Welcome elphie, I hope you find the thread useful!

Sounds like the supervision session went okay Xtiny, onwards and upwards from that! And don't blame you for working from home in the current weather.

I did get my chapter finished the other day, so I've been working on my data analysis since then. I had something of a breakthrough with it yesterday and now I'm more confident with it than ever, so I'm hoping I can get through the rest of it fairly easily. Today I'm going to write up my recent analyses then press on with more of the same. I might also take an hour or two out to get some Christmas shopping done!

Didn't finish the chapter yesterday, I realised there was a section where I needed to do some extra reading so I did that. Now I just need to write that reading up and finish the chapter. Once I've done that today I'll move onto the data analysis.

Hope the meeting with the supervisor goes well!

Hi Meeran

I think everyone who does a PhD feels that they're not actually that clever (well, maybe some geniuses don't feel that, but I know I do, and PhD friends do). You don't need to be a genius, you just need to have the interest and the motivation, and yes, some academic ability but if you've got a good Masters degree I can't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to do a PhD.

Publications aren't necessary before starting a PhD, at least not in my discipline or in any other I know about, although it might be different in your field (though I doubt it). A PhD is training to become a researcher so you don't need to know it all before you start.

As to dedication - well, that's another matter. You do need dedication. But finding yourself wandering off after an hour is not necessarily a sign of not being dedicated - human beings all have limited attention spans, we can only concentrate on one thing for a short period of time, and for most people that's a lot less than an hour. You could try giving yourself a break after so many minutes - say, a five minute break after every twenty-five minutes of work. This can make you fresher and make it easier to concentrate. The Pomodoro technique works on this principle and is very useful for lots of people - google it and try it out.

Hope that helps!

I think I like it. I like the avatars - been wanting to have a proper representation of Batfink! And being able to read the post just before your own while writing a reply is a big improvement - on a busy thread I'd forget who said what while I was typing.

Being able to sort the threads so you see either first post first or latest post first would be handy - that's good for long-running threads but also makes it easy for reading through new threads.

I've also got three weeks left, til I hand in my as-complete-as-possible thesis to my supervisors. Pressure! I am making progress slowly so hopefully I will make it. But I've managed to respond to this deadline by doing no work at all so far today!

Oh well. First goal of the day - finish reworking the chapter I was looking at yesterday. This might take all day but hopefully I'll have time to move on to something else afterwards.

Morning, and happy Friday!

Today I'm pressing on with my data analysis. I've already been swimming this morning so feel alert (and, erm, cold!). Intend to make good progress today!

Good luck everyone.

Hello all, good to see you're all getting on with stuff.

I'm on campus today so decided not to lug all my data analysis books and folders with me. Instead, I'm going through my draft thesis filling in gaps and addressing notes to myself that I've left scattered throughout. It feels good to be making progress on the actual main writing, though it's slow work. Ah well, I'll get there!

Good luck with it all today!

Thanks Button. Hope you get your paper revisions done okay!

And yes, xtiny, it's a relief to be near the end, though I'm still daunted by just how much I need to do by my 20 Dec deadline.

Today, I'm pressing on with my data analysis. I've started writing up some of the analysis so I'd like to complete the next stage of analysis and get it written up if I can.

Good luck everyone!

Thanks, both of you, I'm very happy about the job! (And a little bit daunted, but I'm sure it'll be fine....)

Today I'm pressing on with my last bits of stats again - it's Structural Equation Modeling, which I've been very slow to really understand but I think I'm finally getting there. I'm hoping that I can finish the last of this analysis this week and then I'll have a clear run for nothing but finishing the writing up.

Good luck everyone with today's goals! I like the quote about a goal well-planned being half done, that feels like a good maxim to live by!

Good luck today xtiny, and hope you're feeling better soon - it sounds like you have a good plan for progressing the work, so hopefully you'll throw off the illness soon.

And welcome to the thread teaspoon.

I've got new impetus to get my thesis finished before Christmas now - I've got a job!! Had the interview on Thursday and they phoned me on Friday to offer the job. Research associate in a very highly respected university, looking at exactly what interests me. I'm so happy about it - and relieved, I was sure after the interview that I hadn't got it, and was starting to wonder if I'd ever find a job. Yay! They want me to get my thesis out of the way and start in January - so no excuses for not finishing the thesis now!

Today I'm trying to power through the last bits of my difficult data analysis. So far so good!

Morning Xtiny, hope the paper turns out to be as interesting as you think!

And I'm much better thanks, the antibiotics and eye drops have been miraculously fast acting.

I'm also finally making progress on this data analysis. Hooray! I've got past the thing that's been blocking me for weeks and now I'm tearing through the analysis and feeling confident. Just hope no other tricky bits turn up in it before I get to the end! Yay!

Hi Spiderpig

I'm in a very similar position - I'm hoping to submit in December, and while I am worried about getting it all done in time (I'm not quite as far forward as you, from the sounds of it) I have been having the same doubts about whether I've been putting enough hours in. I hear people talk about not having a life for months, and barely sleeping for weeks, but it hasn't been like that for me at all. Like you say, I have worked - but I've also done other stuff, like writing another paper and preparing for several job interviews, and I've also wasted more time than I should have on Facebook and other websites, and I've taken time off and gone to drink beer with my mates.

On the whole, though, I just think - well, I do work hard, and maybe what I've done is just worked steadily throughout, and it's a good thing that I'm not cracking up under the pressure of stupidly long hours. But that guilt niggles away. I wonder if it will all come back to haunt me in the viva, when the external's questions reveal the gaping holes in my knowledge. But it probably won't be like that. So, thanks for your post, because I'm really glad someone else feels the same way!

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Oops, duplicate post, not sure how that happened!

Hello Button and Natassia, hope you both managed to get your goals done!

I woke up early thinking about my analysis, so I've already made some notes for one section of writing up this morning, and now have a plan for the next couple of hours to make progress on my data analysis. Let's hope I can keep the momentum going and get ridiculously masses done today!

Hi Pjlu. Sounds like you've found a good way to work there - sometimes I think having limitations on when you can work makes you more efficient than if you have lots of time!

My conjunctivitis and whatever else has almost gone - the eye drops must have been magic - so I'm feeling a bit happier. And although I didn't make that much progress yesterday, I did inch things forward, so hopefully today I can press on and feel like the progress is starting to happen at a reasonable speed. I have a meeting with my supervisors on Tuesday and desperately want to be able to tell them I'm actually making progress and have a chance of giving them the full thesis final-ish draft on 16 December.