On Friday 17 July 2026, the Training Centre held a workshop called Seven Secrets of Highly Successful Research Students. The workshop was delivered by Hugh Kearns from Thinkwell, and we were delighted to have 45 very engaged students attending. That included our own cohort, and students from our partner organisations and universities, which was a great way to share value with our partners. Here are notes for those who couldn’t make it, or need a refresher.
Nothing says success like a matching puppy in regalia! Here’s a recent PhD grad from one of our universities, not from the Training Centre as ours haven’t graduated yet. (Credit: Nic Vevers, ANU)
On the care and maintenance of your supervisor
Supervisors are busy people – and if you want to wait until they are not busy you might be waiting a long time! If you need advice, feedback, or to get unstuck, schedule a meeting with them (or even wait in the corridor and catch them for a quick chat). I’ve been known for hanging out at our cafe on campus to bump into researchers who haven’t replied to my emails – often all I need is a minute of their time while they wait for coffee to get a quick answer or agreement that we should book in a meeting. Be assertive, not annoying.
Regular meetings are great. We generally recommend fortnightly meetings with your panel – or a subset if you have a large panel. Send a short agenda prior to the meeting, and notes/minutes after the meeting. This email trail is helpful for everyone to remember where things are at and when decisions were made, and who promised to do what (these are the ACTIONS of the meeting and the most important part). This is a real life skill that will serve you well in many different careers. It’s not unusual for supervisors, or professional staff like me, to have six meetings a day. Agendas and notes are essential for getting the most out of our time and making sure the actions are actioned.
Write and share
I’ve worked as a journalist for many years, and found there was some great advice in this topic. Mainly that you don’t need to ‘wait until you’re ready’ to start writing. Just write! Writing works best if you make time for it, particularly if it’s a short period of time and you want to write as much as possible. You don’t have to be writing the final copy of your thesis – write a draft of a chapter, a summary of a paper, your methods, an idea you’ve had, a question you have. Get into a writing habit. You’ll be grateful for those words down the track, and you’ll have built a solid routine for when the writing gets serious.
Then after you’ve written something, seek feedback. There’s a saying in journalism that every writer needs an editor. It’s true. Even when I was editor of a magazine, I’d always have someone else edit my writing (and someone else proofread it too!) Seeing a long list of red marks and tracked changes isn’t the best feeling in the world, but it does really improve your work. I got pretty good at quickly reviewing feedback, feeling a bit fed up with the world, going for a walk, and then sitting down and reading the feedback carefully to fix up that particular piece and learn something for the next piece. Again, skills that are helpful in many careers. I’m interested to explore how Gen AI can help me learn – you can set it up to give you feedback on your writing, or edit a draft and tell you why it suggests those changes.
It’s not a Nobel prize
In the workshop, Hugh described a PhD as adding a grain of sand to the beach. He said the purpose of the PhD is to learn to be a researcher. And that a thesis doesn’t need to be perfect – perfect is not realistic. It just needs to be finished. Which leads me to the next point…
You can do it!
Hugh said the failure rate for submitted PhDs is much less than 1%. That means if you can make it to the end, you’re pretty much guaranteed to wear a floppy hat at graduation and be known henceforth as doctor. So keep on going… even when it’s tough. Practice persistence and resilience, so you can pivot or bounce back when things go wrong.
Hugh also talked about imposter syndrome. That’s thinking you’re a fraud and everyone is going to find out you don’t belong, that you’re not smart enough or good enough. It’s a common thought pattern. His advice was to check with your supervisor if you’re on track, and if they say you’re going okay – believe them.
Say no to distractions
The world is full of distractions, and some of them are positive like teaching or doing courses. I can attest that housework suddenly looks very interesting when you’re avoiding writing! Hugh says there’s nothing wrong with distractions, but do the thesis first. This is good advice. For me, finding a couple of hours in the morning to work on one main thing makes the rest of the day feel much better even if it gets lost in emails (which, granted, are a big part of my job!).
It’s a job
Speaking of jobs, Hugh’s advice in treating the PhD like a job was that you can:
- keep regular hours,
- have a plan and accountability, and
- take breaks.
PhD students are entitled to holiday breaks and sick leave. Take them! Learning to rest without guilt is another one of those life skills that will serve you well over your career. I’m still learning that one… and in fact, I also want to say it’s okay to hustle, and if you’re in a real ‘go get’ kind of mood and want to do everything, hey – sounds like you are motivated and you should use that, not second guess it and worry if you’re doing too much! When you’re tired, rest then. That’s my advice. Others might say slow and steady wins the race. You do you – just don’t waste your energy feeling guilty about it.
Get help
I love this one, because help is always available. You don’t have to know everything – that’s imposter syndrome talking. Ask people or ask Google. Seek help with areas that you struggle with, like editing or statistics or experimental design. In fact, definitely ask for help with statistics early because it will help you at the end. Hugh suggested some options for getting help with daily life as well: babysitting, cleaning, ready made meals… Another piece of advice was to contact your university research librarian for help with finding papers and managing databases.
All our universities provide practical study help and mental health support for PhD students, so Google what your institution offers and make the most of it.
And that’s a wrap
This workshop was part of our Training Program. Sign up for notifications on our Humanitix page or check our Events page for more like this.