my personal tip about procrastinating, is that i will set my timer, whether it be 10minutes or 30minutes, where i HAVE to do something related to my thesis, and if a thought comes into my head, that i want to do such and such, or must find out about x y z. i jot it down in a book. and then once my timer is up, then i can do whatever it was that i wanted to do.

you're welcome, and well done for realising all of that! sounds like you made alot of progress since when you first posted this up! well done even if it wasnt in the direction you were initially hoping for.

hey jojo, that's great !

Ziggyvic
how awful for you.

it took courage to admit that you didn't quite understand something, and instead of being praised for voicing that, you get berated. i totally understand how hard it is to get over such harsh critisisms...

i myself am trying to deal with it, and trying to move on. but it is hurtful. and there is no reason for them to be like that. encouragement always works much better than harsh critisisms.. these supervisors should go on a special course!

cakegirl i couldnt agree with you more! trust me you are not alone. i have several friends that are also phd students, and we all feel the same way, because we're such good friends, we're completely honest. and i know phd students from different groups and uni's and the consensus is that

1. we all feel that we're fake and frauds and someone will find out that we don't know anything and be chucked out and fail our phds.

2. that we procrastinate far too much that we would like to admit to even ourselves!

3. that we dont really understand what we're doing, but pretend we do!

4. that we have wasted alot of time, on things that did not turn out to be fruitful at all.

5. that we ask ourselves over and over again, why am i doing a phd??? i wish i could go back in time and tell my self don't do it!!

awww how frustrating for you.

i am lucky that i have two very good friends of mine from my lab who are phd students, and we always vent to each other about any problems, and we socialise too.. they are always telling me to meet up with them, because they know i am writing at home full time, and it can get lonely. but i havent met up with them for ages, because i feel guilty taking any time off. but when i go meet my supervisors for the dreading meeting, i will go out with them in the evening. we usually go for dinner and talk about numerous subjects, including phd stuff that is troubling us.

i suppose a weekly meet up may be too much for some phd students. i know i couldn't commit to something like that. maybe a monthly would be better? maybe people just don't like to commit to things.

maybe you can start a "virtual online" support group

nice!! good one woof

lol now i am procrastinating about procrastinating lol. i will read the link, once i hit my 30minutes of solid productive work time on my thesis
*starts timer*

hmmm perhaps even a thread where people can update their progress of what they have achieved , even if they feel they need to update on an hourly basis to get themselves moving..and motivating.. sort of a "clock in" thread. where people log in on the hour and put down how much ACTUAL producitive time they have spent working during that hour, and what they have achieved

what do you all think ?

maybe someone ought to start a thread of "what have you done today"

anyone is welcome to join my "online writing diary" (which was originally Jojo's idea) I would be glad of the company. BB is already a member hehe.

Hey Shani, just wondering how you're doing? what did you decide then?

procrastination thread is a really good idea!!!

Hey BB, i hope you managed to get a good night sleep tonight, so you can start bright eyed and bushy tailed tommorow

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i'm done for today.

words verbatim (notes from papers) = 2440 (mostly will be irrevelant and mostly are junk -just adding to the primordial soup of my zero draft of introduction of one of my results chapters.

actual productive time spent on working on thesis (reading papers, writing notes etc) = 2 hours and 40minutes.

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hurrah! another member of the september deadline. glad to hear it

good luck with your thesis writing,and getting to that word count.

that's reassuring to learn that your science phd buddies are aiming for the 50/60k mark, that makes me feel better.

thanks for the encouragement and support

that's good advice !! thanks I will do just that

yah in science it's normal to have introductions around 20,000 -25,000 words. it might end up being less though.

good thinking S! I will do just that