12 Week Goals | 4 Week Update | PhD Student Goals | 0 to 100 subscribers on YouTube | Goal Setting

A PhD student tracking a “12-week year” is using the first four weeks to tighten two things that determine output: a sustainable health routine and a conference-paper pipeline—while also pushing a small YouTube channel toward monetization. The central takeaway is that progress is already visible (a near-finished first conference paper and a fast subscriber rebound), but the plan is being adjusted where fatigue and logistics break the original schedule.

For the health and mental health goal, the routine is working in the mornings but failing in the evenings. A morning setup has left her energized and focused when work starts, yet evenings consistently end in exhaustion—dinner, couch time, and early bed—so the planned wind-down (30–60 minutes of yoga or stretching, journaling, and fiction reading) has not been followed. She also recognizes that breaks during the workday have been too short while her PhD workload ramps up. The next four weeks will therefore focus on two fixes: making daytime breaks more restorative and redesigning an evening routine that still supports mental health without collapsing under real fatigue. She adds that she is currently rundown and “sick,” treating it as a signal that something in the system still isn’t fully aligned.

On research output, the three-paper target is on track through early momentum. The first conference paper is essentially finished and is expected to be submitted within a week; it has already produced conference-ready work by building models on an existing dataset and extracting insights. The second paper is framed as a side project: general programming work is done, and the remaining task is shaping the description to fit an end-of-March conference submission. The third paper is tied to her main PhD work, aiming to extend the first project and produce a different submission by mid-April, with another deadline in early May depending on how the work develops. She emphasizes that early wins matter in the first six months of a PhD because they sustain motivation.

She also links productivity and writing quality to specific learning and work habits. An academic writing class for scientific writing supports higher-quality paper drafting, while productivity books—especially “Deep Work”—help her sustain high output in shorter windows. She notes that her early PhD months (starting in October, with real momentum from mid-November) differed from expectations, partly because resources were harder to find than anticipated.

For YouTube monetization, the goal is 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours within the 12-week window. After a slow stretch, she credits a turnaround to posting in Facebook groups for PhD students, which drove a jump from roughly 30 subscribers to about 130 within five days and helped her surpass a mid-period milestone. Uploading three videos per week proved unrealistic due to home construction, but she now expects to film on campus early using available rooms. The next four weeks plan is more concrete: upload Tuesdays and Fridays, and promote each new upload by engaging in the same Facebook groups—since YouTube search and recommendations won’t reliably surface a small channel yet. If growth continues, she expects to reach 1,000 subscribers and roughly 1,200 watch hours by the end of the next four weeks, keeping the monetization effort tied to scientific communication goals.