The Planner is based on the agile scrum methodology and adapted to the special needs of PhD students. If you want to know more about Scrum, you can read the foundations of this methodology here: https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-scrum-module
In the Scrum framework, tasks are broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks that can be estimated by the person responsible for the task in terms of required resources such as time and personnel. Although Scrum is typically used for team organization, it can also be useful for organizing large projects like a Ph.D. dissertation by breaking it down into smaller steps and maintaining a structured feedback loop with supervisors.red feedback loop with supervisors.
Tasks are usually divided into sprints, which are time periods of equal length. For example, if you have a monthly meeting with your supervisor, setting the sprint length to one month would make sense. At the beginning of each sprint, you should review the tasks in your task backlog and prioritize them. The backlog contains all tasks that you have. Determine which tasks need to be done urgently in the upcoming sprint due to deadlines, and which ones can be postponed to the next sprint. Whenever you start working on a task, you should change its status from "Not started" to "In Progress". Once you have completed the task, mark it as "Done" and include relevant results in the description. At the end of each sprint, you should review which tasks you were able to complete and reflect on the amount of time required for each task. This will help you better estimate the time needed for future tasks. Tasks can also be associated with projects, which combine and organize them. For example, a Ph.D. course can be a project that includes tasks such as writing assignments, reading literature, or making reviews. Apart from the sprint plan, the planner offers a structure for organizing your reviewed literature, conference planning, and daily research reflections.
The planner includes the following elements:
In this database, you see all your tasks organized in sprints. You have four different views pre-set in which you can see your tasks:
The planner includes prepared task templates for the following tasks:
If you want to, you can assign the tasks to different persons as well if your collaborators also use Notion.
In this database, you see all your projects. You have three different views pre-set in which you can see your projects:
Here, you can organize your sprints and view an overview of the tasks associated with each sprint. You have two views pre-set in which you can see your projects:
This database organizes your reviewed literature. The database lists all the papers you reviewed. Every entry has the following information to which you can add any kind of information: