They have more in common with the PhD journey and progress than you think.
by Cherene de Bruyn
PUBLISHED: 08 October 2025 on Substack
PhDs are challenging. Let’s not pretend otherwise. They take time, effort and a level of self-direction that can feel both freeing and overwhelming. PhD life is flexible too, but that flexibility comes with responsibility. You control your time, your pace, and your achievement. Although it’s often assumed that PhD students already possess the skills to manage themselves, things get complicated when you fall behind or come face to face with mounting deadlines.
In those moments, it’s tempting to give up on the taks or just to do the bare minimum. But as Mortimer Adler, an American philosopher, educator, and author, once wrote:
“It is harder to dig for gold than it is for potatoes, but each unit of successful effort is more amply repaid.”
In this newsletter, I’d like to step back for a moment and consider this quote from Mortimer Adler, specifically how it relates to the PhD process and momentum. Because difficult tasks are, well, difficult, we sometimes convince ourselves to push through them half-heartedly. We do this when we’re feeling overwhelmed, when we’re tired and when we’re no longer excited. In that moment, that is exactly when we need to pause. Take a breath. Recommit, not in a state of panic, but with a plan.
3 Key Takeaways for this week
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Planning is sheltering. Without a plan, we gravitate toward simpler tasks. These may be productive in the short term, but they’ll usually bring progress to a halt.
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Time sacrifice is strategic. Allocating time to do and complete hard tasks it’s essential for long-term gain.
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Effort is proportional to task complexity. The more meaningful the work, the greater the intellectual and emotional investment needed for us, and it is an uncomfortable fact to accept.
Change your strategy rather than struggling
1. Plan, plan and then plan
Difficult tasks demand more effort. Too often such tasks create tension and make us prioritize easier and smaller tasks. While this strategy might make us feel productive in the moment, in the long term, this approach could derail our progress. Using the example of the “smaller tasks trap”, researchers have found that completing completion of small tasks gives us an immediate sense of achievement and satisfaction. But this practice may cost us in the long term and stop us from making more important progress. When we reflect on Mortimer Adler’s words, it’s easy to see the truth in them. Easy tasks are like digging for potatoes. You still get a reward, something that is useful and satisfying. But digging for gold is harder. It is a process that takes more time, more effort, and more patience. And perhaps that’s why we value it more. The process is demanding, but the outcome feels richer and more meaningful. So set yourself up for success. I would recommend breaking the work into manageable chunks. It also helps to create a schedule (daily, weekly or monthly) that will allow you to tackle it bit by bit. This will also be useful when you need to discuss progress with your Supervisory team. Plus, it also shows you can take initiative.
I’ve been following this approach myself lately. I need to develop some programming skills and brush up on maths and statistics. These areas require a lot of brainpower and patience. Creating a structured outline with deadlines helped ease the pressure of learning something new. It also gave me a clear way to spend my time in the office, whether I am tackling writing a chapter, reading or building skills essential for my PhD. A clear plan helps you stay productive and focused. It gives your effort direction. Without it, it’s easy to feel busy but not actually move forward.
2. Nobody likes it, but we have to do it sometimes
Effort also requires sacrifice. This is because we need time to focus on one task and to think. This needs to happen without distractions and without multitasking. Which I know can be difficult in shared office spaces. To stay on track, you might need to skip the daily coffee catch-up or postpone a few social plans. It could mean keeping meetings brief so you can return to more important tasks. Sometimes, we need to prioritise work and study (in another space like the library or a meeting room) if we want to make progress. You might need to wake up 30 minutes earlier or cut your gym session short. And that’s okay. Small sacrifices over short periods are part of the process. Just don’t sacrifice your sleep or well-being for too long. If that happens, maybe it’s time to go back to the drawing board and come up with a better plan.
3. Reaping the rewards
Our results grow in proportion to the effort we put in. The time you invest in difficult tasks will accumulate. Not only will it lead to good results, but the difficult thing will become easier over time. You’ll gain more skills. You’ll build confidence. You’ll stretch your brain’s neuroplasticity, sharpen your focus, and strengthen your ability to think critically. The success of your effort will feel earned. Unfortunately, we don’t always see that growth while we’re in the middle of it. During the process, it’s hard to measure how far we’ve come. But when we look back, we begin to appreciate what we’ve achieved. Keeping a log of the time you’ve spent on a specific project, or even on developmental activities, is a great way to track your growth. It helps you see how far you’ve come and reminds you that progress is happening, even when it feels slow. In a PhD, the results often only become visible when chapters are finalised or papers are submitted. It’s a long road. But you need to stick it out to the end. Like gold that’s been cleaned, refined, and worked, we only appreciate the final product because we know the effort that went into it: the time spent digging, the sacrifices that had to be made and the final polishing.
Progress in a PhD isn’t always visible day to day. And because the journey is yours alone, only you will be able to measure and track the progress. But when you choose effort over avoidance, when you choose to be a bit uncomfortable and strategy over struggle, you build something lasting, not just in your research, but in yourself. The hard tasks shape your thinking and your resilience, which are key skills in academia. So, a gentle reminder for us all, even when it is hard, keep going. The prize is there, buried beneath the layers. With steady progress, persistence and effort, we will eventually discover what is hidden beneath, and the reward will be golden.
Until next week.
Stay curious. Stay kind. Begin again — with effort.
BruynChild