know the pet’s needs ahead of time, including any directions for feeding or medications. Also, be careful not to bring animals to your house, as boarding spaces and kennels require special licenses.

As Always, Time Management

I’ve offered you five different ways to earn extra money while in grad school, great ways to pay the bills and keep from accruing (more) debt. One important thing to keep in mind while working multiple side hustles is to manage your time. Multi-tasking may seem like a great way to get many things done at once — Why not study for that final exam while walking your neighbor’s dog? There’s no way that could go wrong… — but ultimately, our brains can only handle one task at a time. Instead, if you like variety, try breaking up your jobs into smaller segments, and keep a calendar schedule of everything you need to accomplish. For example, in a given day, I might work my main job, take classes, prepare to teach a class, and pet sit. My workday might look like this:

9:15 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.Pet Sit
9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.Main Job
3:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.Pet Sit
3:45 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.Break
6:00 – 7:30 p.m.Take Class
7:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.Prep for Class
8:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.Pet Sit

That’s 7.5 hours of paid work, but it’s broken up into segments to be more manageable. Plus, there’s plenty of variety, so you won’t get bored from a single task.

Don’t be afraid to try new side jobs to earn extra money while in grad school! Your wallet will thank you, and you will learn new skills that will help further your career path.

Keep Calm and Stay Organized

How I beat my inner sloth during self-quarantine

Written by Ebru Ece Gulsan, Ph.D. student in Chemical Engineering

I bet none of us imagined the rest of the semester going like this after Spring Break. We are slowly transitioning to distance learning and a home office routine not only as a community, but also as students from around the globe. Although staying at home gives us some extra time for our hobbies and self-care, eliminates our commute time, and maybe saves us some money, it could also hinder our productivity and motivation to maintain our routine.

Personally, I always need to be in an office, library or a coffee shop to get things done. Knowing that I’m 5 steps away from my bed and there are tons of snacks in the fridge is never helpful. I am sure other Jumbos are on the same page, so I wanted to share some useful apps that I use to keep myself on track, no matter how inclined I am to procrastinate at home. These apps are not only for your daily tasks like research or homework, but also for other productive activities like reading or exercising.

Having said that, you do NOT have to be productive ALL THE TIME. If you are failing to make the most of your time at home, this does not mean that you are not self-compassionate. Please do not feel pressured by the fact that Shakespeare wrote “King Lear” in quarantine, while you might have had cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner yesterday because you couldn’t bring yourself to cook. Everything is upside down now and you get to define what success is for you.

Be gentle to yourself, make time for your hobbies, relax, and do not forget to call your loved ones. In the meanwhile, there is no harm sharing what helps you stay organized during this time.

An all-in-one workspace for your notes

Notion provides you a workspace you can access through all your devices. This is by far my favorite productivity and organizational tool I have used. You can create and keep track of to-do lists, tasks, projects, notes, and ideas, and even enrich them with media, icons, webpages, publications, or any other useful reference you can imagine. The best thing is that when you add references to your lists, you have the chance of accessing them even if you are not online. It is also possible to share your lists and collaborate with other Notion users. The app operates on nested pages which saves us from messy folder organizations. Overall, for me Notion is a very versatile, smooth, user friendly and useful app that helps with my routine (and is free!).

Journaling App

Having weekly or daily to-do lists is great for productivity; but for me documenting long term goals and my progress towards those is key to staying motivated. Day One is an excellent journaling app not only for tasks and projects, but also for personal growth. It provides you a safe digital space to store your memories, thoughts and dreams, either with pictures or words.

Set Yourself a Reading Challenge

Is there a better time than a stay-home period to finish those books you had started months ago but have not had time to get back to? In theory, yes! But in practice, not really. I don’t know if it is just me, but I find it very difficult sometimes to reach to that book sitting on my nightstand although I have all the time in the world.

This app is such a life saver; you can use Goodreads to set a “reading challenge” and keep track of your progress. The app also sends you notifications and reminders to motivate you to get back on track. You can see what your friends are reading, where they are at their own challenge, how they felt about their books, what they want to read next. The app will also use an algorithm to give you recommendations for your tastes and interests over time, which motivates you even more to finish that book and start those new excellent recommendations.

Track Your Workouts

It is especially difficult for folks in Boston to stay home all day, considering the year-round 5 AM runners all around the city. I love being active, and have been lucky enough to have access to excellent athletic facilities provided by Tufts. I have been using the Strong app to keep track of my exercises, make customized workout routines, and record my progress. The additional benefit of Strong is that it allows the user to define details about their workouts.

You do not have to be outside to be active! There are plenty of exercises and reasonably priced weights to purchase online. My personal favorites are resistance bands, a kettlebell (preferably on the heavier side to use for full body exercises which engage bigger muscle groups, mine is around 20 pounds for reference) and dumbbells. They last a lifetime, are compact and easy to store. For inspiration, YouTube has some excellent free channels to safely guide you through creating your home exercise routine, and many yoga studios also started live streaming for their clients.

Please do not forget that this is stressful time for all of us, but we are doing our best. Extend some grace to yourself and appreciate how we adjust ourselves to a situation which seemed unimaginable a few weeks ago. The most helpful approach I took during this transition was to treat the day as a regular day in my office. I woke up early and got ready for the day, had my gear together, set up a workplace, and most importantly, I set boundaries for my work hours and leisure hours. But there were also days I did not get any work done, which I learned to be okay with.

So, do not overwhelm yourself and find what works for you. Stay in touch with your co-workers, classmates, and principal investigator. Organize get-togethers with that friend who you studied abroad with, who you never get a chance to FaceTime anymore. Call your parents. Treat yourself with some self-care. Most importantly, be gentle to yourself and to your loved ones.

Committing to Fun

By Audrey Balaska, Ph.D. student in
Mechanical Engineering: Human-Robot Interaction

Graduate students are known for their passion, enthusiasm, and dedication to working hard.  When I decided to apply for Ph.D. programs, I started hearing jokes and comments about how I was going to have no life because I was going to spend all of my time working. 

Now, I love my research, and I really have no issues with occasionally doing research on the weekend, or working late into the night on my homework.  At the same time, I also enjoy having friends outside of my classes and lab.  When I first came to Tufts, I found myself wondering:

How am I going to prevent my program from taking over my entire life?

Some people in graduate school have families nearby or other commitments that automatically force them to have some semblance of a work-life balance.  But as a single woman who is the only member of her family living in Massachusetts and who knows very few people who live in the area, I had no commitments except to my program when I first moved to Medford. 

Graduate students often do not work from 9:00am-5:00pm, or even have a set schedule at all.  Some days I have classes in the morning, while other days my classes start as late as 6:00pm.  With such an irregular schedule, how do I recognize if I am working too much, or not enough? 

I have two strategies:

One thing that I do is document my hours that I work on my research in a spreadsheet.  This helps me keep track of how much I am actually working.  I hold myself accountable both so that I’m working enough, and also not overworking myself.

The other thing that I did is I took up social dancing lessons (for those of you who are unfamiliar with social dancing, think Dancing with the Stars but without the routines).  A few days a week I practice ballroom and Latin dancing for 45 minutes at a time. 

Social dancing has led to so many benefits in my life: I get more exercise, I’ve made friends outside of the Tufts community, and I force myself to take a break from being a graduate student.  I’ve also found that I’ve become more productive at work since I’ve started taking the mental breaks that I needed.

I’m not saying that all graduate students should take up social dancing, but I think that graduate students benefit from making “fun” commitments that are difficult to get out of.  Maybe you make a pact with some friends from your classes that you will all go out together once a month.  Or maybe you buy a ski pass for the winter.  Or maybe you make a deal with a friend that the two of you will go for one hike a week. 

Whatever it is you decide to do, it is important to commit to fun, rather than just treating it as an afterthought. I promise it will make your entire graduate experience more productive and more balanced!