— HELPING YOU
rediscover JOY in your studies.
I’m Christine, a social work PhD candidate with a mission to help students heal their relationship with productivity, succeed in their studies and enjoy learning again.
We offer online courses, one-on-one support, free resources and financial grants.
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You have helped me
I’ve been following you for a while. I have done your writing challenge and your Scholar Refresh, have read some books you’ve recommend. And I want you to know (having little to no guidance in my 5-year PhD) you have helped me a lot in pushing through and not giving up. I’m sure you’ve helped others too. This is so important. Thank you.
Anne D.
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Journey into motherhood
Your page has been incredibly helpful in navigating my own journey into motherhood while doing my PhD.
Alli B.
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Building a community
You’re building a community for women in academia who, like me, are frequently cautioned against concurrent parenthood and graduate school. Thank you for providing us a glimpse of what achieving those goals simultaneously can look like.
Lisa-Marie
Most productivity models were built for uninterrupted lives.
That’s not how most women live.
So when a day bends, it feels like failure,
not because nothing happened,
but because it didn’t happen the way it was supposed to.
Real progress doesn’t disappear when plans change.
It just changes shape.
If your day felt nonlinear, fragmented, or “off track,”
you weren’t doing productivity wrong.
You were doing it inside real life.
And knowing when to adjust, without abandoning yourself,
is a skill and it’s also productive 🤍.
You didn’t fail because the plan changed.
The plan changed because the conditions changed.
Productivity culture treats consistency as top tier
so any deviation feels like personal failure.
But real life doesn’t happen in straight lines.
It happens in bodies that get tired,
in days shaped by care,
in systems that don’t always cooperate.
Pivoting isn’t a loss of momentum.
It’s a skill.
And learning how to adjust without punishing yourself
is one of the most sustainable forms of productivity there is 🥰
Save this for when you need that reminder ❤️
Motivation doesn’t disappear for no reason. It disappears when:
• pressure exceeds capacity
• fear outweighs reward
• safety drops
The fastest way back into motion isn’t force.
It’s making the task feel doable again.
Opening the document counts.
Reading one page counts.
Beginning without confidence counts.
It’s a stressful time of year. You are doing amazing!
December hits different in school.
Everything feels urgent.
You’re tired before the work is even done.
And somehow you’re still expected to keep pushing.
It is a hard month.
A hard season.
And it’s okay if you feel it.
One gentle thing that actually helps right now:
Before you try to be productive, help your nervous system feel a little safer.
Drink something warm.
Unclench your jaw.
Take a long breath you actually finish.
Then start small.
Last week both my boys were home sick while my husband was away, and now I’m getting sick too. My work paused. My motivation dipped. And the feeling of being “behind” got loud.
But this is the season I’m in.
And seasons move.
You don’t have to feel strong to be making progress.
You don’t have to feel okay to still be moving forward.
You’re closer to rest than it feels.
What month do you think is the hardest? 👇🏽
Most productivity advice was built on male work patterns:
uninterrupted hours, linear focus, and someone else handling all the care.
If women designed productivity, I think it would centre:
capacity, emotions, interruptions, care work, and real life.
It wouldn’t demand a different version of you.
It would honour the woman you already are.
Here’s what that would sound like:
Plan around your capacity, not perfection:
Plan by capacity bands…low, medium, high days. Women’s bandwidth fluctuates because of sleep, caregiving, hormones, emotional load. Your productivity should follow capacity, not fight it.
Use flexible time windows:
Not rigid 9–12 blocks but “when the house is quiet,” “during nap,” “after class,” “between care tasks.”
Your nervous system sets the pace:
If you feel scattered, foggy, overloaded… that’s not a motivation problem. Feeling frustrated because you were up all night with the kids? Check in, name and honour the feeling and pick a strategy that works best for how you’re feeling.
Interruptions aren’t the enemy:
Expect interruptions and plan for re-entry: micro-tasks you can do in 2–5 minutes. Examples: reply to one email, read one paragraph, prep one slide. Tiny pockets = still progress
Care work is work:
Remembering appointments, checking in on your parents,
showing up emotionally for your kids or partner or community,
all of it shapes your bandwidth. Track your actual load, you are doing more than you think.
Your goals should fit your life, not the other way around:
Seasons shift. Your systems should too.
Progress is relational, emotional, and nonlinear:
Not perfect. Not pretty. But still progress.
If women designed productivity, it would begin with:
“How’s your nervous system?”
“Who depends on you today?”
“What do you need to feel safe, steady, and able to begin?”
Productivity wasn’t built for women.
But imagine if it were.
If you want productivity that honours real life,
Soulful Productivity, my 30-day online course, is now open.
Link in bio 🤍
Any other ideas? Share below.🙏🏽
Hi, I’m Christine
It’s been a while, and with so many new faces here, it felt like the right time to reintroduce myself.
I’m a social worker, researcher, and postdoc who studies women, care work, emotions, and the realities of trying to be “productive” in systems that were never designed with us in mind.
I finished my PhD while navigating coursework, research, two pregnancies, two babies, grief, uncertainty, teaching, and everything in between and this page grew alongside all of that.
I created Scholar Culture because I genuinely love supporting students, caregivers, academics, and women who feel deeply, ones trying to learn, grow, and survive inside systems that load them with more emotional work than anyone sees.
On this page you’ll find honest conversations about:
• emotional + mental load
• women’s realities
• motherhood + academic life
• productivity that respects women
• feelings, overwhelm, capacity
• slow, reflective learning
• being human while trying to do hard things
I want to hear from you, tell me where you’re at in your journey.
Student? Grad? Academic? Mom? All of the above? Something else?
Thanks for being here. Truly
