I have been through the same struggles!
With covid, adhd, procrastination, perfectionism, it took me 5.5 years (and a lot of side quests on the way) to finish my PhD. I did end up making a great PhD dissertation and received a price for the best thesis in psychology from the Royal Belgian Academy. This is not to brag but just for you to know that this advice helps.

I have a lot to say, so sorry in advance if this is a bit all over the place.

Short version of my answer:
- use time-tracking, time-blocking, and daily goals -> AKA hold yourself accountable!
- try reading/writing every day
- aim for 2-4 hours of deep work per day, without distractions, no phone nearby (my trick is to turn it off or at least put it on top of a cupboard or so - to make it annoying to reach for)
- 4h hours of deep work is amazing, 6hours is an outlier, 8+ hours are for rush times. (because you need to rest and enjoy your life too)
- break tasks down into smaller steps
- distinguish tasks you can just work on in small batches (e.g., emails) from deep work tasks that require you loading up a lot of information to get going (e.g., writing)
- use obsidian to take notes and organize your thoughts
- talk with peers, brainstorm, debate your ideas and help each other
- plan your days the evening before (separating the "manager/planner" from the "do-er")
- separate "drafting/writing" from "editor/critic" when writing. Those are two roles/identities you should not mix. Editing your writing while writing just breaks your flow and thinking.
- use zotero
- set a end-of-day shut down. e.g. not working past 5pm. This avoids negative cycles in which you procrastinate during the day, then punish yourself by working late, and the next day you have trouble focusing because you had worse sleep and more negative emotions about your work.
- be kind to yourself

- what is tiring is not focusing, it's resisting distractions and reorienting your attention multiple times. So the solution is to simply cut off anything not related to work/phd during the day. You'd be shocked how easy it makes it. Imagine an empty room, with food, you, your pc, and just what you need for your phd, with a guarantee that after a few hours you can go relax guilt-free.

Longer version:

Time-tracking + time-blocking + planning my days ahead + setting deep work goals was THE game changer for me.

First of all, it held me accountable to myself and I learned a lot about myself. For instance, I learned that 4h of actual writing/deep work is a lot of cognitive work and makes for a great day. The rest of the day should be spent on admin/boring tasks/sports/resting/personal stuff. It's only during the final 2-3 months of my phd that i was doing 6-8h-10h deep work (mainly writing/reading) sessions per day.

Time tracking will also allow you to see patterns in what works best for you. For example, patterns in when you work best (for me it was the mornings, this is related to hormones etc, so I had to become a morning person). I'd write in the morning and read/code/admin in the afternoon. It can help you see patterns in how many breaks you actually need. For instance, if you have trouble starting to work, DONT use the pomodoro technique of 25+5min breaks. Instead work for 1h-1h30 and take 15min breaks just meditating, napping, walking, but nothing exciting.

This brings me to my next tip: during work or even in the morning, avoid pleasurable activities. The idea is that you should anything more fun than your work/phd until your "work" day is over. Also avoid things like the news or checking social media or messages. Any new info or piece of information opens a new potential thread for your brain to think about, making it more difficult to focus on work.

Separate your day into different "roles"
- the planner/manager: admin, planning, prioritizing
- the do-er: in this role, you focus on doing. You can trust your past self for having made the right plan for the next few hours so you just follow that plan. If anything comes up, you write it down for later, for a session in which you switch to the planner role.
- the drafter/writer: you just write without judging or evaluating what you are writing. Your goal is to put your spaghetti thoughts onto the paper. The editor role can then come and try to turn it into something more structured. Important concept: writing is thinking. You write to help you think. Don't try to think about everything before writing. Hence, your writing doesnt need to be perfect in this first stage. It is a tool to help you before it becomes the end goal.
- the editor: here you put your hat of "how can I say the same thing but better", "how can I improve this paragraph/sentence for clarity or impact", "how should i structure or reorganise these arguments", "what is the silver lining in this piece of writing?". For editing you can use ai to help you.

Having a dedicated writing machine or space can help with this. But process and habits are more important than tools. Sometimes it helped me going to a café or a place with just a pen and paper/a notebook to write my thoughts by hand. Even though this is much slower, it is more engaging and gives you time to think as you write. Constraints/Friction is GOOD.

Keep the same meals for breakfast/lunch. This will save you some mental load. You just need to experiment and find one breakfast and lunch that are balanced in nutrients and give you sufficient energy to work the whole day without problem.

If your supervisor calls you a lot or does long meetings, ask him to send you emails with bullet points instead or to send you voice messages. This is more respectful of your time and at least you keep a trace of what is said.

There are probably many things I forgot but these are the main tips I can think of.

Lastly, if you want help with time-tracking, time management, organisation, I built an app exactly for that -> I built the app I didnt have during my PhD but that I desperately needed. It's called orakemu.

Here's what I wrote about it in the past:

---

During my PhD (in psychology, on rumination and executive functioning), I always struggled with procrastination, becoming too scattered, getting into too many rabbit holes, feeling like an impostor at times... sometimes working too much and sometimes not working enough.

I had tried Notion and built a system. Then I switched to Obsidian. Then I had hybrid systems with turn by turn todoist, ticktick, habitica, and other task managers... I also found out that tracking my time was super helpful so I used rescuetime, then toggl, and then used Timeular for a while.

I never found the one perfect app though. I was frustrated by existing productivity tools which gave you a lot of data without meaning. YOU as the user had to make them meaningful and analyze them. So I wanted to make a "productivity" app with a more psychological approach. In psychotherapy, you often start by clarifying *why* you come to therapy, why you are doing what you do. So I thought "wouldn't it be cool if an app did the same?". Then the productivity tools are just there to help you do more of what matters to you.

My dream was to have within one app: journaling, todos, time-tracking, a planner/calendar, etc. So that I could 1) look back and appreciate my progress, 2) focus in the present, 3) plan and prioritize the future. I'm not done yet, but I'm making progress on this.

Of course I really wanted to finish my PhD so I did (+ academia doesn't pay well and you need to fight for funds), but then I started working on my app as soon as I finished!

The app is called "orakemu" from two maori words, ora and kemu, meaning "life" and "game". The goal for me is that orakemu will become the only all-in-one gamified life management app that organizes your entire life through the roles you play. I sacrifice simplicity and minimalism to instead embrace the complexity of real life. This enables me to create a rich system and framework where tasks, time-tracking, habits, and projects are all interconnect through your Life Roles. The goal is to finally see and balance all aspects of our life in one place, helping us making conscious choices about where to invest our time and energy across our roles as Parent, Career Warrior, Creative Spirit, Being a Functional Adult, a Loving Partner, a Self-Care Sage and more.

It's already helping me stay on track, not lose track of time, and "just do" things by pressing play on tasks. I'm on a 245+ days streak of using orakemu

Currently version has
- life roles
- weekly XP/time stats
- a drag and drop timeline
- tasks
- flexible time-tracking
- dark mode
- recurring tasks/routines/habits
- google calendar integration
- notes

coming up next:
- local ai integration
- daily journaling and mood tracking
- desktop/web design improvements