I'm assuming you need project management for your non work stuff. I would recommend having as little project management as possible, it is a huge time sink and working on it makes your brain think you are accomplishing things when what you actually need to do is not getting done.
For me what works best is making a list of tasks and a calendar or something to easily see deadlines. Try to estimate the amount of effort each task is going to need and then try to fit them in your day to day. You are going to be rearranging these estimations often as new stuff come up or current tasks need more / less effort than expected, so don't put too much effort on them.
You can do all this on a notepad and a wall calendar, or on the default apps of your phone, or any of the billions of productivity apps that are out there, just remember that time learning those tools is not time working on what you need to do.
I honestly found this very difficult during my master's, because towards the end there was so little external structure for me to rely on -- I was just writing a thesis, so I didn't even have classes to force me to be in a particular place at a certain time. The biggest thing that helped me was graduating and starting to work in industry, where even though I work from home I have way more structure than I did during my master's (and way more guidance and personal attention from my boss than I ever got from my advisor 👀).
The next most helpful thing has been finding an app that works for me -- I've really liked Sunsama. It costs money but the free trial doesn't ask for your credit card and it won me over during that period. I organize my tasks and events there each morning during my "get settled and check my email" phase and it's worked well. But what works well for me might not work well for you, so consider it just a soft suggestion. Whatever you can find that works for you and that you can keep up with regularly is the right system.
I finished my graduate degree a few months ago and the biggest thing for me was having everything in a digital calendar (I use google's) in time blocks. I have my sleep and meals as a base-line structure and then I had my classes, but also deadlines and tasks I had to accomplish. Having something that actively notifies me of things is the most useful part of it for me.
Since my degree required me to finish a lot of group projects, I had the tasks assigned to me turned into mini deadlines, aiming to be done with them a few days before the actual delivery deadline to account for delays and just general Life getting in the way.
With that structure in place it was pretty easy to know when I should be working on stuff and on what and when it was fine to rest.
Personally, I've tried other methods too, like trello boards, bullet journaling, GTD, and many apps but nothing works for me quite like the time-blocking with notifications.
While it can be a tedious task. A good work breakdown structure (wbs) will be your best friend. https://youtu.be/BVcd9uy9kuQ?si=GQ9mG9LvPyZY8a2P
I'm assuming you need project management for your non work stuff. I would recommend having as little project management as possible, it is a huge time sink and working on it makes your brain think you are accomplishing things when what you actually need to do is not getting done.
For me what works best is making a list of tasks and a calendar or something to easily see deadlines. Try to estimate the amount of effort each task is going to need and then try to fit them in your day to day. You are going to be rearranging these estimations often as new stuff come up or current tasks need more / less effort than expected, so don't put too much effort on them.
You can do all this on a notepad and a wall calendar, or on the default apps of your phone, or any of the billions of productivity apps that are out there, just remember that time learning those tools is not time working on what you need to do.
I honestly found this very difficult during my master's, because towards the end there was so little external structure for me to rely on -- I was just writing a thesis, so I didn't even have classes to force me to be in a particular place at a certain time. The biggest thing that helped me was graduating and starting to work in industry, where even though I work from home I have way more structure than I did during my master's (and way more guidance and personal attention from my boss than I ever got from my advisor 👀).
The next most helpful thing has been finding an app that works for me -- I've really liked Sunsama. It costs money but the free trial doesn't ask for your credit card and it won me over during that period. I organize my tasks and events there each morning during my "get settled and check my email" phase and it's worked well. But what works well for me might not work well for you, so consider it just a soft suggestion. Whatever you can find that works for you and that you can keep up with regularly is the right system.
I finished my graduate degree a few months ago and the biggest thing for me was having everything in a digital calendar (I use google's) in time blocks. I have my sleep and meals as a base-line structure and then I had my classes, but also deadlines and tasks I had to accomplish. Having something that actively notifies me of things is the most useful part of it for me.
Since my degree required me to finish a lot of group projects, I had the tasks assigned to me turned into mini deadlines, aiming to be done with them a few days before the actual delivery deadline to account for delays and just general Life getting in the way.
With that structure in place it was pretty easy to know when I should be working on stuff and on what and when it was fine to rest.
Personally, I've tried other methods too, like trello boards, bullet journaling, GTD, and many apps but nothing works for me quite like the time-blocking with notifications.