Cool idea! Iām not doing a PhD, so I wonāt partake. But I previously wrote a comment intended to summarise Wiblin and Greenbergās discussion of this sort of idea, and my own thoughts on it, which Iāll copy below in case thatās useful for anyone reading this post. (Obviously this overlaps somewhat with what you already say in your post.)
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People would often benefit from more āline managementā, and could often get it just by setting up weekly meetings with someone else whoās in a similar boat
A chunk of the interview is devoted to these points. From memory, some points made were:
It can be weirdly useful to have ~weekly meetings to just discuss what one did last week, what went well and poorly, what oneās goals are, and what one plans to do next week
The reason the usefulness is weird/āsurprising is that a lot of the benefit seems to come from just having these meetings at all and being asked obvious questions like āWould that task really be the best thing to do to achieve your goals?ā
And in theory, one could just simulate these conversations by oneself
But at least for many people, it seems to be more effective to have an actual conversation with another person
This can help with both productivity (including getting the right tasks done) and mood (e.g., reducing self-doubt or a sense of listlessness)
Some people donāt have someone to provide that āline managementā role
E.g., people in PhD programs might not get frequent enough meetings with their advisor, or it might be clear that their advisor doesnāt care about or is terrible at management
Those people might benefit from just arranging to have weekly meetings with a friend, colleague, fellow student, or similar whoās in a similar boat
Having weekly meetings with the same person allows them to have more context on oneās full situation, goals, skills, etc., which seems helpful for this
PhD students could arrange this themselves, and it might help combat PhD programs often seeming to be unusually crushing experiences (due to a lack of guidance, feedback, etc.)
(Something Iām not sure they explicitly said, but which seems true: This could probably be useful even for people who do have meetings with a line manager, if the person would benefit from meeting more, or if the manager sucks.)
That first point resonated with me very much. I received basically no line management at the school I taught at, and that sucked, and I only realised how much it sucked once I moved into roles where I did have weekly line management style meetings and discovered how helpful they were (both for my productivity and for my mood).
And that third point seemed like an obvious but great idea. I intend to apply it myself if I find myself in a future situation where itās relevant. And I intend to keep it in mind as something to maybe suggest to people, when it seems relevant.
Cool idea! Iām not doing a PhD, so I wonāt partake. But I previously wrote a comment intended to summarise Wiblin and Greenbergās discussion of this sort of idea, and my own thoughts on it, which Iāll copy below in case thatās useful for anyone reading this post. (Obviously this overlaps somewhat with what you already say in your post.)
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People would often benefit from more āline managementā, and could often get it just by setting up weekly meetings with someone else whoās in a similar boat
A chunk of the interview is devoted to these points. From memory, some points made were:
It can be weirdly useful to have ~weekly meetings to just discuss what one did last week, what went well and poorly, what oneās goals are, and what one plans to do next week
The reason the usefulness is weird/āsurprising is that a lot of the benefit seems to come from just having these meetings at all and being asked obvious questions like āWould that task really be the best thing to do to achieve your goals?ā
And in theory, one could just simulate these conversations by oneself
But at least for many people, it seems to be more effective to have an actual conversation with another person
This can help with both productivity (including getting the right tasks done) and mood (e.g., reducing self-doubt or a sense of listlessness)
Some people donāt have someone to provide that āline managementā role
E.g., people in PhD programs might not get frequent enough meetings with their advisor, or it might be clear that their advisor doesnāt care about or is terrible at management
Those people might benefit from just arranging to have weekly meetings with a friend, colleague, fellow student, or similar whoās in a similar boat
Having weekly meetings with the same person allows them to have more context on oneās full situation, goals, skills, etc., which seems helpful for this
PhD students could arrange this themselves, and it might help combat PhD programs often seeming to be unusually crushing experiences (due to a lack of guidance, feedback, etc.)
(Something Iām not sure they explicitly said, but which seems true: This could probably be useful even for people who do have meetings with a line manager, if the person would benefit from meeting more, or if the manager sucks.)
That first point resonated with me very much. I received basically no line management at the school I taught at, and that sucked, and I only realised how much it sucked once I moved into roles where I did have weekly line management style meetings and discovered how helpful they were (both for my productivity and for my mood).
And that third point seemed like an obvious but great idea. I intend to apply it myself if I find myself in a future situation where itās relevant. And I intend to keep it in mind as something to maybe suggest to people, when it seems relevant.