Brain friendly working and writing

Too much to do, information overload and procrastination are all factors that cause work-related stress. As a PhD, you want to focus on your key activities, but you experience days in which you work really hard only to wonder what you got done that day. Focus also becomes more difficult when there are so many distractions around you. Especially when you work in an open office space with lots of distractions, when you need to write scientific papers or when you approach a deadline.

Often it is difficult to estimate how much time a task will take, making it very difficult to create a realistic action plan. It is also difficult to stick to a plan due to all the distractions around us and this causes procrastination.

In this course you will learn to increase your focus, plan your tasks and activities based on the rhythm of your brain and reduce work-related stress by using the BrainFriendly working method.

You will increase your productivity. Not by working harder, but by learning how your brain works, so you can work the way your brain prefers you to work.

In the second half of this one day course we will focus on one of the items that causes most procrastination for PhD candidates: writing your scientific papers. Do you ever have this experience: you have exactly in mind what you want to write about, then you switch on your computer and the moment you want to write… your mind goes blank? This is very common and in the second half of the course, you will learn a brain-friendly way of putting your thoughts on paper. This enables you to quickly and easily write your papers by using some fun ‘brain hacks’.

General Information

Target Group:	PhD candidates, PostDocs
Group size:	15
Course duration:	1 day
Language:	English
Credit points:	0.3 ECTS
Self-study hours:	0
Name lecturer:	Cor van Drieberge
Venue:	To be announced

Fee

Reduced fee: • PhD candidates of Wageningen University with an approved Training and Supervision Plan (TSP) who are registered at one of the WU graduate schools (EPS, PE&RC, VLAG, WASS, WIAS, WIMEK) • Postdocs of Wageningen University who are registered at one of the WU graduate schools	€ 50
University fee: All other PhD candidates / Wageningen University postdocs and staff	€ 100
External fee: All other participants	€ 200

Fee includes study and training material, coffee/tea and lunches.

Cancellation condition

You may cancel free of charge up to 1 month before the start of the course. After this date you will be charged the University fee. Unless:

• You can find someone to replace you in the course and supply the course coordinator with the name and contact information of your replacement.
  In this case you will only be charged a € 50,- cancellation fee.
• You (PhDs and postdocs of Wageningen University) have a valid reason to cancel (circumstances beyond your control).
  In this case you will be charged the reduced fee and your supervisor/PI must send a mail indicating the reason for cancellation.

Information

For more information please contact Yvonne Smolders (yvonne.smolders@wur.nl)