Thing 3: Talk to people and listen; subscribe to newsletters
This is the single best time-saving strategy you will have. Doing things yourself is admirable, but learning from others saves valuable time. Those persons even one step ahead of you hold the answers to many of your questions. Through personal communication, social networking and subscriptions you can acquire the equivalent of a lifetime of research experience.
Strategize to network with your peers through many levels of association. If you are in a cohort, you have an automatic network. If not, start creating one with your doctoral classmates and those of varying stages of their program. Also, as soon as you are admitted to your program, join the student doctoral association.
Create opportunities to talk to your advisor and professors they have been through the whole process many times and can give you excellent advice. Also the librarians are experts at maneuvering through the research. They can also tell you with which library systems your university has share agreements. This will expand your research resources.
Attend proposal and dissertation defenses. Select defenses to attend for both qualitative and quantitative research. Focus on those which are through your department. Follow a proposal defense through to a dissertation defense in order to understand the entire process. Ask for copies of the presentations, proposals and dissertations for your records. At the end of each session, make notes of key ideas. If you can, try to network with doctoral candidate to get additional advice.
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