Hi Maggie, Hi Sneaks
Sounds like you've been busy. That weekend working sounds hardcore Maggie! I was away all weekend doing nice family stuff, but unfortunately have come back with a horrid cold! Really sluggish this morning (yuck - what a horrible word). Last Friday was fine though, so trying to keep the momentum going.
Aims for today: (1) Sort out a date and time for my next supervision meeting (2) Start developing my thesis plan into a plan of work for the next 6-9 months in preparation for supervision meeting (3) Plan section of 1st chapter to (fingers crossed, though its seems quite unlikely this will happen) be drafted this week (4) Sort out some admin related to my students' assignments which are going to be given back today (5) Go and pick up my Christmas tree!
Can you see which one is the treat? Yes - the lovely, lovely admin.
;-)

Hi Maggie, Hi Sneaks
Sounds like you've been busy. That weekend working sounds hardcore Maggie! I was away all weekend doing nice family stuff, but unfortunately have come back with a horrid cold! Really sluggish this morning (yuck - what a horrible word). Last Friday was fine though, so trying to keep the momentum going.
Aims for today: (1) Sort out a date and time for my next supervision meeting (2) Start developing my thesis plan into a plan of work for the next 6-9 months in preparation for supervision meeting (3) Plan section of 1st chapter to (fingers crossed, though its seems quite unlikely this will happen) be drafted this week (4) Sort out some admin related to my students' assignments which are going to be given back today (5) Go and pick up my Christmas tree!
Can you see which one is the treat? Yes - the lovely, lovely admin.
;-)

Hey Sneaks and Frankie!!! Wow thats a pretty impressive set of goals for today Frankie!! Good luck, and let us know how you got on later tongiht! accountability is the way to go, I think!! Sneaks, yeah that was the song!! love it so much, its relaly infectious and a great 'pick me up' song to dance along to at home!!! and no, I'm not doing my whole phd abroad, just this semmester (wish I was though really!! but boyf wouldn't be in favour!! lol)...anyway hope you both achieve your goals for today...

As for me, I was snuggled up in bed reading for the past few hours as its bloody freezing though not I have dragged myself outta bed I am pretty chuffed with my new dress I bought yesterday, so I'm prancing around posing in it!! lol...but Im going to take myself off to Uni in the next half hour and once I get my paper done later this afternoon, I am then going to take it easy for a few hours then I plan to read 2 chapters of a book I am supposed to be reviewing (not going to bother with book reviews anymore, though i get freebie books and keep chummy with the editors but I think it takes up a lot of time- though this particular book is very much directly relevant to my research...)

Wow new dresses, xmas trees, I'm so jealous!

My plan for today

- draft intro chapter
- finish report for industrial partner

Yes - I think once again I have been too ambitious or too lazy. :-(
Have been very fuzzy-headed as well which isn't helping.
What have I done? I sorted out the sup meeting; found out a number of key dates that will help with my work plan (i.e. upgrade deadlines, conference paper deadlines); wrote down a couple of ideas for that first chapter (really very basic - I'm quite disappointed I haven't got further); and sorted out the admin. And got the Christmas tree!
Basically, all the jobs except the proper work jobs got done. Funny, that!
Will try and do a bit more today, though I have promised my housemate we will watch Love Actually and decorate the tree. I'm sure that'll cheer me up, though I'm not sure I deserve it.
Maggie - you sound like you're doing really well. Working in bed - ideal at this freezing time of year!

ok.....so not my most productive day ever, but I have said Mondays (and Tuesdays!) are just not my thing...Once I got over the paper I was so relieved that I had a few glasses of vino and well haven't recovered sufficently to be able to read the chapters I had planned to read...ah well, must try harder tomorrow! lol anyways im off for a very very early night!!!

So how did you both get on in the end Sneaks and Frankie?
p.s. Frankie, I think its still a good effort even just to get some planing done! Even if the 'concrete' work hasn't all materialised today... one of my fav phrases, 'if you fail to plan, you plan to fail!'...8-)

Frankie - I think maybe you suffer the same thing as me, putting all non-PhD work before the important stuff. Maybe we should try to set aside an hour in the evening to do the admin/consultancy/more admin/chasing emails stuff so the day is actually PhD related??

Hopefully, as represented above, I managed to finish my report for the industrial partner, meaning I can go into my meeting on friday with some information for them! and hopefully get them hooked enough to help me with my next study.

I didn't manage to plan or do any of my intro :-( so today and tomorrow - it must be done! :-s

I did manage to help other half with some teaching related essays so, kind of did work in the evening as well.

I have decided to tackle my admin/consultancy after 6pm today (altho have had to send off a load of emails today to keep pushing for participants)

Bit late posting today, as I have also been catching up on emails, but to friends!!- I am really terrible at this,I wont email anyone for months and then suddenly do it all at once!! so for the rest of today, I plan to work from now until around 10 tonight and get those dreaded chapters read that I put off yesterday...not feeling particularly enthusiastica about it though, feeling a little tired today and its Tuesday!!! lol....so think i will get some tea and biscuits at the ready before I start...

Tea and biscuits are the way to go Maggie! YOu have motivated me to keep working longer today, I usually start at 11 and finish at 6 but will work longer today!! Well I will try to anyway.

======= Date Modified 09 Dec 2008 20:18:03 =======
I stopped work again at 6 :-(



But I did plan out my intro chapter, find loads of newspaper articles (its quite a hot topic and wanted to include something relevant), find all the stats i needed about the topic e.g. 34% said this..... and also wrote 100 words, so will continue tomorrow. Really want to get it largely finished tomorrow cos then I can get onto properly writing up lit review - which I really should have done, almost 18 months in and at the mo feels like I have nothing to show for my time. So my aims for tomorrow



- finish writing the intro chapter!! (need about 2500 words) but all planned out so its just joining the dots......I hope!



How are things going Maggie and Frankie!! Do you have physical research to do, like my constant search for participants?

Right, just sat down to my work! - I know its late 10.30 but spent all morning exercising. Just had email from supervisor who wants to go thru my thesis with me at some point (im guessing she wants to make sure Im on right track so she can go off for xmas early). She hasn't asked me for anything BUT would be great if I could get her this intro chapter tomorrow as I think she may think that I have not achieved enough writing wise. Therefore my aim for today is to obviouslty finish this chapter. So am breaking it up into small chunks for today

so before lunch I plan to complete the statistics section of the intro. (should only be 300 words or so its just putting them all together!)

Hey!!! Sounds like your on a mission today Sneaks- good for you!!! And how are you getting on Frankie, haven't heard from you in a day or 2!! see this is accountability in action!! lol

okkies, I was rather lazy yesterday...oops didn't end up achieving what I had initially planned!! Didn't get much done apart from reading a few pages, I think I knew that when I got up yesterday morning this would happen, I was just in one of those 'moods' and I was totally exhausted from working all last week and throughout the weekend. So I'm pretty much ok with that. In the past few months I have sort of rationlised an agreement in my head, that as long as I achieve my goals around 80% of the time, then I won't beat myself up tooo much if I have any momentary blips like yesterday...lol... Though I am hoping that I think as a result of this accountability thread, I will raise that to around 90% of the time by holding myself to account a bit more!!!

So today I have been working to catch up on the reading I was supposed to do yesterday, and tonight I plan to write a short written piece to secure a research job (probs around 1000 words I think)...So its all work now!! I hope I can do it, I have been a little distracted in the past few days, by a man of course!!! He has been checking me out in the past few weeks and supporting me in debates with fellow academics (with other from opposing views!!) and so we finally had an opportunity to speak a few days ago...and well he is pretty fanciable, I'm usually more interested in deep thinkers than looks, but this man has it all!! he is sooo hot and charming and arrogant in a 'i know im good, but he really IS' type way (anyway, just thought I would get that off my chest lol, not that anything would happen of course as I am strictly very against cheating and would not ever do this to my boyfriend, and anyway I will be back in the UK in a few weeks! but its nice to dream hmmmm..though it does make concentrating on the work more difficult!!!!)

anyways, off to make some tea and back to work with no more thoughts of the man...

Not to worry about the blip Maggie. Have you tried the whole "I will work for 15 mins" thing?

In my field its all women - but bf at home all day so he can be a distraction - not like that! Mainly he always wants to watch films so I end up sitting on sofa rather than working.

My rather ambitious goal today didn't work out - I got the stats done, but due to not being able to find related stats :-s took me until 5. But I sent the work to Sup anyway, with an essay plan underneath of what I was going to write about. I get the feeling she thinks I'm not doing anything so thought its better than keeping it to myself until after xmas.

Spending next 2 days at uni and industrial partner so may be absent from here.

Just realised I hadn't 'checked in' today...progress today has been pretty good, I worked for 5 hours straight reading some useful cases and materials, though have not done any work in the last couple of hours- so planning to read for another hour or 2 in bed now, cause its freezing in my apartment!!

I'm hoping to get up really early tomorrow and try and ease myself again into the 9-5 pattern that I managed a few days last week, which has been proving pretty difficult to get into this week so far, I suppose it takes time to overcome my nocturnal working patterns of the past few years!

Good to hear you achieved part of your goals yesterday Sneaks! Hope to hear from you soon!!! :p