tractorgirl! thanks! you're so right, a little bit is better than nothing at all.

oh and i'm the same as you! i made this determination of getting up early this morning, did get up at 10am, (but only cause i really needed the loo drank water before i went to sleep) but felt so tired, i went back to bed. lol but couldnt actually go back to sleep, so just lay there. eventually got out of bed around 11.30am i think. lol so bad. will try again tommorow. that should be our aim for tommorow! maybe we can try in small increments. tommorow i will try to actually get out of bed at 10am.

oh im really bad at maths, and i dont understand statistics at all! will just to get a dummies guide to it or something - figure it out somehow.

if you find a shop selling motivation, let me know! i need some too.

i can't seem to get to the stage Joan Bolker writes about, how if its your last 2 months you should push yourself and work harder. i am not doing that :S

on page 130 she writes:

" getting on with it. back in chapter 5 i warned you to keep a sustainable pace. but now as you move into the final stages, you can afford to get wired, to overwork, to push yourself harder than ever before. you'll be amazed at how much work it's possible to accomplish in a month or two, if its the LAST month or two. samuel johnson notes that "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully" your work now is to keep up a steady, perhaps accelerating pace. and to get yourself over the last hurdles, - psychological , intellectual or organizational. you also need to force yourself to revise your thesis up to a standard you'll be proud of, even though you may feel like just printing out whatever you've got and handing it in as is " {end quote}

i thought i would try a different strategy today. i read somewhere that you should have a schedule. where you schedule in the hours you work, the hours you rest, and take breaks, and exercise. and do something you enjoy.

so i am going to give it a try. i seem to have this guilt, that i should be working on my thesis 12 hours a day with no breaks and just be like a robot at my desk. but i am going to try the 10 min break thing and see if that helps in my productivity.

"Set realistic time goals to complete your bite-size tasks, and then plan to take a break."

so here's my schedule for today: lets see if i can stick to it:

13.00 hrs : 45 mins work (egg timer): 10 min break (play my piano) and so on...

okay will give it a go and see how i get on.

my aims for today : work for 45 mins, and take 10 min breaks throughout the day.

then at 7pm: take a 30min bike ride around the park.

"Strangely, procrastination can be caused by panic. Urgency makes us fearful and stop working. There is enough time pressure on us without artificially creating more". - i think that's what i am suffering from!

then in the evening, will reward myself with a dvd. i will write down exactly how many hours of productivity i have accomplished today. and how many words i have written.

my specific aims:

1. read up on R clusters and maximum parsimony tree analysis and make notes *madman stage*

2. find out and explain the difference between the two methods (search on the internet, for the answer - if get really stuck: find a stats expert and email for help)

i am going for realistic goals today. it is better to set realistic goals and actually achieve them, then set unrealistic goals that you would be superhuman to meet them. as JB would say!

As Olivia said anything is accomplisable (dont think thats a real word) if you break it down into tiny parts.

"Promise yourself that you will only work for ten minutes"

i think i will try that. work in 10 minutes until i get my momentum going.

*accomplishable

Hi
What a great idea to have 10 min breaks throughout the day. I have been trying to do long hours without a break recently and then wonder why my brain goes to mush! Also i think it is definitely more productive to have mini-breaks as you are fresher for the periods of writing. Tomorrow, i am going to give this a try so thanks for sharing this Lara, really sounds like a great idea!!! As for today, am going to stop working on chapter 4. I have not quite made my aims as i haven't finished it but as i have a couple of meetings tomorrow i need to have a tea break and then finish my notes for this. Then i think i will call it a day: am still feeling quite tired! Anyway tomorrow i have a meeting with my sup and then also one of the post-docs as i asked them for advice and they are getting back to me tomorrow.

I also need to do a few more figures on the computers at work which are a lot quicker than my poor little home one!
Anyway so aims for tomorrow (in case i don't get a chance to post from work)

: Meeting supervisor (10 am)
: Finish chapter 4 (again!!!)
: Meeting post-doc (3pm)
: Sort out some more figures!

Hope everyone has a good rest of today and also tomorrow!!!!
Happy writing!!!!!!!!!!

Hey!
Thank you for the welcome! I'm sorry for not checking in last night, I've a very temperamental internet connection (3 mobile, beware) which makes it tricky when internet traffic is high.

Lara and tractorgirl - I totally agree re: trying to work on 2 chapters at once.. I'm having to do this right now & sometimes feel paralysed because there's so much material to handle, and days turn out to be very unproductive. But I'm determined (read 'desperate'!) to change my ways quickly... I agree re: putting the mini-breaks into practice, it's a balmy night so I'll try it tonight.

Yesterday's objectives - only managed the first two. Must be more realistic!

Tonight's objectives -
1. Incorporate updated legislative info found yesterday into chapter 3 (approx. 1 hour)
2. First draft of England section of chapter 4 (approx. 2 hours)

Hate working on two chapters simultaneously, but massively stuck for time! Good luck and hope your days are going well :)

had my interview on friday. it was scary stuff so dont expect that I will have got the job but sure. Taking this week off as my husband is off to finish everything in the house that needs done before arrival of baby- also have hospital appts tomorrow. But my granny was taken into hospital so been visiting her. Didnt quite finish my aim of last week so mite do some work one day to finish that off then start fresh next week. You are all doing well!! Keep going. I'll log in soonish.

hey tractorgirl and chantal, use the following page:

http://www.myeggtimer.com/

to monitor your breaks and what you have accomplished. it's really cool!
i cant remember who told us about it.
but thought i would give you the link incase you didnt know about it.

you can set alarm times for your breaks. or use countdowns and monitor how much work you've done and how much time you've spent working "productively". you can also add to do lists.

hey celesmai, hope baby is doing well! and i hope your gran gets better soon.

Hey...

Lara, the egg timer's fun, I've just started using it, thanks!

Today's been quite slow going, still working on sketchy versions of yesterday's objectives, so...

1. Improve and finish yesterday's drafting tasks (1 hour)
2. Turn House of Lords notes into a draft text (1,5 hours)
3. Do an outline on how to fill the big hole in chapter 4(!) (30 mins)

How come things take way longer than I expect when I write rational lists?!

Good luck with what you're doing today & if you've had time out, hope it's fun

hey guys- sorry i've been AWOL! i just had a really weird week. not productive at all.

this week: i went through all my notes/emails/lab books/notepads, and got all the notes on R cluster analysis and maximum parsimony trees.
that took a few days.

i did go to the british library twice this week though, and ordered some books and references that may help with the theory behind cluster analysis.

but i haven't done anything really productive towards my thesis. and i took a few days off where i did nothing.

but as JB would say the past is in the past, and no point crying over unproductive work in the past.

Chantal, glad you like the egg timer! i am going to use it today, to see if i can get "something" done. i like to remind myself that even in one minute you can get something done towards your thesis. in one minute you can learn a new fact.

i have to keep telling myself that. it's not how much time i spend on my thesis, it's the "productivity" and what i have accomplished that counts.

so tommorow is a fresh start. my *main* aim tommorow is to wake up early! i am planning on waking up at 9am. i read somewhere once, if you publicly declare an aim , you're more likely to achieve it. i think if i force myself to wake up early, then i will be able to go to bed earlier and be able to shift my body clock. i feel guilty going to bed at 3am and waking up at midday. i feel the day gets wasted when i get up at midday.

i want to start waking up early and going to bed by 12 or 1am.

my *aims* for tonight.

1. google for articles on R cluster analysis and make notes on the theory behind R cluster analysis.

2. pubmed search for articles that have used R cluster analysis.

and another thing i will do, is make my aims more achievable. like JB says don't make aims that you would have to be superhuman to achieve them.

p95: Joan Bolker: "unreachable goals kill motivation. you need to evaluate realistically, not fantastically, what a reachable writing goal is for yourself and then go for it. Each day that you succeed will make it easier for you to write the next day".