All my life, I’ve heard things like: “You’re so disorganized,” “Your room is a disaster,” or “You’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached.” And honestly… they weren’t wrong (and they still aren’t, most days). I’ve always had my own way of getting through life — and for the most part, it worked. That is, until I started my PhD.
Wow — rereading this, it kind of sounds like the opening of a horror movie… and maybe it is (just kidding… mostly).
This is a survival system for the disorganized PhD student — the kind of person who has tried approximately 43 different planners, apps, methods, and “life-changing” routines… only for each one to work wonderfully for two weeks before the novelty fades and it gets abandoned for the next big fix.
So instead of another perfect planner system, this is a realistic, low-maintenance way to stay afloat in a PhD when your brain refuses to be organized. No color-coded fantasy life — just a few simple habits and fallback routines that keep you moving even on messy weeks.
These three chaos anchors are the only systems I consistently come back to: one place to store everything, one weekly reset to stay grounded, and a set of running lists to make sure nothing important lives in your head (or gets lost in the dissertation void). Here’s how it works:
Chaos Anchor #1: Stop Chasing Perfect Systems (Build an Anchor Point)
If you’re not a Type A person who gets genuinely excited about maintaining the perfect planner… welcome. Some of us are not built for color-coded consistency … even though we absolutely love colorful things. We are built to discover a new system every other Tuesday. And honestly? That’s fine-ish.
The goal isn’t to stop experimenting.
The goal is to stop scattering your experiments across 12 apps, 6 notebooks, and 1 forgotten Notes document from 2021.
The trick is simple: you can be chaotic… as long as you have an anchor point (or two). For me, that anchor lives in two places:
Anchor #1: The “Project Folder” (aka: my brain, but on my computer)
I have one main folder per project. For example: “Romy — Dissertation”
Inside it, everything is broken down by action, not vibes:
- Literature Review
- Writings
- Data Collection
- Data Analysis
- Random Documents I Swear I’ll Organize Later (and sometimes I even follow through)
No matter what new productivity obsession I try next, it all ends up in that folder. It’s like a recycling bin for ideas — nothing disappears forever.
Anchor #2: The “Project Notebook” (aka: chaos, but on paper)
I also keep one notebook per project, organized by tabs, with each tab mirroring a folder on my computer. I’ll explain exactly how I use this system in a future post — but for now, those are the main pieces.
So, I have a tab for Literature Review, one for Writing, one for Data, one for Analysis… basically, the paper version of my digital brain.
On top of that, the very first section is reserved for my ever-changing PhD organization system. This is where all my “new year, new me” (or “new week, new me”) productivity experiments live.
For example, I tried the 12 Week Year planner. I lasted three weeks. Then I found another beautiful template online and thought, “This one will definitely fix my life”… so, of course, that went in the notebook too.
The truth is, I’m a creative person. I like novelty. And I’ve realized that sometimes it’s more productive to embrace that than to fight it.
So instead of trying to kill my curiosity, I decided to centralize it.
Taken one by one, every attempt at organization has technically failed — I stuck with each system for two or three weeks, then quietly moved on. But taken together, they form a coherent repository of my thoughts, my processes, and my progress.
Bottom line: it doesn’t really matter how you recorded it. What matters is that you did.
Once you have an anchor point, the next step isn’t being perfectly organized every day — it’s having a simple weekly reset that keeps you from slowly drifting into academic chaos again.
Chaos Anchor #2: Weekly Reset, Not Daily Perfection
Here’s the thing: regardless of whatever productivity scam I’m currently following, there are two constants I always come back to.
Not because they’re perfect.
Not because I use them flawlessly.
But because they give me just enough structure to survive.
Constant #1: The Weekly To-Do Calendar (aka: the “imperatives only” list)
Once a week, I sit down and write out what is actually essential for the next seven days. Not my dream life. Not my Pinterest schedule. Just the non-negotiables.
Then, at the end of the week (usually Saturday or Sunday), I do a quick reset: I reflect, regroup, and set up the next week.
For the reflection part, I use a simple template I made (and yes, it’s available in the Student Toolkit section of this website).
Each day has a two-column table:
- On the left: What I meant to do
- On the right: What I actually did
And I love this system because it constantly reminds me of something very important:
Even if I didn’t complete 100% of my plan, I still did real work.
Sometimes I didn’t do what I planned… because I was busy doing things I didn’t plan, but absolutely needed to happen.
Honestly, it’s one of the fastest ways to stop spiraling into “I did nothing this week” delusion.
Constant #2: The Daily To-Do Notebook (aka: my “emergency brain parking”)
I don’t use a daily to-do list every day. That would require a level of consistency that I simply do not possess.
I use it when my brain feels overwhelmed by the weekly plan, or when I need more space to break one scary academic task into smaller, less terrifying steps.
It’s basically where I go when my mind is doing that fun PhD thing where everything feels urgent, impossible, and somehow due yesterday.
The point isn’t daily perfection.
The point is having a weekly reset and a daily brain-dump option — two simple tools that keep you moving even when the rest of your life is… academically unhinged.
Bottom line: the weekly reset keeps you oriented, and the daily notebook keeps you sane when the week feels too big.
And once your week is grounded, the next trick is having a place for all the random ideas, reminders, and “oh wait, I should do that” thoughts that pop up constantly — which is where running lists come in.
Chaos Anchor #3: The Running List Methods (So Nothing Lives in Your Head)
My brain comes up with tasks and ideas at the most random moments (wedding, dissertation, teaching, website), and keeping them all in my head just turns into constant mental clutter.
So I stopped expecting my brain to be a reliable storage system.
Instead, I rely on running lists: simple, ongoing “idea parking lots” where nothing has to be solved immediately, but everything gets captured before it disappears (or keeps me awake at 2 a.m.).
For example, right now I have:
- A wedding running list of everything that needs to happen before the big day.
- A list of research ideas to explore.
- A website list of future blog posts, template ideas, and random inspiration.
In an ideal world, those running lists aren’t meant to be another daily obligation — they’re meant to be your idea reservoir, so that when you sit down for your weekly reset, you can simply pull from them and decide what actually becomes a weekly imperative (instead of trying to remember everything in real time).
And if you need something a bit more structured, I also share downloadable templates in the Student Toolkit — like my dissertation timeline checklist, which breaks the whole process into concrete steps such as creating a reading list, identifying research questions, and scheduling meetings with your supervisor.
The point is the same: instead of keeping the entire dissertation (or your entire life) in your head, you give it a place to live on paper.
Bottom line: your brain is for thinking, not for storing.
Running lists are how you make sure nothing important is lost in the chaos — even if you come back to it three weeks later.
At the end of the day, none of these chaos anchors is about becoming a perfectly organized PhD robot. They’re about building small containers that hold you when everything feels like too much. A folder so your work has a home. A weekly reset to keep you from drifting. Running lists so your brain isn’t juggling private life logistics, dissertation ideas, and seventeen random tasks at once.
Grad school is already hard enough; you don’t need a flawless system. You just need one that you can come back to.
And if all you do this week is capture your thoughts somewhere, that still counts as progress.